Hineni: Here Am I!

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked." Victor Frankl

"Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am." Parker Palmer

First we must surrender in stillness and silence.

Then, in order to truly live with open hands, it must be seen and expressed by the open mind, open heart, and open will.

It took me a while to truly understand the depth of all of these openings but I must admit that the one I struggled with most to understand is the OPEN WILL. But each of these openings depend on each other. The heart cannot open until the mind is open. In the same way, the will opens as an expression of the inner self; the open mind and the open heart. 

This is what is called integrity, which is greatly missing today, especially among the religious groups. If I say that I am living with open hands, then the question becomes are these open hands expressed by an open mind and an open heart. But none of this matters is we are not WILLING to live our lives as an expression of  our inner values and inner journey. The open will is where the rubber hits the road, it is our testimony to our integrity, where soul and role are one. Inner = Outer. Beliefs and spirit = a life of compassion, patience, stillness, contentment, and simplicity.

Hineni: Here Am I!

“Why do you hurry?

When you rush, you lose things along the way.

But when you slow down, things come to you.”

(Bedouin Guide)

As I progress through this life, growing older, growing up, growing down, slowing down, paying more attention, appreciating life more, seeing more clearly that which is essential; I realize more and more that less is more. But what does that mean? And what is the tangible and visible expression of living knowing that less really is more?

Go go go. More more more. Higher higher higher. Further further further. Bigger bigger bigger.

Climb that mountain. Run that marathon. Go for it all. Never give up. Never give in. Never stop.

All of our lives, society is telling us to throw ourselves into everything we do. Be the best. Excel over all others. Waking up in the morning to some inner voice from somewhere saying, be ready, psych yourself up to give it your all. So we exercise until injury stops us. We climb the career ladder until we hit the ceiling, like the Peter principle tells us: rising to our highest level of incompetence. We strive to be popular until our friends begin to drift away, as they always do, as everything always does. We religion our way through life. But when we religion our way into the abyss, there is nothing but the abyss staring back; empty doing, empty praying, empty singing, empty study of the holy books; a weariness of the flesh. And even the silent listening of worship becomes more and more silent. Where is the light? Where is the inner voice? Where is meaning? What is meaning? Where is purpose? What is purpose?

The longer I live, the smaller I become; fading fading fading into nothingness.

The longer I live, the less I know; receding receding receding into the mystery 

in silent stupor and awe. Staring staring staring at the wall, seeing nothing.

The longer I live, the less I’m right, less less less telling.

The longer I live, the less I want to be right, less less less convincing anyone of anything.

The longer I live, the less speaking, more more more listening.

The longer I live, the less I know, more more more questions questions questions.

The longer I live, the less I believe without questioning questioning questioning.

We come to this earth alone in stillness and in darkness. Unaware. 

When we are born, we are startled awake by a baby’s cry, oh, that’s me.

We leave this earth alone in stillness and in darkness. Unaware.

Yet, while we are here, we exhaust ourselves with rushing about 

In the clamoring noise and glaring lights. Always on. Nonstop.

Desperate to leave something behind, to leave some legacy.

During the years between the cradle and the grave, 

we turn up the volume and turn on the neon lights, 

while we search for that right immortality project 

that will halt the lifelong terror that is pursuing 

and haunting us every moment of every day: 

the intolerable fear of death, 

and knowing that the moment we are born 

is the moment we begin to die. 

Informed Choice: the missing link

Informed Choice:

the forgotten prerequisite for free will.

Making a decision of eternal and final consequence requires informed choice, including all the evidence necessary, all the options possible, and a full understanding of the ramifications of this decision.

Choices are not choices unless they are INFORMED CHOICES.

