Re: "Afterlife"
Originally Posted by
TessA
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I've just read a short story by Stephen King about a guy who dies of cancer.
He gets the choice of living his life over again, exactly as it was, or vanishing forever.
Ok. The precept here has implications.
Firstly the "choice" mentioned must be being offered by someone or something (a god or more superior/evolved being, etc). That being the case, one has to question the motive of that being and the relationship.
Why is that being only offering those 2 choices?
If the being has the power to resurrect a person, then the being surely has the power to make the person healthy.
This equally opens up the problem that for the man to have suffered cancer in the first place, that being must have sat back and simply let it happen. This suggests the being is far from benevolent.
In a universe where human life is controlled by one or more higher beings and illness and suffering are permitted to occur on a global scale, as well as death, then really that suggests humans are trapped in a prison and are kept that way deliberately. I don't think perpetuation of that situation is desirable and therefore the option to vanish forever is the right/best one.
Unfortunately it seems reasonably likely that this IS the situation we are caught in. The human race is effectvely enslaved already and being exploited on all counts relentlessly. Our freedoms are removed, our health is assalted on a daily basis, our ability to further ourselves materially or in terms of wealth is highly restricted and our life spans are massively curtailed from what they ought to be. Our minds are brainwashed from early childhood to accept the situation and to even suggest that what we perceive is not actually natural brings derision and disparagement from those affected by the conditioning.
I often wonder if the cows roaming in the fields, eating grass and generally doing not much at all, actually realise that their entire lives are enslaved and that they exist only as a source of food for a higher level of beings (us).
When members of the herd . . . . disappear (to the abatoire), do they wonder where Bessie went? Or do they suspect that they are all for the chop at some stage?
Surprising that humans don't see the same parallels in their own lives. We don't know why we are here, or who is really controlling us, yet we just carry on regardless accepting old age, illness, infirmity and eventually death as if they were old slippers !