Most of the time, I write in this blog about movies or TV shows or books or music. Entertainment–oriented topics.
If I want to write about current events or historical anniversaries, I can do that at my Freedom Writing blog. And if I want to write about sports, I can do that at my Tomato Cans blog.
But sometimes I have thoughts on other subjects, and I feel compelled to write about those thoughts.
Such is the case today. I have been thinking a lot about the afterlife recently.
When my thoughts turn to such musings, this is the blog where I tend to do my musing. And I think you'll agree that the afterlife is a humdinger of a topic.
Just about everyone I talk to has very definite ideas about what an afterlife will be like. Well, atheists and agnostics don't have much to contribute to the discussion — but I guess that is part of the definition of atheism and agnosticism. If you don't believe a higher power exists or if you believe it is not possible to prove the existence of a higher power, all the rest of the stuff that goes along with believing that a higher power does exist is theoretical at best.
I don't know if a higher power exists. I guess I have been acting on the assumption that a higher power does exist. For all I know, when I die, it may be like turning off a light switch and there is darkness. Maybe it is like the time before I was born. I have no memory of that time, but if I did, I suppose I would believe in reincarnation. And as George W. Bush said about evolution (although I think I have a stronger case), the jury is still out on that one.
Perhaps the light comes on when a person is born and then goes off when the person dies. Maybe it is just that simple.
But maybe there is a soul — one that doesn't exist until its mortal body comes into existence — and then lives on after the mortal part dies.
It's hard for me to understand what some people believe about the afterlife. I guess it's because they put things in an earthly context. When I hear some people describe heaven, I envision something along the lines of a parallel universe, an entire world with towns and cities and, one can easily imagine, separate states, separate nations, certainly separate languages.
What seems to separate it from the earthly existence that we the living know is that the folks in heaven are being rewarded for their lives on earth — so no one seems to work, unless their assistance is required by their living descendants on earth. On those occasions, when they must travel from one universe to its parallel, they can only be seen by certain people, if they can be seen at all. Must have something to do with the time–space continuum. And if they are seen, they are seen as "angels," like Clarence in "It's a Wonderful Life."
See what I mean?
My concept of the afterlife is probably different from most people. I guess it is a combination of the things I was taught as a child and elements I picked up as I grew and matured. My belief is that the afterlife is where one achieves a level of complete and perfect understanding. Anything you didn't understand while you were alive — why you were dumped by the "love of your life," for example, or why you were passed over for a job that seemed ideal for you — is made clear to you in the afterlife.
Obviously, these will differ from person to person. I grew up in Arkansas and I have friends who like to go hunting. For some of them, one of the mysteries of their earthly existence is bound to be why they missed when they were convinced they had a clear shot at a buck deer. It's sort of like the proverbial fish story about the big one that got away. The point is that it has significance to some people. It may seem unlikely, but who knows how their lives might have been different if they'd shot that deer or landed that fish?
There are a lot of things like that in my own experience, a lot of things that have happened and I don't have a clue why. I like to think that they are more significant than why a hunter missed a deer or why a fisherman couldn't land a fish, and if those things radically altered the course of my life, I'd like to know that, too. But maybe they only seem more important to me. A hunter or a fisherman undoubtedly would see things differently.
Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part. Maybe I'm just hoping that death will allow me to achieve perfect understanding because there are so many things I don't understand.
Here's another thing. I don't really believe in hell. I've always believed it was a concept that primitive man introduced as a way of keeping other primitive people in line. See, even in a primitive state, I think to myself, man is still man, and, because he has been born with the ability to think and to reason, he knows there are times when no one sees what he does. That being the case, there are times when it's possible to steal or kill with no witnesses. Would–be perpetrators had to be assured they could not escape justice, if not in this life then in the next. So necessity dictated that there is a supernatural being who knows all and sees all — and this being will make sure that the guilty are punished for their earthly misdeeds.
That clearly is enough to keep some people walking the straight and narrow. But it's never been enough to prevent every crime for which there are no eyewitnesses. Consequently, we have courts and prisons to mete out justice here on earth. But crime and punishment really seems to be more of a mortal matter, not really something that would be relevant in a spiritual world, where there are no possessions and it is not possible to kill a spirit.
But isn't justice a relevant concept? Certainly, there are times when it is comforting to believe that, even if clearly evil people escape justice in this life, they cannot escape the wrath of God. A good example is the notorious Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death." He spent half his life in exile in South America, which some might say was a punishment itself, but was it sufficient? He evaded retributive justice in this world. Surely, there were those for whom the discovery of his remains in the mid–1980s was a bittersweet event.
Doesn't the human sense of what is fair demand that someone like Mengele be held accountable for the things he did?
Maybe hell does exist, but I just can't reconcile the image of a loving God, which is what my parents taught me, with the image of a vengeful God who will punish his children for eternity, even if some of his children are as evil as Josef Mengele — or any other notorious killer who slipped through the hangman's noose.
Well, I guess a lot of that is logistical, and I don't mind leaving that part of it up to God, if he does exist. I suppose the time will come when I will find out what lies beyond, even if I find out, at the very last second, that it is a great void.
And if it turns out there is no eternal justice, only a return to the darkness and the nothingness from which we came, I can accept that with my final breath.