I’ve worked with people with disabilities for 40 years. There is a gold standard that has been growing stronger and stronger and is both evidence-based and research-based that leads to higher quality outcomes for people with disabilities for their whole lives. Our work must be person-centered meaning that we must put the person first, strengthening voice and choice to direct their own lives. This self determination is not something that is natural in the way we support and nurture others. Mostly, when institutions provide services to people with disabilities, these services are prescribed by the institution, not the individual. It took many years to bend the system to a new way of operating where a person is put first, listened to first, and given first choice and only choice in their own lives. BUT there is one primary key to true choice or freedom in their lives. It is that we go the extra mile to ensure that choice, all choice, is INFORMED CHOICE. Because choices are not choices unless they are informed choices!

The bedrock of democracy is informed consent. (Daniel Dennett)

(also see, Informed Choices for a Stronger Democracy) 

For families, “Informed Choice means that families can make knowledgeable
decisions, which reflect their own culture, values and views. It is based on access to comprehensive, unbiased and evidence-based information, about the full range of options.” 19141 DfES_ES_.indd

For midwifery, see https://nurturingmidwifery.weebly.com/midwifery/category/informed-choice

For retirement insurance, see https://www.informedchoice.com/ 

For funeral planning, see https://www.informedchoice.org/

For patient-centered healthcare, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16103473/ 

If we look at the dilemma of true free will that is said to have eternal consequences, we must ask ourselves a few very basic questions:

1. Can we make a free choice without all of the evidence to review prior to
   
   making that choice? Are people damned to hell based on uninformed choices?
2. Or do they go to hell based on their own informed consent of free will?
3. Based on the assumption that god loves us, would he not want to make sure that all people have all the evidence they need to choose god? Or is this god laissez faire about who knows and who doesn’t, who believes and who doesn’t, who is provided with the truth and the evidence necessary to believe?
4. Based on the assumption that god is omnipotent, more powerful than anything in the universe, is there anything that god is not able to do to give evidence to those that require higher levels of evidence than others? Why doesn’t he? Is he less powerful or less loving?
5. Based on the assumption that god is omniscient (more intelligent than any other), would he not know what it is the people need as evidence in order to believe? And if he knows (omniscient), then, is he able (omnipotent), or does he care (omnibenevolent)? Maybe he just doesn’t love those enough that question and doubt things that don't make sense, those that have a higher standard for their belief, those that demand proof, those that use the full potential of their ability to think.
6. Then there is the assumption that god is omnipresent, with every person at every moment, in every situation, for all time. He sees all, hears all, and understands all. Isn’t that an additional reason for him to give more evidence to those that need more and a smaller amount of evidence to those that need less so that he can assure that all people believe guaranteeing that Jesus’ death is not in vain for anyone?
7. An omniscient god would know to do that, an omnipotent god would be able to do that, and an omnibenevolent god would “so love the world” that he would want to do that to make sure all understand enough to choose to believe.
8. Or would this god be so mindless and lazy and sloppy that he would force mankind to make UNINFORMED CHOICES? Is this not nothing more than irresponsible? Is this not simply bad design? Is this not simply heartless? Would anyone of sound mind believe in such a god? A god who sends people to hell even though they were not given an informed choice?

Do all people choose heaven or hell using informed choice? Would anyone choose such a place as hell with informed choice, joyously skipping down that broad path into hell fire?

An Old, Old Story based on crumbling foundations

 Our Story of Separation and Control

Introduction to a trilogy of the crumbling foundations of an old, old story

The Trilogy is listed at the end discussing the 10 Commandments, the Inspiration of the Bible, and the afterlife of punishment or reward.

Some people think that a myth is a story that has been told for many years that is not true. That is the current vernacular usage of myth that ignores its roots. A myth can be true or false. That really does not matter. What makes a myth is the impact it has on people’s lives individually and collectively (or culturally). A myth is any micro-narrative and macro-narrative that shapes culture, forming its values and beliefs around it. Generally, it is behind the scenes, under the surface, often unconscious and submerged, part of our automatic conditioning, our confirmation bias, our echo chamber of self selected sameness; and thus takes a lot of research and reflection to get to the bottom of it.

