To continue a theme from previous posts, their
stance on death is one thing that particularly troubles me about major religions.
Many of them preach morals and rules that you need to abide by to ensure
happiness in the AFTERlife. (Cue: Record scratch sound effect!) What!? I should
inhibit myself during my entire existence, holding back all my desires, spend
hours and hours to save up for a nice retirement when my life is over, wasting
time while my life is actually going on? What sense is there in that?
Death is not the beginning. It is THE end.
This does not make it your enemy. It is merely the end of your life. But after
all what is a good story without an ending. Any good tale has to have an
ending. The ending is what gives the story value. The fact that death is lying
at the end of the Road Taken should not make you afraid. Instead it should help
you in your navigation on the Infinite Freeway, choosing your route more carefully
because you will eventually run out of fuel making every mile you drive all the
more important. In that sense, death is what gives life meaning, what gives it
purpose. There can be no light without darkness and thus there can be no life
without death. Like Tyler Durden says; “you have to realize that one day you
will die, until you know this you are useless."
Death gives meaning to life. It shouldn’t
make you afraid to live. Lying at the end of your path, it should rather propel
you forward to achieve as much as possible during your time here and make your
own micro-universe as pleasant and rich as possible. That responsibility is
yours and yours alone, you are the master of your own micro-universe, no one
else. Not some celestial being who is going to reward you after you are dead.
Unfortunately, religion is very well
thought out. The popes of the Middle Ages made fortunes selling prime seats to
heaven after you die because they knew nobody ever came back for a refund. Why?
Because when you are dead, you are dead. There is no afterlife, at least not in
any form preached by religions. How do I know? Being a transcender or not, like
them I try to maintain the humility to not think I have the ultimate answer to
any question. But I still have the sense to only base my decisions on the
evidence and knowledge available to me in my given lifetime.
So answer me this:
How many do you know who have been to Heaven or Hell? Experience, people. Let
your rationale answer the question. Nobody has ever been there, because it does
not exist. But this is the typical trait of religions, it is based solely on
the preachings of certain individuals who told people what they wanted to hear,
and even if these prophets themselves believed it to be true, they did not have
a shred of evidence. This lack of evidence is what really set believers apart
from transcenders. Religion works only on faith, it requires no proof of
anything, rather it dares transcenders and scientists to DISprove all their
claims.
Dawkins touched upon this in The God Delusion. Of course, no one can
disprove that God exists somewhere, but at the same time no one can disprove
that ghosts, werewolves, Santa Claus, Odin, the Loch Ness Monster, Extra
Terrestrials, the Tooth Fairy, or as Dawkins lists; the Spaghetti Monster,
exist. The point is that it is very easy to make up stories and then ask
someone to disprove it. Transcenders never deal in absolutes. But at the same
time they look at the information available and make the soundest judgment
based on this cold, hard evidence. This is as close to truth as we can get. And
sometimes the truth is harsh, but that does not make it any less true.
Based on the evidence available, here is
what I think happens after death. Nothing. When you die, you simply cease to
exist, your actions in life will only matter while you are alive. After you are
gone they will have no consequences for your micro-universe, because it will no
longer be. It begins and ends with you, because it only exists in your brain.
Once your brain is dead, so is your micro-universe. Transcenders and pretenders
are very aware of this. That is why they can accomplish so much more than thedancers on the Dancefloor, working unrestricted and more time-efficient not
wasting time praying or attending this and that religious gathering because
so-and-so told me to. Religions are sending the completely opposite message
that they should be. They are basically telling people to die in order to be
happy. This makes the believers more docile and easier to control. The false prophets of yesteryear did their job well. Religion really is, like Marx called
it, “opium des volkes”, the keystone in the Trinity of Control, it lulls people
into apathy and gives all initiative to the false prophets or pretenders ready
to prey on the sedated masses in order to promote their own agenda. It takes
initiative away from their believers and turns them into mindless slaves easy
to bend in any direction. Of course there was a time when such control was
beneficial to unify and thus evolve our species, but as history has shown, it
has time and time again also been misused to perpetuate selfish agendas just
like some fanatics are doing today, so I remain wondering whether or not it has
much benefit in the 21st century. Certainly not as a system of
control. We ought to be smarter than that today.