Life before death?

The afternoon of my last blog post I finished reading Caitlin Moran's autobiography, How to be a woman. I realise Ms Moran is not everyone's cup of tea, but last year we bonded over a shared experience of being passed over for the part of Mary in the school nativity, and we're the same age and therefore destined to become best friends should we ever meet in real life.

Actually, I suspect age and early Christmas rejection are probably pretty much the only things we have in common if her autobiography is anything to go by. Certainly one view we don't share is a belief in life after death (I do; she doesn't). But she has some interesting things to say about how what we believe about death shapes the way we choose to live our lives, and I think those of us that believe death isn't the end would do well to think seriously about what she has to say. So to help you do that, here she is...

Personally, I like the fact that we’re going to die. There’s nothing more exhilarating than waking up every morning and going ‘WOW! THIS IS IT! THIS IS REALLY IT!’ It focuses the mind wonderfully. It makes you love vividly, work intensely, and realise that in the scheme of things, you really don’t have time to sit on the sofa in your pants watching Homes Under The Hammer.

Death is not a release but an incentive. The more focused you are on your death, the more righteously you live your life. My traditional closing-time rant […] is that humans still believe in an afterlife. I genuinely think it’s the biggest philosophical problem the earth faces. Even avowedly non-religious people think they’ll be meeting up with nana and their dead dog, Crackers, when they finally keel over. Everyone thinks they’re getting a harp.

But believing in an afterlife totally negates your current existence. It’s like an insidious and destabilising mental illness. Underneath every day – every action, every word – you think it doesn’t really matter if you screw up this time around because you can just sort it all out in paradise. You make it up with your parents, and become a better person and lose that final stone in heaven. And learn how to speak French. You’ll have time, after all! It’s eternity! And you’ll have wings, and it’ll be sunny! So, really, who cares what you do now? This is really just some lack lustre waiting room you’re only going to be in for 20 minutes, during which you will have no wings at all, and are forced to walk around, on your feet, like pigs do.

If we wonder why people are so apathetic and casual about every eminently avoidable horror in the world – famine, war, disease, the seas gradually turning yellow and filling with ringpulls and shattered fax machines – it’s right there. Heaven. The biggest waste of our time we ever invented, outside of jigsaws.
Only when the majority of the people on this planet believe – absolutely – that they are dying, minute by minute, will we actually start behaving like fully sentient, rational and compassionate beings. […] When everyone in the world admits they’re going to die, then we’ll really start getting some stuff done.



Ashamed of ourselves?

Most mornings I wake up to the sound of Radio 4's Today programme. I like that it means before I've even got out of bed I've got a basic handle on the current state of the world. I realise this isn't everyone's idea of a great way to start the day, but it works for me!

It's rare I hear a theme emerging as I drift in and out of consciousness, but today I did. It was the simple fact that we as a nation are still shockingly bad at caring for and valuing the most vulnerable in our society. First there was the headline news of the 'scandalous' quality of care extended to young people who run away from residential homes, quickly followed by evidence that a significant proportion of those suffering from depression receive little or no treatment . Then there was an item highlighting the fact that those who care for disabled family members often put their own health at risk by delaying going to their GP when they're ill. And finally (and this gives you and indication of what time I eventually got up this morning!) one of the items on Women's Hour this morning was about the recent sharp rise in the number of homeless people in the UK.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

And, I would venture to suggest, those of us who would describe ourselves as Bible-believing Christians should be the most ashamed. Around two hundred years ago, an assorted collection of Christians, from across the social and theological spectrums, took it upon themselves to take seriously the Biblical call to show their faith by what they did. We might now have questions about some of their approaches, but they transformed our medical professions, our schools and our attitude to welfare. I think they'd be pretty disappointed in us.