Fishalt is a good sort, you know.. As long as you don't make him angry
Let us try something more simple:
Right now, wherever you live, there is an old woman somewhere. She's probably a lovely person, but she's poor. Her husband died some or many years ago, because men tend to die before women, and she lives alone. She struggles to get by, and barely has a pot to piss in. She has a television, a bunch of photographs, and is watering a pet plant with a Christian name. Maybe she has kids, who rarely if ever have anything to do with her, and most of the time she experiences loneliness so intensely that she can feel it in the slow-moving hands of the clock on the wall.
She is a devout catholic. Believes in God, and the afterlife, the way you and I believe in dogs and cars. Her faith makes her charitable. It provides her a community through church, and here, she gets to be social and engage with others. It gives her identity. Her belief in heaven gives her something to hope for--indeed to look forward to. It's a reason to not simply lie face-down against the pillow one night. More importantly, it provides her something more important: Psychological solace. A sense of order, direction, and stability--an ontological framework for existence.
Would you
really want to take that away from her? For what? For a brief, self-righteous, sanctimonious, ego-driven dopamine rush?
This goes back to what I said to Miles at the beginning of this thread.
The question isn't whether god does or does not exist. The question is whether eroding people's faith is a useful, or productive pastime.
There's a poem I like by an Australian ( Les Murray) I like. Think about it.
T
he Last Hellos
Don’t die, Dad –
but they die.
This last year he was wandery:
took off a new chainsaw blade
and cobbled a spare from bits.
Perhaps if I lay down
my head’ll come better again.
His left shoulder kept rising
higher in his cardigan.
He could see death in a face.
Family used to call him in
to look at sick ones and say.
At his own time, he was told.
The knob found in his head
was duck-egg size. Never hurt.
Two to six months, Cecil.
I’ll be right, he boomed
to his poor sister on the phone
I’ll do that when I finish dyin.
*
Don’t die, Cecil.
But they do.
Going for last drives
in the bush, odd massive
board-slotted stumps bony white
in whipstick second growth.
I could chop all day.
I could always cash
a cheque, in Sydney or anywhere.
Any of the shops.
Eating, still at the head
of the table, he now missed
food on his knife side.
Sorry, Dad, but like
have you forgiven your enemies?
Your father and all them?
All his lifetime of hurt.
I must have (grin).
I don’t
think about that now.
*
People can’t say goodbye
any more. They say last hellos.
Going fast, over Christmas,
he’d still stumble out
of his room, where his photos
hang over the other furniture,
and play host to his mourners.
The courage of his bluster
firm big voice of his confusion.
Two last days in the hospital:
his long forearms were still
red mahogany. His hands
gripped steel frame.
I’m dyin.
On the second day:
You’re bustin to talk but
I’m too busy dyin.
*
Grief ended when he died,
the widower like soldiers who
won’t live life their mates missed.
Good boy Cecil! No more Bluey dog.
No more cowtime. No more stories.
We’re still using your imagination,
it was stronger than all ours.
Your grave’s got littler
somehow, in the three months.
More pointy as the clay’s shrivelled,
like a stuck zip in a coat.
Your cricket boots are in
the State museum! Odd letters
still come. Two more’s died since you:
Annie, and Stewart. Old Stewart.
On your day there was a good crowd,
family, and people from away.
But of course a lot had gone
to their own funerals first.
Snobs mind us off religion
nowadays, if they can.
Fuck them. I wish you God.
voxday.net
