Faith

People sometimes have a misconception about me as far as spirituality goes.  Doug mentioned that I'm "not a man of faith".  I suppose that's literally true.  I'm not a religious person.  I know there are some very kind and honorable religious leaders in the world.  I've always thought of religion in a broad sense.. historically and in a contemporary sense and see so much suffering and misery wrought.

I don't consider myself an atheist.  I wouldn't categorize an atheist as the polar opposite of a religious person, but I understand why some people would.  To me, an atheist knows the answer to what happens to someone when they die.  I don't know how they can know that.  I've read a lot of PZ Myers, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc.  I get their points and agree with much of it.  I don't think I agree with the conclusions.

I consider myself unsure, but open to possibilities.  Is that 'agnostic'?  I suppose so.  I'm also hopeful.  I don't want anyone completely erased from existence.  I would like to think that their hopes come true.  I desperately hope that for the people that I love who have passed.

For me, I have a reservation about the whole thing that I don't know has ever been answered in a sensible way.  This might be silly, but it is what terrifies me about dying.

We sleep.. and I think we do that because we would go insane if we did not.  It really has nothing to do with resting, but is instead a break from being conscious.  Could you imagine if you were awake, always?  Isn't that what would happen if there is an after-life?  We're told that it is for eternity, and eternity is a very long time.  Do you want to be you, with no break from that, forever?  How would that not be a torment?

While thinking about this over the past week or so, I had another thought.  What if our lives now are simply sleep for our eternal lives?   Our memories are erased, we are born, we live a life, and then we return to the eternity for a time.  When we feel fatigued, we sleep again - our memories are erased, and we are born.

I'm sure there is some religion that believes that to be the case.  I'm not an expert on the beliefs of religions with the exception of the ultra-right wing American Christian religion.  I know them pretty well.

I could see that a very nice way to exist.  We're born, we learn, we die, we spend some time in the eternity until we decide we want to be born again.  That sounds very pleasant.  We can visit with friends and family in the eternity, and our friends and family get bigger and bigger.  If this universe expands and eventually freezes, whatever started it can just make a new one.  There may be infinite universes already.  We might be born in other universes.

Randy sent me a book titled, On Life After Death, by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, famous for the "5 stages of grief".  I think I'm having 3 of the stages at once... anger, bargaining, and depression.

The book is a collection of lectures that Ross presented.  She makes very detailed claims about what death is all about, and it fits pretty much with what I described as my "belief", I guess I'll call it that.  Some of it seems to be beyond the scientific method.  Some of it might be just the natural course of the brain in a near-death experience.  I have no idea.  She seemed convinced.

I write this just to say that I don't believe that John is truly gone.  I think he's tried to let me know he's okay.  I talk to him every day.  I sometimes think he's looking at me through Riley's eyes.  It doesn't change the feelings I have over losing him and everything that preceded it.  It doesn't ease my pain, because my pain is all about him not being here anymore, not what happened to him after he passed.  It's my own selfish hurt.

I do, however, grieve for the time he should have had to grow old and enjoy me, the dogs, family and friends.  He left too early, but Ross would say that he left exactly when he was supposed to.  He learned what he was supposed to, and needed not be here anymore.  That's bullshit.  He needed to be here for the rest of us.