It is important to examine the stories that we tell ourselves so that we understand what drives us and forms us. Each of us have our own unique micro-narrative or story or myth that has shaped us and those we are close to. And each culture has its own macro-narrative that is the story of a people, that forms and shapes its values, beliefs, religion, politics, fine arts, and all of its creative expression. It is important to know that underlying story. But it is even more important to understand, not only what story is beneath the surface driving and forming us, but to understand what is further down, beneath the surface of that story.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious,

it will direct your life,

and you will call it fate.”

(Carl Jung)

"I asked myself, 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So... I took it upon myself to get to know my myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks... I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me." (Carl Jung)

Most people understand that in our western culture, the Christian religion has been highly influential in shaping the western hemisphere for 2000 years. So that means it is sort of etched in stone. But that also means, it is never really questioned. On the surface of the story of Christianity there are many many questions and contradictions, but we have been taught to gloss over them and never really ask the hard questions. We just walk on eggshells around the established order; heaven forbid we disrupt the status quo. It can be brutal to be labeled a questioner or a doubter or a skeptic or an outcast. I wonder why that is. What are we so afraid of? It is almost as if we were afraid to get a real answer, it might explode in our face, our head may explode, or our head may implode by cultural stoning due to our unbelief or something. 

Heaven and Hell and other such stories

 An odyssey of the gods

The Create & Fix cycle of the gods

Oh the stories we tell ourselves!!!

More than the destination

Life is about the journey.

More than the outcome

Life is about the process.

Life is less about what we do

than about how we do what we do.

Religion often directs people to focus on the fear of our inevitable demise: death and its defeat, i.e. eternal life, even though we know we do not really know.

When eternal life and heaven become the whole story,  

1. We are lying to ourselves because we cannot know anything for sure since there is no certainty.
2. We are distracting ourselves from the important things; life and unfolding meaning in each moment of every day. Meaning and purpose presupposes that we focus our awareness and attention on living.
3. If our whole life is focused on eternal life, then we train our minds to be in the future rather in the present moment. That future distraction becomes preexistent in our daily living. Instead of loving our neighbors, friends, family, and enemies unconditionally, the ends become preexistent in our present moment, distorting our view of people into souls only with little value beyond eternal life and heaven and hell. How can life have meaning if we are absent emotionally and spiritually? We must learn to be fully present each moment of each day, with ourselves and with each other.
4. I now realize that when I was a Christian, my interactions with others were almost always contingent on their faith. If they  did not believe in Christianity, then I was forced into a transactional relationship where out of guilt my main ulterior motive was to save their soul. (I feel sick to my stomach now as I realize how deeply ingrained this was).

The Macro Narrative: the primary story is quite a whopper that I've been rooting out of my system for 10 years now. Once upon a time there were three gods (father, son, spirit) that called themselves the one true god to distinguish themselves from all of the current gods by proclaiming that they are more powerful than all other gods so much so that people were forbidden to worship their old gods because of the jealousy (which comes from insecurity)  of this one true god. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Back before there was anyone to worship any gods, these three gods that called themselves the one true god and the most powerful of all the gods became lonely among themselves and decided that what they had wasn't good enough. So they began to conspire among themselves to find the best way to mitigate their loneliness. Being gods, they forgot that they are completely self-sufficient and without any need outside of themselves. So I figure since a self-sufficient god cannot be lonely and so created mankind out of that great need for companionship, what happened is that when people told the story of the gods and creation, mankind needed to project mankind’s own loneliness as an anthropomorphic attribute of the one true, all powerful, omniscient, omnipotent god. This way, mankind does not need to be ashamed of the neediness of his own loneliness since, of course, the gods are lonely too.

The way I see it is that 1) the nature of gods is being all powerful, all knowing, and all present. They know all, can do all, and have myriads of solutions to any problem possible. And 2), by the way the gods created mankind “in their image” so that when humans are children they are completely dependent but as they mature, they no longer are co-dependent on others to meet their basic needs. Assuming of course that the gods are no longer children, we would think that they could find ways to meet their own neediness..

