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Foreword
Any piece of writing presupposes that it’s author has a goal in mind, or at least something that he’d like to say. With such an evocative title, I’d like to clarify my plan here. My goal is not to disprove Christianity in any way. When it comes to religion, I’m not so sure that Truth really matters. What matters, at least in regards to my hopes for this book, are the mentalities and lifestyles they create. Christianity offers a beautiful lifestyle; if one were to take Christ’s teachings seriously (something that seems to be rare in churches these days) then, I believe, they would live a good, productive life and could be of enormous benefit and positive influence to the people around them.
The issue I’d like to raise with Christianity is the underlying mentality it creates, the subconscious perspective it fosters in a believer. When someone chooses to believe in something as ardently as Christians believe in their religion, there are effects in every aspect of their being. A strong belief in one area, as in the nature of God or the afterlife, carries over into other areas, such as how we look at ourselves or others. The way a person understands the world around him, which is what religion attempts to address, will always affect a person’s perspective on everything else, if that person’s belief is genuine. This perspective is what I call mentality and Christianity’s negative effects on mentality are what I would like to address in this book.
I grew up in a protestant Christian home. I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart when I was nine years old, and was baptized when I was seventeen (in protestant sects of Christianity it is not common to baptize babies, as Catholics do, but instead you choose for yourself when to be baptized). I took my religion very seriously. I went to three different countries on missions trips (Mexico, Fiji, and Northern Ireland), I led bible studies, led prayers for the whole church, and even dated the churches “golden girl.” I acted in church plays, played the alto sax in the church band, and was known by name to most of the congregation.
But my goal in life was always to be the best person I could be (“best” eventually coming to mean “the most myself”). This quest is what eventually led me away from Christianity. In retrospect, my deviation began much earlier than I had realized, sometime around my eighteenth year in this life, and took some six years to become complete, when I finally realized that I was no longer a Christian. The first portion of that half-dozen years was spent gathering information, through reading and experience, about anything and everything. The last half was spent contemplating that information and, finally, in dealing with the residual effects of Christianity on my mind. Those effects proved to be a formidable obstacle in my search for understanding, and it took much effort to weed them out.
In this book I hope to present some of those obstacles so that others may recognize them and not be hampered on their own journeys of self-actualization. Christians may benefit from this book in that it will provide them with another way to look at their religion and the effects it has on the mind, so that they may have a fuller knowledge and understanding of what their choice to believe entails. The idea of choice presupposes full knowledge of the subject at hand. If you are going to make a choice, you should first fully understand the options. Only then is a “choice” actually possible. This is what it means to be free: having all the knowledge necessary so as to be able to actually choose. The reason this book was written is to help people choose, and, in the end, to help them be free.
Me Against the World
I had a conversation with a Christian lady once that exemplified this mentality. We were talking about the Islamic religion and its people. At some point in the conversation, the lady referred to Islamic practitioners as “the enemy.” I was floored. She literally looked at Islamic people as an invading enemy, to be fought back and held off. Now my point here is not whether Islam is a negative influence (with all the militant sects of Islam one must remember that these are only an interpretation of the religion) but to explore the mentality required to view another people as the “enemy.”
There is a verse in the bible that calls Christians to be “in the world but not of the world.” There are many other verses that warn of the many evils that the world has in store for Christians. It seems to me that there are two subtly different interpretations of this verse that create two surprisingly different outcomes in mentality.
Where I live is considered the bible belt of California (at least, that is what we call it). Recently, this verse has shown up in a Christian apparel company called Not of This World, or NOTW. The most noticeable expression of this company has been in car stickers. They are everywhere, but it seems the stickers mostly show up on a type of vehicle that is also very popular here; the lifted truck.
Now let us examine for a short period the lifted truck. For most people, even people who work in construction or some other similarly rugged field, there is almost no practical reason to own a lifted truck a large amount. Lifting your truck does not drastically improve clearance (larger tires do that), gas mileage, or load capacity. Even if lifting a truck is necessary for someone, I don’t spend my time around jobsites. The lifted trucks I see are on the street, day to day, where they only serve to threaten to crush all others cars around them.
