The Death of Denial

Lee Randolph's post incited to me post as well. For over 25 years, I sat by while beloved congregational members and families squared off against the most painful, ridiculous and astonishingly godless forms of death. I gave them every prayerful platitude I could. I prayed with tears...and so did hundreds, thousands of others. No answer came from heaven.

During that time, I comforted myself with the concept that I would die and go to heaven...that my life would not end, but would continue with pain, without doubt, without heartache in the presence of a loving God (who never seemed to answer the prayers that were placed so sacrificially on the altar of his promise..."ask anything in My name and I will do it for you."

Today, I no longer have that hope. I believe that one day, sooner than I can imagine it, I will face annihilation. The best part is, I really won't be around long enough to realize that I have been annihilated. I will cease to exist. My consciousness will cease as my physical body dies. There will be no heaven. No eternal life. No god. No reunion with loved ones. It will be over.

I have been called a fool, a coward, and apostate for choosing to accept the inevitability of my annihilation. How cowardly can it be, to turn away from the hope of eternal life based on the evidence? It was inferred by someone on this blogsite (in a comment to a previous post) that I did not seriously want to know the truth. Actually, I did really want to know the truth...and I finally admitted it.

There is no God. The promises of Christianity are lies. Dying people are not healed. Prayers are not answered. Blessings may be found, but only by those who are looking for them on a planet that gives them only by default.

I knew a man, who was a very committed Christian. He died a horrible, agonizing and painful death as the consequence of a brain tumor. His wife and children and thousands of people throughout the state of Florida and the USA prayed daily for this man for years...fasted...wept. No answer from God...unless you count the thoroughly bullshit answer of "yes-no-not now" that is the excuse of evangelicals who feel as if they must defend their idiotic faith in a God who so blatantly breaks his promises. A seemingly answered prayer can be an accident of chance; an unanswered prayer by a god who promises to answer all prayers in his name is the only proof needed that there is no god there.

Good, faithful, diligent, loving, compassionate, biblically literate, tithing, moral, prayerful, Republican...and most of all, they have accepted Jesus as their lord and savior. They pray, they weep, they join with others...NOTHING.

NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.

That is why I accept that one day, I will be nothing. You will be nothing. Bug food. A lost memory to generations yet to come. A plot of cloth and wood and bone matter, scraped away by a developer in some upcoming subdivision.

Ernst Becker wrote the seminal book of the 20th century (IMHO) "The Denial of Death." Christianity, all religions, are just attempts to deny the reality of personal annihilation, to rage against the dying of the light. I don't fault for them that, just for the false hope they cause in people who otherwise suffer when they watch their loved ones die.

"Tie me at the crossroads when I die,
hang me in the wind till I get good and dry.
And the kids who pass will scatch their heads and say...
'who was that guy?"
Tie me at the crossroads when I die."
- Bruce Cockburn

"I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist!
I'm not a slave to a world that doesn't give a shit!
The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions a statistic."
- Brian Warner (aka, Marilyn Manson)