The Afterlife

The fact that death eventually came to my parents may have been what triggered me to rethink the possibilities of life after death. How comforting it would be to think of death not as death, but as the opening of a (possibly) brighter life, and even to see your parents and other relatives and friends again, who are perhaps still full of youthful vigor.

It is entirely because the idea is so comforting and pleasant, and can so effectively help us to escape from otherwise fearful thoughts about death, that the existence of life after death is accepted by the vast majority of people, despite the absence of the slightest evidence.

We may wonder how it all started. My personal, purely speculative idea is this -

As far as we know, humans are the only species that realizes that death is inevitable for everyone. No matter how much we protect ourselves from strife, accidents and disease, simply because of the decay of our bodies, each of us will eventually die - and we know it.

There must have come a time when this knowledge began to spread through the population, and it must have been a terrible shock, the equivalent of "discovering death". The way to make the idea of death bearable is to assume that death does not really exist, but is only an illusion. When a person appears to be dead, he continues to live in a different place and in a different way. This idea was apparently encouraged by the fact that dead people often appeared in the dreams of their friends and relatives, and that their appearance in dreams could be interpreted as representing the shadows or ghosts of those "dead" people who were still alive.

Speculation about the world after death gradually became more and more detailed. The afterlife world (hell or underworld) envisioned by the Greeks and Hebrews was by and large a dim existence. However, there were places of torment for bad people (the abyss below the earth) as well as places of pleasure for those approved by God (Elysium or heaven). These extreme places are favored by people who want to see themselves blessed and their enemies punished - if not in this world, at least in the next.

The stretching of the imagination conceived of an ultimate destination to punish the bad guys, or anyone who, no matter how good, was not exactly what the visionaries themselves wanted. This gives us the modern idea of hell as a place for eternal punishment in the most virulent way. This is the absurd dream of sadists grafted on a God who claims to be perfectly benevolent and perfectly good.

Imagination, however, has never been able to construct a usable paradise. The Islamic paradise has an ever-present and ever-pure goddess (houri), so it is a place of eternal sexuality. The paradise of Scandinavian mythology has heroes who feast and fight in the halls of Valhalla, so it becomes an eternal dining hall and battlefield. Our own paradise, on the other hand, is usually described as a place where everyone has wings and keeps playing the never-ending chant of God.

What person with a modicum of intelligence can endure this, or the kind of paradise invented by others, for long? Where can one find a paradise where one can read, write, explore, have interesting conversations, and engage in scientific research? I've never heard of it.

If you read John Milton's ParadiseLost, you will find that his paradise is described as a place where God is eternally sung in praise, so no wonder a third of the angels are in rebellion. It was when they were sent to hell that they got their intellectual activity (if you don't believe me, go read those verses). I believe, whether that was hell or not, they were better off there. When I read there, I strongly sympathize with Milton's Satan and see him as the hero of that epic, whether that was Milton's intent or not.

But what are my own beliefs? Since I am an atheist, I do not believe in the existence of God or Satan, heaven or hell. I can only assume that after I die, only eternal nothingness will follow. After all, the universe existed 15 billion years before I was born, and I (whatever this "I" is) spent all that time in nothingness.

One might ask, "Isn't that a bleak and hopeless belief, how can I let the fear of nothingness hang over my head?

I don't think that there is anything to fear. Eternal dreamless sleep is nothing to fear, it is obviously better than eternal torment in hell and eternal tedium in heaven.

And what if I'm wrong? Bertrand Russell, the famous mathematician, philosopher and outspoken atheist, was once asked this question. "After you die," he was asked, "what would happen if you found yourself face to face with God?"

The brave old warrior replied, "I would say, 'Lord, you should have given us more evidence.'"

A few months ago I had a dream that I remember extremely clearly (I usually don't remember my dreams), and I dreamed that I died and went to heaven. I looked around and realized where I was - green fields, woolly clouds, fragrant air, and the mesmerizing music of heaven from afar. The Recording Angel (Recording Angel) greeted me with a bright smile.

I was surprised and asked, "Is this heaven?"

The recording angel replied, "Yes."

I said (and when I woke up and looked back, I was proud of my honesty), "Then there must be a mistake, I don't belong here, I'm an atheist."

"There's no mistake," replied the Angel of Record.

"But how could I possibly qualify as an atheist?"

The Angel of Record said seriously, "We decide who qualifies, not you."

"Understood," I said. I looked around, thought for a moment more, and then asked the Angel of Record, "Is there a typewriter here I can use?"

The significance of this dream for me was obvious. The heaven I had in mind was writing, I had been living in it for over half a century, and I had known it since the beginning.

The second point of this dream is to record what the angel said, that it is heaven, not man, that decides who is eligible. I take this to mean that if I were not an atheist, I would choose such a God that would decide who would be saved by virtue of the totality of a person's life rather than the pattern of words. I think he would prefer an honest and upright atheist to a televangelist who is full of God, God, God and everything he does is foul, foul, foul.

I also want a God who doesn't allow hell. Infinite torment only applies to punishing infinite sin, and I don't think we can claim that there is infinite sin even for situations like Hitler's. What's more, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to abolish torture and torment, shouldn't we expect less from an infinitely merciful God?

I suppose if there were a life after death, then limited punishment for sin would be reasonable, though I think the longest and most severe of these punishments should be reserved for those who discredit God by inventing hell.

But all of this is a joke, and my faith is strong. I am an atheist, and in my opinion, death is followed by an eternal dreamless sleep.