 

There is a real design problem going both ways: mankind creating the gods and the gods creating mankind. Neither could get it right, although none of the guilty parties have been able to admit it. The issue is the problem of the chicken or the egg. Did mankind create the gods in a flawed state so that they could not be self-sufficient and so they could fall into the need-desire-craving cycle that comes from neediness and loneliness, desire and longing? In turn the gods created mankind out of their great loneliness so that mankind would be so flawed that he had no choice but to let his free will take over and be evil and break the only rule they were given, the same day they were created! They messed with god’s favorite tree. It was a huge huge rule of eternal impact and consequence. God told mankind not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Hmmm. Isn’t the knowledge of good and evil a good thing??? Wouldn’t the gods want mankind to have the knowledge of good and evil???? Anyway, what a bummer of an ending to mankind’s fellowship with god. They were then cast out of the garden along with being sent to hell when they die.

So in 6 days god created the heavens and the earth. On the 7th day he took a much deserved break and rested, as if the gods get tired like human beings. THEN on the 8th day, he torpedoed creation and never did get it right after that.

Here is another way to look at it. “Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.”

So, in spite of all of their divine attributes, they created tiny, self-destructive, flawed creatures that they knew (due to omniscience) would "fail" and "fall" and become totally despicable and depraved, losing so quickly the "fellowship" between men and the gods because even though the gods proclaimed creation to be good by saying, "It is good" and then taking a well deserved break on the Sabbath, their first stab at creation lacked proper foresight and strategic planning and they were left with nothing but depravity. The gods realized that this is not meeting their need for fellowship, which defeats the whole purpose of creating mankind in the first place. So at one point, because it kept getting worse and worse, the gods wiped out all of creation with a flood and started over, not realizing that "total depravity" would be left fully untouched by the flood. So anyway, they started over only to end up in the same place they were before the flood. So then there was this interesting "fix" where the gods (father, son, and spirit) decided, several thousand years later, that human sacrifice is the way to go. So they decided to save the world and sacrifice one of them in order to somehow make mankind good again; again forgetting that the cross and death of a god left mankind's total depravity completely untouched. I also noticed that the one god that drew the short straw and ended up being crucified and based on his prayers in Gethsemane didn’t seem to be in agreement, who would? “My god my god, take this cup from me!!!” And so now, look at the mess the gods have left us with! Then there was one last attempt to "fix" the world. The gods sent Donald Trump, the narcissistic man-boy bully to fix America and hence fix the world by osmosis or brainwashing Evangelical Christians and filling them up with all kinds of conspiracy theories through fear and hate, spewing lies and rage; making himself rich in the process. This brings us current in our story of the gods, as we wonder what's next. Nuclear annihilation? Environmental devastation? Technological collapse? But will that affect total depravity???  Oops. Then there is heaven and hell. Maybe these solutions will finally fix this mess that was created by the gods and blamed on mankind’s rule-breaking desire for the knowledge of good and evil. The fact of hell shows where the ultimate blame has been placed by the gods by their botched lonely creation scheme; blame mankind and punish them all forever, a true bully move by the gods.

It is Very Good!

Even in its own narrative, the creation story is told with God placing his approval and blessing on all of creation: “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:31 KJV)

We don’t hear this concept of the basic goodness of creation quoted and repeated very often by the western gods. Christian theology instead recreates its own story outside of the bible by repeatedly saying things like these: we are born in original sin, we are described as being totally depraved, we are fallen creatures, such a worm as I says the hymnist as an ongoing reminder of our need for a savior and our absolute need for external punishment and reward. This is  how we often see cults incentivizing people to be codependent on a strongman leader.  Funny thing is that as we mature naturally in life, most people shift external motivators to internal motivators. Success in life comes not from extrinsic locus of control but rather an internal locus of control. We know this and yet we continue to contradict our very nature with these imposed teachings that come from the human constructs of theology designed to create the need for religion, salvation, and a savior. This is how a self-fulfilling prophecy works. If we are told something enough, eventually we believe it. This basic core has been transposed into the way that capitalism creates its own success. Marketing and advertising is designed to create within us a false sense of need and want. We learn that we are falling short of the glory of culture and being popular so we go shopping and reimpose a new sense of identity which is all completely false, a facade, a lie. 

