Pretrial
It's strange. Last week I got to sit in a room and hear a bunch of people talk about how they thought they were going to die. Then I got to ask them questions. Such a strange job some days. But my questions were clinical, precise, I hope. Aimed at discovering the truth rather than merely bludgening the questionee.
I understand that some of them prayed in what they thought were their last moments. I would love to have a conversation with them in a different setting, although I don't know that it would do either of us any good. That idea seems so foreign to me. I can't imagine praying at the end. Maybe I'm wrong about myself, or everything, but I can't. Some of those who pray don't make it. Some do. Some of those who avoid praying have time to take action to save themselves. Some don't.
I remember Pascal's gambit. If no God exists, then belief or disbelief are of little consequence. If God exists, then you are better off believing than not. And yet if I prayed to Tyr or Hermes or Shiva I assume I would be roundly condemned as a heretic. And if I believed and prayed for others to be destroyed, then what would I be?
I understand that some of them prayed in what they thought were their last moments. I would love to have a conversation with them in a different setting, although I don't know that it would do either of us any good. That idea seems so foreign to me. I can't imagine praying at the end. Maybe I'm wrong about myself, or everything, but I can't. Some of those who pray don't make it. Some do. Some of those who avoid praying have time to take action to save themselves. Some don't.
I remember Pascal's gambit. If no God exists, then belief or disbelief are of little consequence. If God exists, then you are better off believing than not. And yet if I prayed to Tyr or Hermes or Shiva I assume I would be roundly condemned as a heretic. And if I believed and prayed for others to be destroyed, then what would I be?
posted by Ranger | 8:24 AM
11 Comments:
I knew you'd get the hang of it. This is a lovely post.
I don't think praying and working to save yourself are mutually exclusive, you know?
Prayer is for the person who prays, not for God. Prayer brings relief, ease, comfort.
If you prayed to Tyr or Hermes or Shiva, you wouldn't be condemed as a heretic by other worshipers of Tyr or Hermes or Shiva -- and as far as I know, the Unitarians would probably ask you to come hang out with them.
Not all believers condemn those of other faiths. Just the short sighted ones who're afraid of being wrong.
I don't think praying and working to save yourself are mutually exclusive either. But from the people I talked to, it broke down that way. I was surprised. But I assume that situation has been repeated countless times.
Prayer is definitely for the person who prays. And yet, it is not for me. If a god and I are ever to talk I expect it will be through revelation and not prayer. Unless you count my time in the woods.
The Abrahamic religions seemed to have cornered the market in my time and place.
From my experience in everyday life most religious people are nice. But I also believe there is a growing trend of believers to condemn or judge those of other faiths. This concerns me.
"But I also believe there is a growing trend of believers to condemn or judge those of other faiths. This concerns me."
I don't think it's a growing trend -- I think bigotry has always been there. You're just noticing it more now.
Bigotry always concerns me. That is why I have totally banned Christian bashing on my blog.
hate to be nitpicky, but the Wager is actually about a God who promises eternal life. Tyr only offered such as part of death in battle, Hermes had a sort of afterlife, although kinda' gloomy, and Shiva either does or doesn't, depending on who you talk to.
If you really want to discuss theology, please let me know - that is what I have a degree in, it is a passion of mine, and the vast majority of people are startled to learn what Catholic theology really says - especially cradle Catholics.
All converts begin as heretics, so we aren't going to stone you, just talk. Nicely.
And Valhalla and the Elesyian Fields are so nice at this time of year.
If you can't do bad things in heaven, don't you cease to be yourself? In which case what's the point? Plus eternity is so long. At some point I'm just going to want to take a dirtnap.
No, you still have free will in heaven, you have just been purged of the things that drive us to error. As Socrates/Aristotle show, all people want to do good, they just sometimes have a lousy idea of what is good.
And in Valhalla you are killed in battle every day, only to rise up at sundown. Messy, and no dry cleaners.
Well that's the rub isn't it. I'm not sure I want to be purged of the things that drive me to error. Or to always be good for that matter. The idea that you can have freewill to me presupposes the notion that you can use that freewill to do evil. It is in making the choice to do good that good lies, as well as perhaps the doing of the deed and the result of the deed. Even when our choices are misguided. Without the choice to do evil, it seems to me that either (1) good cannot exist or (2) it is meaningless.
