May Be My Last Words. The DIY Obit.
Wizened Sage and I entertained the idea of writing our own obituaries. We don't want others taking advantage of our deaths to impose their superstitious absurdities. We don't want people assuming we were believers. What led me to bring up this subject?
Got a letter from a true radical believer I've corresponded with over the years. Referring to something I mentioned in three letters, he writes, "You can believe what you want to, just as I do, although you can change your mind any time at all." So I wrote back, "You too."
I wrote about asking a pastor, "If I am a good moral person, but don't believe, can I get into Heaven?" His answer was immediately, "Yes." I asked my wife's pastor the same question. His answer, after a long silence, was "No." When I told my wife about her pastor's answer, she said, "WELL, THAT'S HIS OPINION." I envy her ability to sum up things so fast. This guy heads my wife's congregation, so after I die, will he tell them, "Carl's in Hell now" ?
Prepare yourself for irony. This man works or volunteers at a hospital. A hospital is a place working 24/7, in every microsecond and millimeter of its boundaries, absolutely dedicated to destroying "Acts of God." His "God." He's the occasionally available witch-doctor. LOL.
After the plane crashes on 9/11, I asked a Christian woman, "Do you think the perpetrators went to Paradise for what they did?' She answered, "If they believed they would." When I was in my teens in the monastery, there was a book out about a priest, Charles De Foucald, a missionary living among Muslims. (His intent was to convert them to Christianity by example.) No luck. When he died, a Muslim woman commented, "He was such a good man; too bad he's in Hell." You don't need a theological degree to be an expert on afterlife! When you wish upon a text, your dream comes true? What believers of all faiths have faith in are the faith-pushers. Faith = hope. Please, let's get real! The "vocation" of every god's spokesperson is to get the listeners to believe whatever he or she says is "TRUE."
Anyhow, this writer wrote to tell me the first pastor, being a former priest, was "wrong," and the second clergyman was "right," because - the Catholic church did not accept the "TRUTH" Jesus proclaimed, whereas he, his church, and the second pastor, did. I should accept their "TRUTH." I get it: ACCEPT THEIR OPINIONS or be tortured forever.
Those who live in love and laughter don't mess around with the hereafter —To my writing, "It's said Jesus will reward eternal life only to those who believe in him, but eternal life is already a given," he reacted with accepting that! Then comes the THREAT: Yeah, but if you decide to accept or not makes the difference where you spend your afterlife. So, OTHER gods promised eternal life only if you believed in them. If you didn't, oblivion would be your fate. But the difference with YOUR god is that he creates an eternal Hell and if non-believers didn't have an "eternal" soul, the place would be wasted.
As for my question and only two different "answers" to it, I wrote: "I find the whole subject of life after death, HILARIOUS, and I laugh every time I think about it. At the age of 85, I relish the laughs enjoyed by a man as free as myself."'
My wrap-up is an obit. Don't bother a free man like me with threats of “heaven and hell." I know "eternal life" is an oxymoron. Expect me to laugh in your face. It is written, "Those who live in love and laughter don't mess around with the hereafter."
What's my after-death message to those who believe and claim to trust their scriptural God? IT'S SUCH A LIBERATING COMFORT TO KNOW THE GOD YOU WORSHIP DOESN'T EXIST!
Mine's a better obit than the run-of-the-mill "passed" propaganda sap, doled out to opiate the survivors. (If I want them to have "spiritual experiences" at my celebration of life service I'll leave a bag of magic mushrooms.) It's superior to obits for suicide bombers or the 9/11 martyrs, who expected to be rewarded an orgy with virgins in Paradise after their "private parts“ were blown off.
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