When I look at life, beyond the surface and all of the conditioning and messages basting us, I see within all of creation a basic goodness that can never be destroyed. The Quakers say that there is “that of God” in each person. All we need to do is learn to look for the divine within ourselves and others. When there is a need, rather than pray for change, Quakers hold the person in the Light knowing that is all that is needed. Jesus said for us to let our Light shine. Basic goodness is there if we can learn to see it. And if I or others feel like we have lost our way and can no longer see the goodness that is there, then what is needed is to sit with it and like a jar of water with mud mixed in, eventually, if we are still, the mud settles to the bottom and everything becomes clear again. Even though the mud is always with us, the potential to lose our way, or for things to become unclear, we can always be still and know that it will settle because as the eastern gods say and the great eastern sun displays so brilliantly, we begin with a foundation of Basic Goodness.

In a context of this, which I think is our reality, heaven and hell become meaningless myths that are created to impose fear and control and need and brokenness that we then become victims of until the great ones can save us: gods, saviors, preachers, priests, teachers, authorities, churches, heaven and hell, etc.

What are the logistics of heaven and hell?

Number of people that have lived on earth in the past 50,000 years = 108,000,000,000.

Percentage of Christians in the world = 31.2% generously speaking.

Percentage of Christians in the world one century ago = 35%

Presently there are 2,300,000,000 Christians in the world out of 7.7 billion

Since Christ, there have been 61 billion people. 

Currently there are 7.594 billion people in the world. Some say that we are depleting the earth’s resources with the number we have now, but if we give the benefit of the doubt and estimate far too high, we can say that a planet the size of earth could contain 12 billion people or so if sustained by magic and miracles. 

Missiologist Don Richardson wrote of a group of scientists who issued a report saying that from the beginning of recorded history, some 66 percent of everyone conceived in the womb has not survived to see a fifth year of life.  In his book, Secrets of the Koran, Richardson wrote:

This means that two-thirds of mankind have died either in the womb through miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or in childhood via disease, crime, war, accidents or natural disasters. Thus a large majority of all the people God has created in His likeness from the beginning of humankind are redeemed by this automatic childhood coverage aspect of redemption.

https://www.robertjmorgan.com/devotional/how-many-people-will-be-in-heaven/

Recalculating:

108,000,000,000 people that have ever lived plus 66% that died before they had a chance to live (See above). So 72,000,000,000 added to 108,000,000,000 = 180,000,000,000. Based on a population that is 50% larger than the population of the earth currently, then we will need one earth per 12,000,000,000. Or 15 earths to contain all people that lived and died. According to current estimates, about ⅓ of the population is christian. So 5 earths will be heaven with regular miracles to sustain each planet’s resources for eternity and keep everyone alive and happy in heaven. And then 10 of those earths would be hells, burning forever. So not only will there need to be some sort of constant miracles and magic to regenerate each person’s body, but we will also need constant miracles to regenerate 10 earths burning forever. Keep in mind that these earths and those bodies must be maintained and sustained so that they don’t burn up or blow up into oblivion so that they can truly be tortured forever. Because without extreme pain and suffering, this burning hate could not be fulfilled.

The idea that there is a hell is disconcerting and downright absurd in many ways:

a. Eternal punishment for temporal actions doesn’t make sense. The punishment doesn’t fit the “crimes.”

b. There’s nothing to learn in Hell because you never get out. Punishment is designed to have a purpose, to discipline and teach for repentance and change, but this is punishment without a purpose. That does not sound like an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient god. It sounds to me like the design of a horrible, despicable monster.

c. There’s considerable confusion about the physicality of such a place. Are we talking bodies literally burning here? Do they keep regenerating so they can keep burning? And what about the smell? It seems the Bible can’t make up its mind.

d. Jesus paid it all, they say, "god so loved the whole world." Except some of us will have to pay, too. And while it will take all eternity for us to pay for our 70 years of sins, Jesus paid for the sins of 180 billion people over a twelve hour period one Friday. Not THAT is quick and convenient.

