If you want to watch something really depressing, skip the Fassbinder and Tarkovsky movies and try How The Universe Works on Science Channel. You haven't really experienced in your heart how small and insignificant we are in the universe until you've done a dive into astronomy.
Meanwhile, I've been thinking about the concept of a soul. What a weird idea, huh?
Think of what a soul is. An eternal being, filled with the greater consciousness and awareness, actualized and powerful.
So what does your deity do? It sends this powerful aware being to inhabit the body of a human. A human! A kind of sentient mammal, with a shy bladder and a fear of spiders and a constant, unending craving for pizza and porn. This eternal soul has to inhabit this simple creature for 80-90 Earth years...if it makes it that far.
And then when the mammal dies - in pain and alone - the soul is judged on the quality of the mammal's existence and participation in this dumb community we call a civilization.
And is sent to:
- Eternal suffering....or
- Eternal pleasure
Does this seem fair? Why would a god set up a system like this? What is the reasoning behind the eternal souls' civilization running like this?
So let's review how this turns out: your soul, the soul inhabiting you, gets lucky - really lucky - and is sent to heaven. And there you are, you eternal being that picked the right team in the comparative religious studies sweepstakes, with your parents and your favorite movie stars or angels that look like them a lot...drinking all your favorite drinks, eating all your favorite foods, and having fun parties with your favorite celebrities or angels that look like them a lot....for billions and trillions of years.
But most importantly, you're on the edge of God's country club watching all the hundreds of billions of souls who did not luck out (As P.J. O'Rourke perfectly put it, "It's hard to get into God's heavenly country club") writhing and crying and acting out the most upsetting extreme horror movies ever made (and a few we humans wouldn't dare make) for your amusement. For billions and trillions of years, you, the blessed soul, watch this.
These souls inhabited people who by any objective measure were good people, who worked hard, who endured hardships and pain on Earth. But they worshipped the wrong God - or called bullshit on all of it - and now they are in the great torture chamber under the ground in Russia (perfect place for hell, I'd say). Doomed to billions of years of horror movie pain and anguish. Billions.
And you watch what the demons do to these poor souls...and then go back to your heavenly orgies of pleasure.
If this is your dream of your life's redemption, what does it say about you?
And think of these timelines...billions and trillions of years of this.
This is where astronomy, e.g reality, comes into this scenario.
In about 7 or 8 billion years, the sun will explode. All stars die, the sun is a star, and scientists think that is when our sun will die. As it dies, it will inflate into a red giant, and burn the Earth and then devour it. (Same with Mars. Sorry, Elon.)
So does that mean hell will be demolished along with it? Holy scriptures do suggest that hell eventually ends...but not heaven.
How will you residents of God's country club feel about your show being ended? Will you miss the grand guignol show, the billions of years long Heironymous Bosch orgy of misery and unhappiness, performed by the infidels and unworthy for your endless pleasure?
Oh, and it gets better! Trillions of years hence - and yes, your lucky blessed soul will be around for trillions of years! Think about that - all the stars in the universe will die. And the universe will become a desolate, cold, black, endless, empty tomb.
Forever.
How will life in your eternal holy country club / pleasure palace feel then? Will you care? Will the clouds you hang out on debating the important things and indulging your pleasures on still be dappled in sunlight generated by your god? Or will you just switch to nightclub mode?
Can you understand why the faithless have problems with your faith yet?
Religion is the original psy-ops. It was dispatched for noble reasons - to keep our uncivilized ancestors from killing and raping each other - but over time, it has become a monster that has caused untold suffering and misery on Earth. Think of how many problems we have in this world because of religion.
Science is hard, and it teaches us hard realities that are painful to deal with emotionally and psychologically. But science has a moral imperative, sort of - to tell the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
So science has that advantage.
Don't you like science better?
Thanks for reading. See you all in hell.
