#afterlife

It's an insidious idea, this notion that there is life after death. The promise of a reward in the afterlife has been used as an excuse to deny help to the poor, helpless and oppressed; to explain away human misery rather than deal with it. It is an idea that is used to encourage young men and women to kill themselves, and others, so that they can become martyrs. It allows victims of injustice to be told not to worry because justice will be done in the afterlife. It depresses me to think that so many people on the planet live their lives with this notion. Can we truly fulfill our potential as a species as long as we hold on to, and encourage, the perpetuation of the lie of life after death? ↗

— Alom Shaha

#atheism #injustice #justice #life-after-death #martyrs

I've been to the other side...You're dead there, too. ↗

— Courtney Kirchoff

#death-and-dying #death

I don't feel so sad when somebody dies, Julio, because they fly away to explore the stars and planets. When it's our turn we join them in exploring the universe. ↗

— Gilbert Hernández

#death #dying #universe #death

For a more than miffed Midnight, fate was for emperors, fools and soppy lovers: - fate was the self-important egotism of those doing well, the sheer unbearable arrogance of the living and loved. ↗

— Tom Conrad

#arrogance #chance #destiny #fate #fools

He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different world, and then we'll build... The Republic of Heaven. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#freedom #heaven #freedom

I don't have too much faith in destiny, or an afterlife. This is it. ↗

— Robin Gibb

#destiny #faith #i #much #too

To be or not to be tethered to the sordid, sickly, stinking, sappy apron strings of Hollywood and its endless fondness for fu**ing your sh** up. If Shakespeare were alive today, I bet he’d write a scintillating soliloquy about the Broken Brood of Big Shots. I bet he’d help you out, Micky Affias, ol’ Will the Bard would. Listen, we’ll come visit you. Okay? I’ll dress up as William Shakespeare, Lucent as Emily Dickinson, and beautiful ‘Ray’ as someone dashing and manly like Jules Verne or Ernest Hemingway, and we’ll write on your white-room walls. We’ll write you out of your supposed insanity. I love you, Micky Affias. -James (from "Descendants of the Eminent") ↗

— Tim Cummings

#afterlife #astrology #brothers #children-of-celebrities #class-struggle

Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us. ↗

— Jim Carroll

#conscience #death #ghosts #poetry #death

So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know. ↗

— Marcus J. Borg

#bible #christianity #death #heaven #hell

The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife - a depressing thought, particularly for those who bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it's being held. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily laying down. ↗

— Woody Allen

#death #death