e. Backing up to prior to the body burning up and the possibility of regeneration, we must have a body to begin with. Since those that are going to heaven have some sort of new heavenly body, do those going to hell get a newly created hellish body? Or are they just zombified with what is left of their decaying body. But what if it is too decayed and there is nothing left? Except dirt? Or maybe the ashes of a cremated body will burn in your stead. Can the dirt and ashes suffer instead? No matter what: THEY HAVE TO SUFFER IN PAIN! if the burning hatred of the lost will be assuaged for god and his righteous ones.

f. Then there is the quandary of people being raptured straight up to heaven in their current bodies instantaneously to be with Jesus (I don’t think they get to change on the way), then what about those that are babies or old or whatever. Are each of us doomed to the body we have or is there really a heavenly body. Do we have to start out with our current bodies and wait for the new version to be created? Not only do christians get instantly raptured but there is also this thing about “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." Wait! Absent from the body? To be present with the lord without your body? Then are we also equally present in hell without the body? What burns? What is tortured? It doesn’t seem like this thing was planned out very well, either that or the bible, the total source of knowledge, does not know but won’t admit that it does not know. WAIT! The word of god doesn't know. That means god doesn't know how he created all this to work.

g. A Question of Burnability.

What is there to burn after the body decays? Since we get heavenly bodies (what about clothes?), do we also get hellish bodies? Do they regenerate as they burn? Or are they fireproof? How does the fire not burn out? How does god sustain the resources to keep the fire stoked? Who tends and stokes the fire to make sure every one of those dirty, rotten 120,000,000 people suffer as much as possible for as long as possible. Otherwise it wouldn't be right because our hate would not be assuaged. 

h. A Question of Free Will.

Any human being, when given informed choice through authentic free will, would never choose ultimate horror over ultimate bliss. We know this. Either there is some form of enslavement and force or there is some level of extreme ignorance that prevents a person from choosing what is best for them and instead choosing self destruction. People that are informed presumes that they know the full picture and all the ramifications of choosing heaven or hell. But in actuality, that part of totally skipped and the issue becomes forcing people to believe in a god that has two known attributes: silence and invisibility. So blame for going to hell falls to those that did not inform all people currently on earth and all people that have ever lived on earth. Does that mean that they are the ones that should go to hell? Meaning that all silent Christians and the rest that did not inform all other human beings, past, present, and future, should take the blame and be sent to hell, while all those that do not believe be absolved of the blame that was never theirs in the first place. But, then, would they go to the heaven that is empty of believers that are to blame for not informing them? Hmmm.

i. Then there is the Question of the gloating and downright mean preachers and their followers. I'd rather burn in hell than to associate with people like Paul Washer who said: “The moment when you take your first step through the gates of hell, the only thing you will hear is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding and praising God because God has rid the earth of you. That's how not good you are.”

"American orator and freethinker Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) believed that compassion compelled him to save people not from hell, but rather from the belief that it existed: 'Think of the lives it has blighted—of the tears it has caused—of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. … It is a great pleasure to drive the fiend of fear out of the hearts of men, women and children. It is a positive joy to put out the fires of hell.'" (Contemplative Skeptic)

Four Reasons the Early Church Did Not Believe “Hell” Lasts Forever

Would God not have the same type of cosmic “elbow room” to take our souls on such a “Scrooge-like” post-mortem journey to repentance? Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, certainly allowed for this possibility: “God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the future.” Martin Luther’s letter to Hanseu Von Rechenberg, 1522.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/richardmurray/2019/07/four-reasons-the-early-church-did-not-believe-hell-lasts-forever/ 

A Matter of Integrity

“No god worthy of worship would damn anyone to hell for eternity for the “crime” of not believing in it, and no god worthy of worship would even want to be worshipped. If such a god actually does exist, I hope it burns in hell.” @zethsinian

If mankind can be damned to hell for these things…

Demanding to be worshiped and obeyed,

Destroying complete cities, genocide, and flooding the whole earth,

Sending people on a mission to assassinate someone,

Standing by and watching children suffer and die,

Then it would make sense for equal punishment of the gods.

