By Carl S ~
Some months after the Twin Towers fell, l asked a Christian woman, “The 9/11 Islamic martyrs believed that their actions would send them straight to Paradise. What do you think about this?” She said that since they really believed it, then they did go to Paradise. This figures, because that Christian woman believes the same about her Heaven. Believing in it, and the means to achieve it, makes it true; without-blinking-an-eyelash, without-doubt, true.
Of course, the Hindus and Buddhists have their own versions of an afterlife, so, by the same criteria, theirs must be equally true for them - different versions of what happens after death; forever after. But, even within the beliefs, there is segregation.
Have you noticed the sectarian cemeteries? Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Orthodox, etc.? Strange. Dead bodies have no religious affiliation. (One commentator noted that a buried body would indicate belief in a bodily resurrection, while a cremated body would indicate a different belief. What feeding the body to vultures indicates - who knows?) We might say that segregated cemeteries indicate a belief in segregated after-lives. Indeed, why would liberal Protestants want to be with Catholics, or vice versa, or Christian Right members with any of them? Heaven wouldn’t be heaven!
The Muslims are in their Paradise next door; not a bad place, if you like an eternal oasis in the desert. What you believe is what you get. (Just don't bitch if paradise, like heaven, like everything else, doesn’t live up to your expectations, a.k.a., “Is that all there is?”)
The new Pope has said that even non-believers can get into heaven, despite what his Boss, J.C., saidThe 9/11 martyrs looked forward to an immediate, no waiting in the grave Paradise. Interesting. With bodies splattered everywhere? Maybe the Imams who trained and indoctrinated them gave the same message the Christian clergy hand out: You get a new body! I don‘t know how you feel about this, but I and my body - well, we're one and the same. I wouldn’t be my self in a different body with different brain-mind memories and experiences, or, especially, absence thereof. And it just makes no sense at all to even consider this would be any different for any other human being just because he or she just believes this not to be true. Any spokesman for his god who tells me to, “Explode yourself, don't worry about it, you‘ll get a new and improved body,” can demonstrate this any time he wants to . . . I’ll wait and watch. (See you in paradise, sucker!) What happens when the faithful buy into this stuff? What happens is Christian martyrs, Muslim martyrs, and children willingly crossing minefields for their rewards in Paradise!
The new Pope has said that even non-believers can get into heaven, despite what his Boss, J.C., said, despite what my wife's pastor said to me, and what every evangelical maintains. (But, how does the Pope or any of them know this?)
My mom once told us one of her little stories about an old man on his deathbed who was asked his final wish. He said, “Bring me a woman.” She laughed, but he's my kind of guy. After all, at the end of life, what better way to end it than in an affirmation of living!
Atheists like me aren’t expecting or accepting any other life. It‘s like the Tracy Chapman song for us: “Heaven’s Here on Earth.”
Some months after the Twin Towers fell, l asked a Christian woman, “The 9/11 Islamic martyrs believed that their actions would send them straight to Paradise. What do you think about this?” She said that since they really believed it, then they did go to Paradise. This figures, because that Christian woman believes the same about her Heaven. Believing in it, and the means to achieve it, makes it true; without-blinking-an-eyelash, without-doubt, true.
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| Hamburger Heaven (Photo credit: Dystopos) |
Have you noticed the sectarian cemeteries? Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Orthodox, etc.? Strange. Dead bodies have no religious affiliation. (One commentator noted that a buried body would indicate belief in a bodily resurrection, while a cremated body would indicate a different belief. What feeding the body to vultures indicates - who knows?) We might say that segregated cemeteries indicate a belief in segregated after-lives. Indeed, why would liberal Protestants want to be with Catholics, or vice versa, or Christian Right members with any of them? Heaven wouldn’t be heaven!
The Muslims are in their Paradise next door; not a bad place, if you like an eternal oasis in the desert. What you believe is what you get. (Just don't bitch if paradise, like heaven, like everything else, doesn’t live up to your expectations, a.k.a., “Is that all there is?”)
The new Pope has said that even non-believers can get into heaven, despite what his Boss, J.C., saidThe 9/11 martyrs looked forward to an immediate, no waiting in the grave Paradise. Interesting. With bodies splattered everywhere? Maybe the Imams who trained and indoctrinated them gave the same message the Christian clergy hand out: You get a new body! I don‘t know how you feel about this, but I and my body - well, we're one and the same. I wouldn’t be my self in a different body with different brain-mind memories and experiences, or, especially, absence thereof. And it just makes no sense at all to even consider this would be any different for any other human being just because he or she just believes this not to be true. Any spokesman for his god who tells me to, “Explode yourself, don't worry about it, you‘ll get a new and improved body,” can demonstrate this any time he wants to . . . I’ll wait and watch. (See you in paradise, sucker!) What happens when the faithful buy into this stuff? What happens is Christian martyrs, Muslim martyrs, and children willingly crossing minefields for their rewards in Paradise!
The new Pope has said that even non-believers can get into heaven, despite what his Boss, J.C., said, despite what my wife's pastor said to me, and what every evangelical maintains. (But, how does the Pope or any of them know this?)
My mom once told us one of her little stories about an old man on his deathbed who was asked his final wish. He said, “Bring me a woman.” She laughed, but he's my kind of guy. After all, at the end of life, what better way to end it than in an affirmation of living!
Atheists like me aren’t expecting or accepting any other life. It‘s like the Tracy Chapman song for us: “Heaven’s Here on Earth.”
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