And the idea of living forever seems tiresome to me. I'm really not interested. I don't understand how eternal life is a blessing and not a curse, regardless of how wonderful or terrible it is.
Also I thought there was another hall, aside from Valhalla where non-warriors go. I'll have to look that up again.
The other hall was Niflheim, where you dwelt in cold and darkness.
Good simply is; duality is a foreign concept to Christianity (at least, classical Christianity). In heaven you have the ability to choose evil; but since you know, clearly, what is good and the injuries to you that would cause you to choose evil are gone... why would you? "Bob, that red glass is poisonous acid. The 20 blue ones have a good wine in them." "Thanks, Jerry, I think I'll choose a horrible death, thanks."
Doing good is, well, inherently good. The reason to do it is the doing.
I am sorry that life has been so bad that you cannot imagine it being worth living.
Well, I like my life. I'm comfortable with it. But here's my issue.
If I was going to live forever, how could the poison hurt me? Why not out of 1 time out of an infinite number of times would I not choose the poison? I suspect I would if only to realize the meaning of not choising the poison.
At some point doesn't infinity just become groundhog day. I'd probably just do something bad or wrong out of boredom at some point. I don't think always knowing what the best of the answers are is a good solution.
I like the conflict, the uncertainty, the impurity the total unreasonableness of everday life and looking at the real choices people make when they make bad choices and bad decisions and then try and learn from those. And better yet the situations where there is no good choice or the situations where there is no bad choice and you can see the artistry (hopefully) in the decision and the decisionmaker.
Duality, I guess is important to me (shout out to my Zoroastrian homies), but I like plurality even more (big ups to my pantheist, animist, polytheist homies). The idea that there are millions of right ways to live and do things, with being a good Christian a reasonably good effort by huge numbers of people. I don't think there is a party at the end, except what we make of it, and I think that is a more compelling reason to try and live a good life than anything else.
You seem to have missed the very point of Groundhog Day (a very Catholic movie); he discovered that every minute is so wonderful that even if the exact same day lasted forever, eternity would be wonderful if he lived it as wonderful. When he viewed life as a burden and weight, his existence was terrible; when he viewed it as a blessing, his existence was sublime.
Really, its the message of Christ. Think of suffering; St. Maximillian Kolbe spent his last days of life in a starvation bunker; when the Nazis went in they found him not only alive, but he smiled at them, his torturers. He had transformed his suffering into growth - even at the point of painful death - through the actions of a focussed will and strong character. He was not pretending, nor deluded - he was stronger.
you idea that you would choose a painful death just to see what living was like is, well, troubling to me as someone who acts as a counselor. You do not need pain to know bliss, nor sorrow to know joy. Evil is the absence of something, just as darkness is.
Well, I guess that is precisely my issue then. I do enjoy every minute of every day, but rationally, part of my mind tells me at some point I will die. At this point I cease to be. This does not affect my enjoyment of every minute of every day. In fact it enriches it. Makes each moment more significant.
The idea of endless life really alters that for me. For me anyway, it would reduce the value of decisionmaking proportionate to the time you have, which if it is infinite, essentially reduces the value of your decisionmaking to zero.
Infinity is just not a real number to me. And I know for a fact that if I lived the same day forever, my drive would be to discover the permutations of every possible decision to be made, not to make the same decision every day.
Now perhaps if we view the choices as roads, I might not decide to run people down, but I would want to take every right and left turn, and see what happened.
If I always knew the best choice, and always wanted to make the best choice, then in a way I would cease to be. If all the decisions resulted in good, I would probably be pleased, but become disinterested in making decisions at all.
While I don't view life as a burden or weight, I believe I would view eternal life as precisely that.
Your history of St. Kolbe is interesting. It almost leads me to believe that one could grow in hell, but which I likewise do not believe in.
Well, let's not twist my words. I don't have a suicidial ideation, at least so long as I am alive. But if I had eternal life, I would cease to be worried about decisions that were "life and death" would I not?
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