06-09-2021, 08:22 PM
(06-09-2021, 03:48 PM)Fuse Wrote: For a long time I have believed that the concept of damnation was one of those parasitic teachings that the Judeo-Christian philosophy acquired over the centuries. But it's a potent thought-form at this point, given all who strongly believe in it. I have no doubt that many people who die on this planet find themselves in a hellish place (of their own making), but are quite, quite surprised when they finally realize that their hell has no gates, and they were always free to walk right out.
I had an interesting experience with a friend of mine from school who became rather violently atheistic and anti-religious over the years. (He taught English in Turkey for a few years, and I think seeing such a dogmatically religious society from within served to harden his views.)
One day, he went off on a very broad-strokes rant on social media about the stupidity of people who believe in anything but atheistic materialism, and so I finally sent him a quiet message explaining how it felt to hear that for people who didn't think like him, and that I was going to leave his friends list so that he could insult people freely without my being forced to think less of him for it. He didn't have much to say about it at the time.
A few years later, I found out indirectly that he had just died, and the way the information was worded made me suspect pretty strongly that he had committed suicide. It's not that I felt guilt, because the things I had said were, thankfully, carefully worded to not be cruel. But I was a bit worried about him, worried about what he might be thinking, that as an atheist, he might be floating terrified in a blank void or something like that. So I reached out to him, to see if I could get through to him.
I think he was expecting me. I immediately got back two very clear words.
"Don't gloat."
I wasn't, of course. I knew that in that moment, he could finally see who I really was, and that like it or not, he would know quite well that I felt nothing for him but love, and relief that he was free and not suffering. He did seem a bit annoyed, which is, I admit, a touch amusing.
But I was fascinated to realize that even as a hardened atheist, he still knew right where he was and what was happening to him.
Interestingly I had a discussion with a friend the other day while walking. Somehow suicide came up and I told him my hypothesis that suicide is more common among atheists/people who do not believe in a creator of some kind. My logic being that without some higher meaning to life, it all eventually seems pointless. For some people, the idea of nothing is comforting.