What I saying is this: lifting a truck is excessive. It is also expensive. When someone drives a lifted truck down the street, they are all basically giving the same message: “I have enough disposable income to drive around in this ridiculously large truck.” A lifted truck is not about practicality, it is about showing off material wealth, which is not a very Christian mentality. Not slap a NOTW sticker on the truck and it seems to me that there exists a glaring contradiction. The desire for wealth and the need to express it is, in my opinion, a very worldly thing. Indeed, the bible even warns Christians of wealth when Christ says, “It is harder for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”
Now consider this: at the church where I grew up, all the pastors drove Lincolns. My uncle was a pastor and he owned a Roles Royce, his son a Range Rover. People personally spend thousands a year to send their kids to Christian school, where most of the education is the same (or even worse in some areas, in my opinion) as public schools.
What does this tell us? When Christians are told to not be of the world, they are not applying that verse to all the entrapments of society such as wealth and status. They are applying it to people, non-Christians. When a person puts a NOTW sticker on his lifted truck, he is actually saying, “Hey, I can drive this lifted truck just like you, but check out the sticker. I’m a Christian, not like you at all.” Parents put their kids into private Christian schools not for the better education, but to separate them from the non-Christian world. This is an interesting distinction for a group called to love others above themselves to make.
Now we can begin to see where the idea of looking at others as the “enemy” can come from in Christianity. Class distinctions, in all its varieties, have been a major source, if not the, source, of human conflict throughout history. The haves vs. the have-nots, the whites vs. the blacks, this country vs. that country, and, finally, Christians vs. non-Christians. How can we ever hope to enjoy a world of peace and love when such distinctions exist? To me, the divisions only serve to hinder the cause of total human equality. Indeed, they are in complete contradiction with it.
It is worth saying here that I believe this Christian perspective to be a gross misinterpretation. To me, the “not of this world” verse is clearly a warning against the material trappings of our lives, which the lifted truck so perfectly exemplifies. Christ took food with what were considered the worst people in his time: the beggars, the taxmen, the criminals. But, he most certainly did not display wealth. He walked around in sandals and a robe and talked to people. And since there were no Christians, (he was, after all, the first) Christ spent his time with non-Christians. Others were not the “enemy,” they were his brothers. How far the apple has fallen from the tree, and to such awful consequence.
All that being said, it seems apparent to me the negative outcome of this mentality. In this way, modern Christianity fosters a perspective detrimental to the noble ideas of tolerance and unification. I think even Christ would agree.
I Have the Answer, What Else Do I Need?
When the Oracle at Delphi was asked, “Who is the wisest man in the world?” she answered that it was Socrates. Why? Because he claimed to know nothing, that he was in complete ignorance. There is an important lesson to be learned from this story, one that the Christian mentality opposes.
Life is a journey. Everyday we are presented with new information about ourselves and the world around us that, if considered, can lead to greater knowledge and a better understanding. It is a learning process, and, in my eyes, that learning is precisely what makes us human and gives our lives purpose. If you are no longer learning, what reason do you still have to be alive? One of the pitfalls of Christianity is that it claims to hold Absolute Truth in its hands. Christians have the answer, the only one, the right one. In believing that they are exclusively right, they infer that all other perspectives are wrong. Indeed, being wrong in Christianity means going to hell.
This mentality creates a mind that is resistant to learning. A mind that believes it has the answer as a wall; new information bounces off of it unless in agreement with the pre-decided conclusion (in Christianity, that through Christ is the only path to heaven). This is the definition of close-mindedness. A mind that has no answer is like a doorway; all information is welcome for equal consideration. There is no prior bias. This is the open-mind, the mind truly capable of learning, of living. Really, there is no such thing as an open-minded Christian. The Christian’s mind is made up.
I accepted Christ into my heart at a young age (nine years old) and held true to that view for at least a solid decade. A Christian would look at this as a decade of faith (which I will talk about in a later essay). I look at it now as a decade of stagnancy. For an entire decade, my understanding of myself and of the world did not change, for better or for worse. \ When I reached my nineteenth year, I still had the same fundamental perspective that I had when I was nine. Nine years old. I was just a child when I decided that I knew the truth. I work with children now ( I am a rock climbing instructor) and while children posses many admirable traits (their joy, their inherent purity, their simplicity), their knowledge is now one of them. A co-worker and I have a running joke we like to use on the kids. When a kid tries to tell us something (with kids, you never know what that “something” will be) we say “you’re just a little kid, you don’t know anything.” And it’s true. Children haven’t gathered enough information nor have they developed the cognitive skills necessary to “know.” Truly, I am just an adult, and I don’t know anything. And yet, in Christianity it is common for children to profess their faith at a young age. Think back to all the things you believed in when you were a child. How many of those beliefs still hold to be true today?
