You still have eternity
Do people who believe in an afterlife prioritize spending time with people they don't think they'll see there? You know like killers, kidnappers, atheists and people who believe the wrong thing? If you have a limited amount of time with some people, but will likely see others ad infinitum, it'd make sense to do that. Like at a party, where one guest is a doctor and has to leave early, whereas others are staying for the weekend and are always hanging around anyway. This isn't meant to sound satirical (though I feel like it's coming out that way), but it's really something I wonder.
I wish I believed in an afterlife -- a good one, I mean. It would take one gigantic, overbearing thing I have to worry about and eliminate it altogether. Can you imagine being able to cross that worry (dying) off your list? No wonder Jews are hunched over and spend lots of free time wondering about what might possibly go or have gone wrong. The stakes are higher. One wrong step and that's it. Even less drastic stuff, like spending 40 years in a job you didn't like, it's a bigger deal. You look back and think -- I wasted half my life -- whereas believers get to say, "Forty years? A drop in the bucket. We've still got eternity.” Even a centenarian believer gets to say, "Onward and upward" and mean it. And for those whose life was cut short, it’s really just a party the neighbors called the cops on. So it ended a little early. It was fun while it lasted.
To be fair, until recently, pretty much everything had gone wrong for the Jews, starting with being kicked out of Babylon (or into it, exiled from somewhere else?)
ReplyDeleteJews don't believe in the afterlife?
ReplyDeleteAnon -- true enough. Do you have any quick stats -- countries they've been kicked out of (not to mention half being wiped out in Europe)? Melinda -- they don't except for those Kabbalah offshoots.
ReplyDeleteI just had an idea -- affirmative action for people who don't believe in the afterlife.
I've been told that Jews may believe in the afterlife, no one knows for sure. So...maybe take that point out. Any thoughts? Anybody know anything at all about this topic?
ReplyDeleteAs a Jew, though not a well informed one, I've always been hazy on this topic. Most Jews I grew up with said next to nothing about the afterlife. If they did, they did so dismissively, indicating little or no belief on their part. Yet I think (in my poorly informed state) that there is a traditional belief system about the afterlife in some religious Jewish teachings that, at least in modern America, has little impact on the beliefs or daily lives of many Jews.
ReplyDeleteMy belief is that we are not born into this life as we know it. This is the afterlife. When we are "born" we scream bloody murder,some of us refuse to breath, some make it through the ordeal and then check out minutes or days later. Some of us get so depressed about it that we chose to "end" it. We spend all our "lives" obsessing, mitigating, arguing, killing, fighting wars about the right explanation of "afterlife". Why are we as a species so concerned with this "afterlife"? If you ask me, it is because we all want to live. When we "die" we are so peaceful. No more crying, no more tears nor pain , just serenity and peace( I think I just quoted a line from Matt James' song "Free"). If you ask me, serenity and peace is what living is.
ReplyDeleteMy eternal search for such "life" will only be fully successful when I "die".
Or is it the other way around? I don't know, I'm confused now.
Disclaimer: Please don't misunderstand me, I am not suicidal.
But if there really is an afterlife, it's irrelevant whether you believe in it. I mean, just because you don't believe in it, doesn't mean you don't get to go there if you're wrong!
ReplyDeleteI see a bulls-eye on Alex's atheist ass.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I got a little happy with the quotation marks.
ReplyDeleteTrue Rhonda, and just because you do, doesn't mean you will I guess. One persistent question I have is what happened to all the people who lived B.C.? What I also find funny is how people never want to talk about this. Not judging by response here, I just mean in general. You're telling me I'm going to hell, but going into any further discussion about it is kind of uncomfortable and even distasteful.
ReplyDelete