SET IN STONE
I think, therefore I am. –René Descartes
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You will (hopefully) recall that my last post, STONE COLD DEAD, featured some of my favorite epitaphs published 4 years ago on SWI (a blog due to bite the dust in November). Ah, but the best laid plans…. The SWI editor announced on 9/1 that he would now need to pull the plug first thing on Sept. 6; thus today becomes SWI’s last full day on this earth.
This sudden passing prompts me to salvage another of my previously published posts from that body of work: a poem which poses a question I believe naturally arises out of STONE COLD DEAD. Unlike that post, it ain’t funny, but perhaps the poem’s saving grace is that what it lacks in humor, it makes up in brevity. It’s the least I can do on Labor Day.
LUCKY STIFFS
Are the faithful
dead better positioned
to be saved
than those who
lived with doubt?
Even a God
can’t help being
what He thinks.
painkills2 12:13 am on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
Saved from what? After you’re dead, no one can save you. But if this is about hell, then I don’t want to be saved — that’s where all the fun people go. 🙂
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mistermuse 6:44 am on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
Think of this poem as if it were written by an agnostic. Then the question becomes: If there is a God and an afterlife, is He any more morally fit to judge you than you are to judge Him? If there is no afterlife, it’s irrelevant whether or not there is a God, because we will never know either way.
I might add that the God(s) of religions and myth only muddy the waters of how to think about this whole business of a possible Creator. The word “God” itself seems to me to be an impediment to rational thinking about life and all that it may imply.
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painkills2 1:09 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
I suppose those who believe in a god also believe that this god is always right and shouldn’t be questioned. As for anyone — supernatural or not — who thinks they have the right to judge me, well, they’re wrong. 🙂
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mistermuse 1:53 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink
That’s the spirit (If you’ll pardon the pun)!
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scifihammy 7:12 am on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
Nice one 🙂
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mistermuse 9:26 am on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
They say it takes one to know one, so you’re a “nice one” too. 🙂
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Cynthia Jobin 9:41 am on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
“God is dead.” —Nietzsche, 1883
“Nietzsche is dead.” —God, 1900
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mistermuse 9:51 am on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
“We’re all dead.” –Kismet, sooner or later 😦
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arekhill1 11:42 am on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
Yes, death is the ultimate way of fitting in.
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mistermuse 1:32 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
I’d call it forced integration God’s way….except for Christians, who make Book on to a different afterlife divide: heaven or hell.
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Don Frankel 5:02 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
All things come to an end but nothing really dies on the internet. It just spins somewhere throughout the universe. And, since we’re doing some oldies I can’t help but recall once again my favorite Epitaph on a Tombstone in Tombstone.
Here Lies Lester Moore
4 slugs from a .44
No Les
No More
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mistermuse 8:16 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
I remember that one, Don — it’s one of my favorites as well.
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carmen 6:18 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
I can never think about this topic (death) without this song running through my mind. I heard it for the first time when I was a teenager and it has stuck in my head ever since. Like this post, it’s remarkable for its brevity.
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mistermuse 8:14 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
Thanks for the song clip. When it comes to war and brevity, it took William Tecumseh Sherman only three words to tell it like it is: “War is hell.”
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BroadBlogs 7:28 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
I don’t know why God would punish our authenticity. Job is an interesting book to read on this topic.
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mistermuse 9:01 pm on September 5, 2016 Permalink |
Well, this subject would take an entire post to address in depth, including (for starters) whether or not one accepts the story of Job as having a basis in reality. For atheists and agnostics, it’s a non-starter to begin with, because if you disbelieve or doubt that God exists, Job is meaningless. Personally, as a deist who believes in a Creator but not the so-called “revealed God” of most religions, it is not my job to take Job seriously (pun intended).
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Carmen 5:18 am on September 6, 2016 Permalink |
Besides which, if you do read about poor old Job – and take the ‘lesson’ seriously-, you end up wondering why anyone would think Yahweh had any redeeming qualities.
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mistermuse 7:13 am on September 6, 2016 Permalink
Amen, sister! 🙂
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Superduque777 7:49 am on September 8, 2016 Permalink |
CARPET DIEM
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mistermuse 10:09 am on September 8, 2016 Permalink |
You would never guess from that photo what the girl is actually saying to the pope: “Ubi possum potiri petasi similis isti?” (“Where can I get a hat like that?”)
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carmen 10:12 am on September 8, 2016 Permalink |
. . .and he’s probably saying, “Go now and spin no more”. . 🙂
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mistermuse 10:39 am on September 8, 2016 Permalink |
No doubt Jim Beam had something to say about it too, but it looks like the pope is keeping it close to his vest-ments.
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