Reality and Fiction

As James E. Caraway explains in his essay "Albert Camus and the Ethics of Rebellion," the person in revolt realizes the liberation this can bring:

"...man sees freedom in a new light. Freedom is no longer seen as coming from God or some transcendent being or idea, nor is it freedom to work toward some future goal. Rather, freedom is now seen as founded on the certainty of death and the absurd. With the realization that man has only this present life as a certainty and with the further realization that no transcendence beyond this life is admissible, comes the freedom and release to live the present life fully. This does not negate consideration for the future, but it does not allow the future to rob man of his present."

There is reality: concrete things that which we can see, touch, experience.

There are fictions: abstract things, images, and stories that exist solely in the mind.

What is being said in the quote above is what I believe with my whole being. It is not putting my hope in a fiction that we have been told that gives freedom. It is facing the reality and certainty of death and absurdity that gives true freedom. The reason is that it is a solid path we know we can follow. Facing our fears of death and the absurd is the only way to overcome and bring meaning to each present moment. We have been given “that which is” and for us to superimpose stories of the mind to cover up the reality of this life by denying death will accomplish nothing except that we live a lie and pretend that we have answers. Camus called this “philosophical suicide” which I see as even less courageous than physical suicide. 

In order to be truly free, we must learn to live without appeal, live without agenda, live in revolt against the power of death and absurdity over us, including the authorities and powers of this earth. When we pretend to be free and pretend to have a savior overcome death for us, still we die. None of us gets out of this thing alive. The only certainty is death. So how can we live a life of certainty of something that we know is uncertain? Eternal life or heaven or hell? I’m no longer interested in playing these games.

Which came first, society or the fear of god?

The questions: Was god and morality necessary for the development of societies? Or was the evolution of societies what compelled us to create gods?

"As chiefdoms or even kingdoms began to interact and merge, leaders needed a single umbrella to keep everyone in line.

“Moreover, if the moralizing god hypothesis was right, then social complexity should increase more rapidly after 'Big Religion' came to town — but the Seshat databank revealed the opposite for 12 diverse regions. From ancient Rome to Egyptian gods to Indian buddhism, moral faiths followed after social constructs and population growth.

“'Most of the time it was right around that million-person mark, where this transition seemed to happen,' Savage said. That’s when simple rituals morph into those driven by moral gods or supernatural beliefs that punish.

"Savage and his colleagues speculate that ancestral groups of this magnitude needed a unifying moral code to get different ethnicities to work together. Early societies started as single families and then ethnic groups. But as chiefdoms or even kingdoms began to interact and merge, leaders needed a single umbrella to keep everyone in line.

“'That could be a really powerful and useful way to prevent people from cheating each other, in these very large societies of unrelated people,' Savage said. 'They need to fulfill their commitments because if they don’t, they’ll be punished by God.'”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/which-came-first-society-or-a-fear-of-god

Gloating in the punishment of the damned and watching them burn forever

One of the saddest things about this story of hell that people believe is not that they believe in a god that would actually imagine hell, create one, and use it but the fact that Christianity and its god could actually have so much animosity and hatred for other that don't believe that they would find themselves taking pleasure in it. Check out the words of these venerable saints:

“In order that the happiness of the saints will be more delightful … they are permitted perfectly to behold the sufferings of the damned. … The saints will rejoice in the punishment of the damned … which will fill them with joy.”
— St. Thomas Aquinas

“The happiness of the elect will consist in part of witnessing the torments of the damned in hell, among whom may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives and friends; … but instead of taking the part of their miserable being, they will say ‘Amen!’, ‘Hallelujah!’, ‘Praise the Lord!’”
— Rev. Nathaniel Emmons (1745 – 1840)

 “You are going to see again the child … that was condemned to hell. See! It is a pitiful sight. The little child is in this red hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out. … It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. … You can see on the face of this little child what you see on the faces of all in hell – despair, desperate and horrible.” 

