Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Dead and dying

One wrench in the toolbox of religious mind-control is the power of clergy to look you in the eye and tell you that a deceased love-one is somewhere unpleasant.

They can tell you where you might go too after you die, if you don't obey the rituals and other demanded personal sacrifices in the form of time, money and flesh.

The funeral industry too has tapped the goldmine of grief and obsession. One funeral service radio advertisement on WMAY has the slogan "just because a life has ended doesn't mean the relationship has." This commercial reinforcement of obsession with someone who is now gone forever should force you to recognize that such an obsession is unhealthy.

When you're an atheist, death is the end. Living people learn from the actions and consequences of those who passed away, and then move on with their lives. You're not going to be haunted by grandma for not visiting her grave.

Ghosts are completely bogus. Believing that there is the potential for your "spirit" to become trapped somewhere in your house and to suffer the gradual madness that comes from having your house invaded be endless generations of strangers is completely ridiculous.

Life is a continuous biological cycle. All biological organisms sequester nutrients so they may function. They too become the nutrients for other organisms. Being at the top of the food chain doesn't give us the right to deny the rest of nature the nutrients we possessed in life but no longer need in death.

Sealing our corpses away in boxes and concrete tombs adorned with everlasting monoliths, is denying the soil badly needed nutrients for the rest of nature, and denying the living freedom from distraction by sorrowful reminders.