Monday, February 26, 2007

QUOTE TUESDAY III

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND: "Of course 'academic freedom' is the final refuge in which professors hide when confronted with the absurdity and arragance of their decisions. It is a waisteland totally unmoored from standards, where activity can be justified if it exceeds our 'comfort level' by 'challenging' our preconceptions." - Charlie Crist, Florida Commissioner of Education





About ten years ago, I was riding out to go cross country skiing with my father, not a believer in God or an afterlife, when he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "Do you know why I take on life with such vigour? It is because this is all there is and I have to get it in before it is all over." I thought of him, now in a nursing home, when my eye caught this poem. I pray it for him.

HEAVEN
Think of-
Stepping on shore and finding it Heaven!
Of taking hold of a hand, and finding it God's hand.
Of breathing a new air, and finding it celestial air.
Of feeling invigorated, and finding it immortality.
Of passing from storm to tempest to an unbroken calm.
Of waking up, and finding it Home.
-unknown

2 comments:

sattvicwarrior said...

your " quote" from
Charlie Crist, Florida Commissioner of Education
thats a JOKE RIGHT? that CANT be SERIOUS!!!!!!! if it is its SCARY!!!!!!!!!!

Odysseus said...

"Do you know why I take on life with such vigour? It is because this is all there is and I have to get it in before it is all over."

Yikes! That is a scary mindset. Pondering the same thing when I was younger, I realized that, if this is really all ther eis it to it, then, when we are dead we won't even be able top remember it. It will be as if we never existed. We will have no viewpoint from which to treasure or regret the past.

Therefore, since we won't exist (my thinking went) it will be as if we never existed! Needless to say, that was the most depressing thought I ever had.

That's what I always mention to atheists. Agnosticism, doubt, I can understand. But if you are certain there is no God, you might as well kill yourself, because even the good parts of life will basically be erased when you die. It's not like you will have some ghostly vantage in the future from which you will be able to appreciate the past. Even your memories will be gone.

I think most atheists manage to get through each day because, privately, they imagine this ability to remember their life once they are dead, and this is why they seek so much pleasure. I think if they confronted this idea directly they would have to reconsider their views about divinity and the afterlife.

By the way, father, thanks for dropping by my website.