Due to constant misunderstanding with my name I feel the need to change my intro. I am hateful, hateful of religion. I hate what religion does to people and that people use it as an excuse to not think. I have spent many years of my life as an Atheist and have learned to handle my emotions, but no other word quite describes how I feel towards religion short of hate. I am outspoken, open minded, and will share my opinion. If you're looking for someone who will always agree with you, that won't be me.
The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism
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21st May 2012

Question with 3 notes

Anonymous asked: Questions for the Atheist guru to answer (since nobody else will!): 1. Why is it that when people die, even the most religious of the religious cry their asses off when they should be Celebrating over the deceased one's ascension to Heaven? 2. When a pope dies why do all the Christians pray their asses off over it when, if anyone, a Pope should have a guaranteed one-way ticket to Heaven and be the Last one on Earth who needs prayer? And why line up to see his decaying corpse?

1. There have actually been some religious groups and individuals that did celebrate death. There are some factions that would party and congratulate the departed on the fact that they would get to experience paradise. It doesn’t happen often but personally I think that remembering someone should be more about celebrating their life than mourning their death. Death reaches us all, but the events of our lives are what makes life unique.

Other than that the most logical and obvious reason is what drives a lot of religion, ego and solipsism. People are upset because they are without that person. They are upset because they are missing out on being with that person. I am not saying that mourning the death of a person is a selfish act in itself. Especially for non-believers who know we will never see these people again, we have plenty of reason to mourn and be sad. Those that honestly believe the dead are going to a better place, where they will one day join them, it makes much less sense.

2. Only Catholics in particular will venerate the Pope and they mostly do it because of the loss of guidance they have on earth. The Pope is the most venerated man in traditional Catholicism and as a result most looked to for guidance and information. When the Pope dies people see it as if a man with one of the closest associations to “God” has died. They are then without his “wisdom” to direct their faith and the ancient ceremonies and traditions are set in to place once again with people jockeying for position. There really are quite a good deal of politics involved in the selection of a new Pope.

As for why they all want to see their corpse, personally I am a little unsure on this myself. Perhaps just a way to say good bye. Traditionally death and corpses are something that people are naturally adverse to. There has often been discussion in religious circles about particularly pious people’s corpses behaving differently, perhaps even being “incorruptible” and is why many corpses have been entombed in glass display boxes to be ogled by the faithful. It seems to be quite a strange custom indeed.

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  1. hatefulatheist posted this