I don’t believe in life after death.
There is life, here, in this world, and death both is and signals the end of life.
Now, is there something else, after life? That, I don’t know.
If there is something else, it doesn’t seem that it would conform to notions of Christian or Muslim heaven; those seem so earth-bound, so reflective of what we already have here, only someone’s version of better. (A multitude of virgins or streets paved with gold? Really?) If there would be something else, wouldn’t it be. . . something else?
Backing up: I think of life as bounded by this earth, but I’m fudging on the whole existence thing, that is, we exist in life, here, and if our existence continues, then it would be in some other way.
Furthermore, that there could be something else doesn’t mean it’s supernatural. I don’t believe in the supernatural; I think everything—everything—is natural, and that that which is called ‘supernatural’ is simply something for which we lack understanding.
(And woo? Woo is a cover, a con: obfuscation masquerading as understanding.)
This isn’t rank materialism. I also don’t believe the (natural or social) sciences are sufficient to make sense of all worldly—universal—phenomenon; I’m not arguing that understanding necessitates a reduction of all things to the latest brand of physics. It’s simply that, if there is nothing beyond nature, then we’ll need new ways of understanding—new sciences—to make sense of that which current scientific methods cannot.
Does this tend toward a Theory of Everything? Perhaps, but since TOE is conceptualized in contemporary terms, it may be inadequate to describe all that there is.
And ‘is’ itself may be—hell, already is—called into question, along with ‘all’ and ‘that’.
*Sigh* It’s late and I”m not making sense.
I’m wondering about death because a little over a week ago Bean died and a little over a year ago Chelsea died. I don’t think they’re in pet heaven or regular heaven or whatever. I don’t know if they’ve gone some place after death, if their existence continues, or what relationship that existence has to any worldly one. Maybe there’s nothing, maybe there’s something. I know they’re not with me.
But I would like to think, that if there is something, that they neither forget nor are constrained by life. This existence on earth, this life, is powerful, and if there is something else, I’d like to think it offers us more without taking away what we already were. Perhaps there is no full understanding on this earth, no way for us to comprehend all there is; perhaps life is to get us started, but it’s not enough, not enough for us to know.
I don’t know this, of course. And maybe this is it, and this life which is not enough is it. Perhaps this life is enough.
My methods are insufficient to determine one way or the other.
AbsurdBeats 