Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The Los Angeles Times Agrees With Kill The Afterlife

Thanks to Sean Prophet at BlackSun Journal for posting on this first and bringing it to my attention.

The Los Angeles Times has a recent article entitled: 'End Times' Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon.

And it isn't just Christians. All the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) want to destroy the world as we know it and bring in a bloodbath of Godly proportions, all so that they can get their special reward and so that everyone who doesn't believe what they believe will be tortured forever.

Church lady moment: "Well, isn't that special?"

We are now at the point where even the Los Angeles Times is agreeing with what I've been saying for some time now. Afterlife believers worship death. Afterlife Believers get together in social networks and fantasize about the end of the world.

I have always maintained that afterlife-believers, by necessity, place the "next life" at a higher degree of importance than this life. Within the Los Angeles Times article, there is one very funny, some might say pathetic, example of an afterlife-believer who sacrifices an aspect of this life in favor of the afterlife:

Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.

So far, only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy, meaning they failed to turn up even three white or black hairs on the animal's body.


We have Jews that steal land from others because they think that God "promised" the land to them. We have Muslims blowing up Jews and themselves(!) in order to secure a better position in the afterlife. We have Christians who are breeding cows to bring Jesus back so that he can end the world! We even have Christians on Internet message boards who sit around and stroke each other's fantasies about the world ending in a bloody Armageddon.

Not all afterlife-believers act on their desires, true. But they all share the same desire. They prefer their imaginary afterlife to this life. On one hand I cannot blame them for their preference. For example, when I was a child I would often fantasize about living in a slightly different world where I had superpowers, or where everyone got along and we had unlimited technology and happiness. But I grew up. So on the other hand, I have nothing but disgust and contempt and derision for these fully grown adults who cannot grow up and discard their imaginary Peter Pan worlds, especially when they try to force their imaginary vision onto others.

I think it is appropriate at this time for me to restate the premise of blog: "The concept of an afterlife is inhumane and immoral. Belief in the continuation of your "soul" or consciousness after death is wishful thinking. Belief in an afterlife devalues the one life that actually exists: this one."

Kill The Afterlife, not this life.

13 comments:

cay said...

Sorry for the long post, but James Joyce's description of eternity is enough for me, even if it meant an eternity of "heaven" or whatever fantasy existence one longed for. I'd rather die for good than "live on" for eternity:

"For ever! For all eternity! Not for a year or for an age but for ever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all? Yet at the end of that immense stretch of time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been all carried away, and if the bird came again and carried it all away again grain by grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals, at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would scarcely have begun."

Anonymous said...

And all the while 'singing God's praises' - Yuk! Blissful nothingness is infinitely preferable to an infinity of mind-numbing boredom.

Kele said...

Wow, cay, that is an excellent quote. I'll need to use that in the future.

Aaron Kinney said...

You said it Kele!

I hope Cay doesnt mind if I post this on my blog. Im totally gonna give him (and James Joyce) credit of course.

And hey Kele, its great to see you around! :) Where you been?

cay said...

So glad you liked the quote (although it is in the context of being in hell) from "Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man." Nice to know people who understand the meaning of this life. And who like to read.

cay said...

Cay is short for Catherine... ;)

Aaron Kinney said...

Oh ok. Well I used your blogger name. Would you rather I use your full name Catherine? :)

Aaron Kinney said...

Oh, so your profile says you're a science teacher in Santa Monica? I live in the San Fernando Valley. Small world huh? My roommate is a teacher too. Do you teach at a University or a public school?

cay said...

I teach at a private school, Brentwood School. Now that there's a link to my neglected blog, I will have to post within the next millennium. Thanks for giving props to Joyce. My name is Cay on my birth certificate, but I am named after my Aunt Catherine, so Cay is O.Cay. Ha! I will be surfing in San Onofre for the next coupla days but will be back with more atheist propaganda. Thanks for all you do (that I don't). Cay

Aaron Kinney said...

Awesome! Well enjoy the surfing. I love the beach, and SoCal beaches in the summertime are just fantastic.

Yea now that I linked to your blog you will be obligated to post on it regularly ;P

It was all part of my master plan to trick you into becoming more active in the atheistic blogging community! Bwahahaha!

Aaron Kinney said...

Holy shit Seven Star Hand,

Let me ask you: Would you be willing to sign a contract with me that is a bet?

How about this? If Jesus descends from the heavens and it is reported by two major news sources (cnn, fox, cspan, time, etc...), I will donate all of my money and possessions all of my future income to the church or charity of your choice.

But if you die and Jesus is never reported to have come down from the heavens during your lifetime, then all of your money, savings, and property goes to me upon your death?

Are you game? I am.

breakerslion said...

Seven star
hand:

And truly it is written, in the Book of Needledick Bugfucker:

"Get over yourself."

Breakerslion:

114th in succession to the Throne of Arthur Pendragon, Keeper of All "How many ... does it take to change a lightbulb" Jokes.

cay said...

Seven Star Hand--at least I apologized for my long post. You have no excuse! Cay