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RE: Thoughts, Words and Photos (Fifteen)
Love the cat photos!
Monotheism has it's limitations and sadly is a dominant world view. I am an atheist but if I had to pick a view of "god" I'd be far more comfortable with polytheism which posits "small gods" that resonate with different aspects of existence. I see religion as a means of social control but as to the larger questions, I quote NOGOOD BOYO from Under Milk Wood "I don't know who's up there and I don't care." ~Dylan Thomas
I'll find out when I get there. In the meantime, it's never a bad thing to treat others as you would wish to be treated
Pretty much all religions have the same concept near the core, as said, it isn't all bad.
You've posed the eternal question here Taraz. I once read in the closing of Plato’s’ Apology where the philosopher records the musings of Socrates on death and the afterlife just as you have here. He records that Socrates, having been tried and found guilty by the men of Athens and sentenced to death, he opined that there were two possibilities after death, both being seen by him as a blessing. First, he considers the possibility that “the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything”, “like a dreamless sleep.” Second, he considers whether death is, “as we are told, a relocation of the soul to another place”. This place, the eponymously named Hades, is where the eternal soul finds its abode in the underworld. Socrates considers both possibilities preferable to life in Athens, whether it be the eternally sound and dreamless sleep, or going on to the next world to be with those “true jurymen who are said to sit in judgment there.” Socrates provokes his accusers and those who voted with them in a guilty verdict by contrasting the “true jurymen” in Hades with “those who call themselves jurymen here,” here being Athens, in the land of the living. For Socrates, Hades posed a welcome escape from the “petty” men of Athens, preferring death and the possibility it brought with it, of conversing with great souls of the past. He specifically mentions, among others, Hesiod and Homer. The Christian concept of Heaven was not a part of Socrates’ theology, yet to discourse for eternity with stimulating minds, having no need of food or rest, would be heavenly for a soul like his. I myself take Socrates' (and your) position, that we can't be certain about what happens after death, but we can be certain about what we observe here in "Athens," and the nature of men.