Heaven or Hell

 I continue reading posts about heaven and/or hell. The most recent was one wherein the author was asking for your beliefs about Heaven. Do you believe in Heaven and do you think that’s where you are headed after you die? The responses were heartfelt, and almost always suggested that Heaven surely existed and that the responder definitely planned on their final stay there.

I suppose it is inevitable that any believer in the hereafter would believe they were scheduled to land in Heaven. I was pretty much alone in responding differently. My response was pretty much along the lines of, “well, the most likely explanation of what happens when your bodily system shuts down, is that you simply lose any awareness. You don’t really “GO” anywhere, because YOU no longer exist. And you don’t know any of that precisely because your brain no longer functions.  See, everything has gone dark, but you don’t even know that, because your brain is no longer functioning.”

In my view, it would be really horrible were you to be aware that your body and brain had gone dead. I mean, think of that. The only things that actually occur after your brain goes dead is that those nearest to you either place your body in some big box and then lower that box into a hole in the ground, and then cover the resulting hole with more dirt. Or they place your body on a cart that feeds into a fire, and your entire body is consumed, leaving behind a few ashes that are placed gently into a nice glazed container.  I would think one would not wish to be aware of such occurrences.

No, instead, folks seem to prefer believing that your brain simply switches tracks, and, somehow, disconnects from that Earth body, and then floats or transfers somehow into that other realm that folks call Heaven. And then “Life” just goes on, only this time there is no aging, or deterioration, or food intake, or really any bodily functions.  No, your brain simply continues to function without its body.  Only now, apparently, you have access to lost relatives, and even to other proto-humans who used to exist. I suppose then is how you begin to finally understand what that Life thing was all about.  Now, from my thinking, that kind of inside information would be really nice to have after you turn, say, 4 or 5.  Think of entering school armed with a complete understanding of what life is all about.  But then I assume everyone would just turn into a Buddhist, huh?

I have always had difficulty understanding the fairy tale of heaven and hell. On the one hand, it does seem passing strange that any superhuman intelligence would possibly have conceived of a system such as we seem to have.  That is, you are created as a tiny barely thinking creature and then acquire sets of thinking tools such that you are capable of remaining alive on this planet, despite the many passing threats tossed at you over your lifetime.  But then, just as you become reasonably capable of staying alive, your body begins to deteriorate and you begin to lose the very capability it took so long to acquire. And then, poof, it’s all over and you suddenly lose everything.  And that’s if you’re very lucky. Think of all those dudes whose systems fail before they have learned how to adapt, or they are struck down by some idiot-malenfant who has a gun (what God-like creature would have conceived of a gun?)

Oh, and then there’s the whole thing about relative brain power. So, instead of conceiving a system whereby everyone actually created and introduced to earth, would have reasonably comparable brain power, such that they all would have an equal shot at deducing what the atom was all about, we seem to have a system of vastly different brainpowers being assigned to creatures brought into being, quite randomly.

And it seems that the very ones whose brainpower was less than optimum are the ones who conceived of Heaven and Hell.  Yeah, I guess they spent their maturing time trying to decide how their lives would be better only after they were dead.

But this entire line of non-reasoning seems to arise out of a singular desire to control.  All religions are based on control, on paying attention to the religious leaders. It’s like a Giant Ponzi scheme, only the Ponzi Masters never get discovered, because you only find out after you’re dead, and then you don’t even know you have found them out. So, religion is all about a few folks being allowed to tell you how to live, and paying them off, i.e., you provide them with a reasonably nice living, some at the palatial level. In exchange for supporting them in the style to which they would like to become accustomed, they promise you this afterlife thing in Heaven. It would be a nice trade actually, were they able to deliver, but alas, they can’t, because they have no idea how to deliver.

And so we go on believing or disbelieving without any way to tell the difference in terms of The Payoff. It comes down to a simple idea. If you believe, you provide access to some dude’s control over you. You allow him (it’s mostly a HIM) to tell you what to do, and, in exchange, he provides you with this firm belief in the afterlife in Heaven.  If you disbelieve, you deny him that control, and you are free to act in any way you decide is ok for humanity.

And so we go on, with no way to ever determine who is right and who is wrong. Kind of a stupid thing, huh? It’s called LIFE on Earth. Fun.