— Rev. J. Furniss, in “Tracts for Spiritual Reading“, a popular booklet for children (late 19th Century)

These are not people or gods that I could want to, in right conscience, identify with.

Those "other such stories"

Then There is Limbo; an alternate story

The Roman Catholic notion of Limbo was a triumph of graciousness over cruelty. In this case it was the cruelty implicit in the doctrine of hell. 

Nota bene: Human decency is more powerful than any creed.

And Don’t Forget the Purgatory Story

To me this confuses the afterlife even more and seems to prove even further that heaven, hell, purgatory, and limbo are man-made stories that we believe and then tell ourselves; stories in our head. Mankind must create these stories as a form of death denial even though we all know that we don’t know and can’t know; especially not from a god whose only attributes are silence and invisibility.

It seems that purgatory is a place for purging imperfections in order to prepare for glory. I guess it is a very different kind of fire. Whereas hell fire has no end point, neither in time (eternal) nor in process where it does not accomplish anything except pain, suffering, and eternal destruction; the fire of purgatory is a purifying fire so that for those that are really forgiven and but not made perfect by the death of Christ. Here they can be cleaned up for god’s unconditional love.

The Catholic Church gives the name purgatory to what it calls the after-death purification of "all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified".[29]

  

America's Death-Denying Culture

“American society is considered a death-denying culture. In general, we do not like to think about, talk about, or acknowledge death as an inevitable reality. ... The American death-denying culture affects the way that we react when faced with our own or a loved one's physical decline and mortality." 

Denial of Death and the Practice of Dying

Human beings are mortal, and we know it. Our sense of vulnerability and mortality gives rise to a basic anxiety, even a terror, about our situation. So we devise all sorts of strategies to escape awareness of our mortality and vulnerability, as well as our anxious awareness of it. This psychological denial of death, Becker claims, is one of the most basic drives in individual behavior, and is reflected throughout human culture. Indeed, one of the main functions of culture, according to Becker, is to help us successfully avoid awareness of our mortality. That suppression of awareness plays a crucial role in keeping people functioning–if we were constantly aware of our fragility, of the nothingness we are a split second away from at all times, we’d go nuts. And how does culture perform this crucial function? By making us feel certain that we, or realities we are part of, are permanent, invulnerable, eternal. And in Becker’s view, some of the personal and social consequences of this are disastrous.

First, at the personal level, by ignoring our mortality and vulnerability we build up an unreal sense of self, and we act out of a false sense of who and what we are (1). Second, as members of society, we tend to identify with one or another “immortality system” (as Becker calls it). That is, we identify with a religious group, or a political group, or engage in some kind of cultural activity, or adopt a certain culturally sanctioned viewpoint, that we invest with ultimate meaning, and to which we ascribe absolute and permanent truth (2). This inflates us with a sense of invulnerable righteousness. And then, we have to protect ourselves against the exposure of our absolute truth being just one more mortality-denying system among others, which we can only do by insisting that all other absolute truths are false. So we attack and degrade–preferably kill–the adherents of different mortality- denying-absolute-truth systems. So the Protestants kill the Catholics; the Muslims vilify the Christians and vice versa; upholders of the American way of life denounce Communists; the Communist Khmer Rouge slaughters all the intellectuals in Cambodia; the Spanish Inquisition tortures heretics; and all good students of the Enlightenment demonize religion as the source of all evil. The list could go on and on.

(1)   So these death denying immortality systems of belief become psychological body armor (or emotional character armor)  to protect us from the primal reality of life; and that is the inevitability of death. The fact that it is built on a false sense of permanency and immortality shows us that we are simply donning a mask to hide behind so that we can avoid the bone jarring terror of our ultimate and inevitable demise.

(2)   If I am absolutely right, then that makes you absolutely wrong. Two opposing absolutes cannot be true. So we are forced to fight over what we think is the real ultimate truth because this illusion has become the rope from which we are dangling over our own personal, self-defined pits of annihilation.