I was talking with my lady-friend this afternoon about how if I’m ever mentally impaired, I just want to die. Physician assisted suicide would be great, but if it comes down to it, just burn down my house with me in it. Hell, I’m a retard now, it’s not my fault I couldn’t get out. Have a little sympathy. Actually, we all should have a little sympathy. As healthy, fully-functioning adults (for the most part), we can’t possibly imagine the fear and anguish that a life like that would hold. Far be it from me to tell someone else that they can’t die (they can by the way, in case you weren’t sure). All I’d like is the same. So if a doctor will help, great, fortunately I live in the Great State of Oregon where that kind of stuff is legal, but either way, just let me go.
So my lady-friend was telling me about how her parents had told her that if they were ever incapacitated, that they would want to be taken off of life support (now I just need to find a way to incapacitate them…). And we got to talking about how you tell your kids about a decision like that. I thought that it’s appropriate to just be frank: “Don’t worry, at some point everybody dies. It’s completely normal, and you will have a bunch of other people who will take care of you and look after you and love you. It’s not something to be afraid of, if it happens we won’t be in any pain at all.”
We agreed that straightforward honesty is really the best approach. But then we got to talking about people of other faiths. Namely the Christians. And we realized that straightforward “honesty” from them would be pretty fucking terrifying:
On death: “Don’t worry, we’ll only die if God wants us to. Why would he want to kill off both of your parents? Um… well, uh, he works in very mysterious ways. Like a sociopathic murderer from an R rated movie that we wouldn’t let you watch. But it’s ok, because he has a plan and eventually everybody dies and gets to be with him in heaven, which is perfect. Well, almost everyone. Of course the Jews, Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, homosexuals, Mormons, Catholics, Hindus, Taoists, Sikhs, Shintos, liberals, Zoroastrianists, Pagans, Unitarians, Tom Cruises, and various tribal believers will all burn in the fiery tar-pits of hell for all eternity and will suffer unrelenting anguish because God loves them and wants to really, really, really prove it to them. But don’t worry about us, because assuming that we picked the one true denomination that God actually supports, we’ll be in paradise just waiting for you. And it will be great there. But not so great that we want to die to find out.”
On sex: “This is shameful and bad. Don’t do it. In fact, don’t even want to do it, talk about doing it, watch people doing it, look at pictures of people doing it, or read about people doing it. Until you’re married. Then you can do it. But only with the one person you’re married to, and you can’t ever change your mind or marry anyone else. And you still can’t even want to do it with anyone else, or when you die, [see: On death].”
On homosexuality: “These people are sinners. It’s gross, and dispicable, and they’re going to pay for it eventually. [see: On death] In the meantime, we have to love them, just like Jesus taught us to. The best way that we can love them is to limit their civil rights, ensure that their relationships are not socially recognized, ostracize them, force them to pay more in taxes, and protest whenever they get together to show support for each other. And also, we should amend the constitution to make sure that they know that this is just the way it’s going to be. Just like Jesus would do.”
On the origin of life: “Well, one day, Magic-God decided that he was bored. Ok, well it doesn’t exactly say that in the bible, but then it doesn’t really say anything about why all of a sudden he decided to do it, so this is what we think makes sense. So anyway, Magic-God said “poof” and made the world. In seven days. Yeah, he’s all-powerful and stuff, but seven days is still pretty fast, don’t you think? Yeah, I’m sure he could have done it faster, but he works in mysterious ways. Well, technically it was only six days. On the seventh, God needed to rest. Hey, even perfect beings need to take a break every now and again. You can’t be perfect all the time. It’s not like he’s Martha Stewart. So he made the world and every animal in it. And fossils are fake, and don’t listen to your science teacher. Or read National Geographic. Or encyclopedias. Or any book. It’s a cultural conspiracy, the DEVIL IS TRYING TO TEST YOU!!!
Or maybe, if on the completely off-chance we’re wrong about this, then there’s an alternative called “Intelligent Design”: God intended for evolution to happen. So he didn’t really do it in seven days. He just got it started in seven days. It actually took millions and millions of years make it all happen. Actually it’s still happening. Yeah, that whole Genesis bit was a little misleading. He works in mysterious ways.”
Sometimes, I sure am glad that I won’t have to make up any fantasies when my kids ask me about this shit.