In my opinion, life is a learning tool. To learn is to be alive. The opposite is to be dead to life. Water is the basis for life, but more specifically, moving water. Stagnant water quickly becomes tainted and fails to support life. The same can be said about the mind. A running mind lives. It has no shape, it erodes through barriers, it takes part in the creation and support of life. The stagnant mind does nothing but wallow in its own staleness. The stagnant mind the closed mind, the mind made up, kills life, just as stagnant water becomes poison and does the same.
Spiritual Elitism
One of the mission trips I went on took me to Derry, Northern Ireland, the city where the “Bloody Sunday” incidents took place. The city there is still fiercely divided into Protestants and Catholics. There are Protestant neighborhoods and Catholic neighborhoods; they hang flags or paint their curbs to indicate what denomination a household is. While there, the group I was with ran a non-denominational children’s program in an effort to show the kids that the two sects of Christianity could get along. We had to break up fights among the kids.
Derry is a siege city; a large stone wall surrounds a bulk of the city. It’s common for teens to walk the wall at night, drinking alcohol and smoking. We spent one night on the wall passing out hot chocolate and coffee in the cold air. I was talking to an Irish teenager (I was only a few years older myself at the time), when a bottle smashed on the brick walkway, right in front of me. I looked up to where the bottle had come from, my left, to see a mob of Protestants, yelling and screaming and throwing trash. To my right was the opposing army: a mob of Catholics. The forces yelled insults and profanities at each other, while members from both sides ushered my group and I off the wall (in this way, they honored our neutral position). Once the way was clear, the armies charged each other, letting fly with bottles and cans, and full brawl/riot ensued.
My experiences in Northern Ireland persisted in my thoughts for quite some time after I returned home. What made these people hate each other so much? What was the root cause? The essential teachings of their religions were the same; Protestantism and Catholicism are both denominations of Christianity. They are brother institutions. Where did these family feuds come from?
The culprit here, in my opinion, is Absolute Truth. The idea of Absolute Truth, which is central to Christianity, allows no room for multiple perspectives. There is only one truth, they say, all else is wrong. Even under the banner of Christianity they argue: my version of the truth is right, not yours. They say that knowledge, or truth, is power. Then, it follows that Absolute Truth is Absolute Power, and we all know what Absolute Power does: corrupts absolutely. When you give people absolute truth, vanity, pride, and self-glorification are just around the corner. It feels good to be right. Most people will do anything to hold onto that illusion once they have had a taste, hence the conflicts Derry.
So while Christianity teaches that men are fallible, it equips Christians with the tool they need to satisfy the ego’s desire to be infallible (mind you, the desire to be infallible is very different from the desire for Truth or Knowledge). This “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality is at the root of every instance of elitism in human history. Indeed, a major portion of nearly all conflict, whether on a global or personal scale, can probably be traced back to this perspective.
Think about the term “heathen.” Is there a better example of Christian elitism? The Christians turns up his nose and says, “I am a Christian. You are a heathen.” This view has nothing to do with equality. It is the opposite. What the Christian is actually saying is: “I am better than you.” And so follows the Crusades. And so people stand outside of abortion clinics and yell hatefully at women. And so people hold up signs that say “God hates fags.” Where is the supposed Christian love in all this? You cannot truly love what you do not consider equal to yourself. Otherwise, you will always love yourself more, and in looking down at others, you exclude them. How the world be improved with this mentality?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
It was a lovely, crisp day. The sun warmed my skin wherever they met and a cool breeze kept the air in my lungs cold and fresh. I was tired, but the view I had made the fatigue easy to forget. Hundreds of feet below me, trees spread out to the horizon, a jagged line of mountainous forest. The sky was cloudless and a hue of blue that was easy on the eyes. I looked down at the roughly six hundred feet of rock I had just climbed with satisfaction and then at my climbing partner Jeff. He had the same happy look I imagined was written all over my face. We had dragged our asses up that rock, suspended in the air over the forest, and we were proud. For some two and a half hours thus far, we had relied entirely on ourselves, made our own decisions and battled our own bodily inadequacies and mental demons.
I looked up at the pitch to come. It was blank slab. I could see two shiny a ways up: safety. I looked at Jeff.
“How far do you think it is to that belay station?” I asked.
“I don’t know, ninety feet or so.”
“Ninety feet, no protection,” I looked at the anchor we were currently clipped into: three pieces of active gear which, unlike bolts, could rip out if fallen on hard enough. I looked up the slab. If I fell anywhere past halfway, I’d be taking a hundred foot fall, enough to probably kill me and Jeff.
