Since we’ve taken up living in an apartment building, we don’t get visits anymore from the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists. They seem like a thing of the past. Like Model T Fords. In those days, hearing their knock on the door was a regular thing. Others stood on the sidewalk with their ‘Watchtower’ magazines. True believers. Their lives in service to someone else. But they always seemed so calm.
Well, the telephone is their new door. I just got off the phone after taking up about two hours of this woman’s time. Even though I was standing way over here on the evolution side of the canyon, she hung in there pretty good, probably because I told her I would never try to convince someone to leave their religion. She saw a little hope in that. A way in, maybe. I said the world is so full of horror, and not just out there in the world, but in our own lives if we have the open eyes to let it in, and all the moreso as we get older, that I would never try to argue someone out of the comfort and hope their religion gives them. They certainly wouldn’t find it in evolution. Evolution isn’t going to throw it’s arms around someone who is suffering and murmer sweet thoughts. It couldn’t care less. Suffer all you want. Die horribly. All it can do is remind you of the good days you had. A few laughs. A little sex. Hopefully it was okay. Some intimacy with another like you. A close feeling against the stress coming from everywhere else. And maybe you got caught up in something, like children, a friend, a job you actually liked, pop culture, a shooter computer game, an art. Maybe you created something.
Well, the telephone is their new door. I just got off the phone after taking up about two hours of this woman’s time. Even though I was standing way over here on the evolution side of the canyon, she hung in there pretty good, probably because I told her I would never try to convince someone to leave their religion. She saw a little hope in that. A way in, maybe. I said the world is so full of horror, and not just out there in the world, but in our own lives if we have the open eyes to let it in, and all the moreso as we get older, that I would never try to argue someone out of the comfort and hope their religion gives them. They certainly wouldn’t find it in evolution. Evolution isn’t going to throw it’s arms around someone who is suffering and murmer sweet thoughts. It couldn’t care less. Suffer all you want. Die horribly. All it can do is remind you of the good days you had. A few laughs. A little sex. Hopefully it was okay. Some intimacy with another like you. A close feeling against the stress coming from everywhere else. And maybe you got caught up in something, like children, a friend, a job you actually liked, pop culture, a shooter computer game, an art. Maybe you created something.
But if not, evolution doesn’t care. Your job is just to have kids, bring them up, and/or add a bit to the society that makes more kids possible, and after that you die. Maybe horribly. Doesn’t matter. So I told this woman that I don’t blame people for walking hand in hand with Jesus through the rest of their lives, and looking forward to a nicer place after death.
That’s when she shocked me. She said the bible doesn’t say you live after death. She quoted Ecclesiastes 5 and Ezekiel something ... (I guess these are in the old testament). She said that when the body dies the person dies. Nothing carries on. There is no heaven or hell that spirits go to. Only one thing: Later, I guess much later, the life forces (spirits) of only the righteous people would be resurrected (as if from scratch) and become members of some kind of heavenly world with no horror in it. But even then, they would have no memories at all of their previous lives as people on Earth. And the unrighteous? Their spirits would simply die with their bodies. The end. And then when each new baby is conceived, a new life force is breathed into it, resurrected in it.
Wow, is that ever a different take on the bible than I’ve ever heard before. But really, what would I know. I’ve never read the bible. I’ve only heard rumours. Why read it when every reader has a different take? Sub-denominations. Urban tales.
Of which the rest of the world is rife too. There are far too many for me to sort through. At this late date anyway. The objective explanation, however cold-hearted, will have to do I guess. And death approaches.
That’s when she shocked me. She said the bible doesn’t say you live after death. She quoted Ecclesiastes 5 and Ezekiel something ... (I guess these are in the old testament). She said that when the body dies the person dies. Nothing carries on. There is no heaven or hell that spirits go to. Only one thing: Later, I guess much later, the life forces (spirits) of only the righteous people would be resurrected (as if from scratch) and become members of some kind of heavenly world with no horror in it. But even then, they would have no memories at all of their previous lives as people on Earth. And the unrighteous? Their spirits would simply die with their bodies. The end. And then when each new baby is conceived, a new life force is breathed into it, resurrected in it.
Wow, is that ever a different take on the bible than I’ve ever heard before. But really, what would I know. I’ve never read the bible. I’ve only heard rumours. Why read it when every reader has a different take? Sub-denominations. Urban tales.
Of which the rest of the world is rife too. There are far too many for me to sort through. At this late date anyway. The objective explanation, however cold-hearted, will have to do I guess. And death approaches.
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