Andrew asked me if a deathbed conversion was likely. I assumed the question was facetious and
answered in a flippant way. But I've taken
it on notice and will give it some attention.
The short answer is no—I don't believe there is anything
remotely like life after death (LaD) and therefore nothing to convert to or
for. The LaD terms have their own
meanings but taken together become fuzzy—even "after" is
problematic…When does a "near" death experience become LaD?
A problem is that while people would convince us of the truth of
LaD, we have our own reasons for wanting to believe, but I think my
reasoning is beyond that. I am not insecure or have any need for LaD.
The reasons that might justify LaD are not sustainable, let alone
believable; when 99% of the dogma that the Pope and George Pell (and the Dalai
Lama and all the rest) spout forth are lies, and can easily be demonstrated to
be lies (to my satisfaction anyway), logic tells us that on the balance of
probabilities the other 1% (i.e. LaD, which is impossible to prove or disprove)
will be lies too. (Try it in front of a judge in a court of law…) Because we want to believe something doesn't
make it true.
Behaviourists are saying that we may be hard-wired genetically through
evolution to believe in LaD as a survival mechanism to bolster social
cohesion. But this doesn't make it true
either—it simply means that for millenia there have been generations of shamans
like Fred Nile who prey on the susceptible.
There are apparently 40,000 religious sects currently in the
world all with different views on LaD and each with exclusive rules about the
benefits and who misses out. I believe
that LaD, if anything at all, must refer to all life and all
death. There is no logic that confines
it to sentient beings. If I pull a weed
out of the garden and it withers and dies in the sun should I believe that if
only the weed could think, it could live on? And yet we are prepared to believe that because only humans are
capable of imagining LaD (apparently), the experience is exclusively ours. I can't see any logic there.
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I could also treat the question
less literally and consider my feelings about coping with death. Of course, I'm scared of the process,
but I'm happy with the concept of death without any LaD. It is difficult to imagine not being
here any more—but I have been through it all before—there was a previous time
when I didn't exist, possibly known as DbL (in which no-one is generally much
interested, even the weed apparently!)
Like everyone, of course, I'd
like a 'clean' death, but will be happy if I'm still lucid enough at the time
to say goodbyes (at least in my head) and, to distract me from the pain of
leaving, sing Elvis songs as I exit the building!!
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Thanks for the typing assistance, Helm…
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