“It’s your lead,” said Jeff, and I’m sure I saw relief flash across his face.
It may seem strange to begin an essay about the Christian mentality of self with a story about rock climbing, but, really, they are instructive in their opposition. Christianity tells us that our selves are always out to get us; in climbing, that self is all you have got. Let’s start with what Christianity taught me about myself.
The story in the Bible is that at first man was blameless, created in the image of God. Then Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and BOOM! we are sinners. That’s the basis of Christianity’s stance on the self: that it is trying to send me to Hell and I must not allow it too. Christianities answer to this problem is the complete neglect of the self, in the form of complete devotion to Christ, whose blood washes away our sins. We can do nothing for ourselves to overcome this sinful nature, so we must give ourselves up.
Imagine being told from birth that you cannot trust yourself. Of course you are going to end up unable to trust yourself, and, chances are, your self will become untrustworthy. The cycle perpetuates itself. Instead of giving us the tools to make ourselves trustworthy, Christianity offers a bypass, a scapegoat, and thus insures our own untrustworthiness.
How can we trust anything if not ourselves? We are all born in the same condition: a self and nothing else. After that, there are either the things you learn for yourself, or the things others tell you. If that self is the only thing you come into this world with, then why should we write it off out of hand? It seems to me that the self is the only thing we really have, and so it is the only thing we can really know. Instead of deeming ourselves sinners we should make an effort to cultivate an understanding of the self. This, in my opinion, is the start of the path to eternity.
So what happened with the rest of that climb? Well, despite the fears, the insecurity, me and myself (and Jeff) made it through the last four hundred feet and summited that rock. Standing on the top of that climb, looking out at the expanse of beautiful nature and reflecting on the climb that was now over, I felt a sense of completeness, of oneness. Instead of fighting myself up the climb (which most certainly would have resulted in failure), I worked with myself. Instead of avoiding it, I looked my soul in the face and together we made it. I became myself. That feeling of unity was more beautiful than the view, but did not compete with it. Their beauties complemented each other mutually. My unity made nature more beautiful, or, at least, made me able to appreciate it more. And, in turn, the ever-present solidarity of nature showed my unity to be just that: natural. No one will ever be able to take that away from me. The unity of you to yourself is where joy truly begins to shine.
I Need You Christ
If Christianity could be summed up into one phrase, the above title would be it. The need for Christ to forgive us is the pivotal theme in all of Christianity. Even after the initial forgiveness, Christians continue to call on Christ or God (remember, they are one and the same in Christianity) throughout their lives in prayer. For Christians, this is comforting: that at any time, in any pace, they can call on their God for help.
This creates a very subtle, but ultimately devastating, shift in a person. This takes a person’s foundation, their core understanding of themselves and that core’s reflection of the world, and places it outside of their self, into religion. Another word for this core is “soul.” So, this continual looking outside of oneself for answers causes the literal loss of one’s soul.
What I am saying here is that Christianity has taken away our self-reliance. When a challenge arises in our lives, Christianity would have us lean on it for guidance. It is true that sometimes the world is a bewildering and scary place, and it feels nice to have a crutch to limp along with. But the entire point of a crutch is to discard it someday so that you may walk again without help. Christianity never lets you go, never teaches you to walk without the crutch.
I am a firm believer that everything we need to be happy in this life has been provided within us. However, where Christianity requires only a single prayer to gain its crutch, true self-reliance requires years of struggle and effort to unlock. Rome was not built in a day, and the soul is not so simple as to be quickly understood. But, in my opinion, the spiritual self-reliance that comes as a result of the inward journey is one of the highest potentialities of human life and it’s actualization one of the key wellsprings to human happiness.
We learn nothing from continually looking for answers outside of ourselves; we gain no strength or knowledge from it. When life throws you a curve ball and you turn to religion for help, you will still be susceptible and in need of help the next time. But if you look inward, if you turn your eye to your own soul and instead of saying, “God help me,” you ask, “How can I help myself?” the next time you will have an answer ready. By facing an issue without crutches, you strengthen the tenacity of your own soul, and you improve your ability to understand and work with that soul. The result is happiness based not on outside circumstance, but happiness constant, joy. We have all heard the adage: “Give someone a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life.” Christianity gives you fish from the stream that has it’s origins in your own soul. How much better it is to learn to fish that stream for yourself!
I Am a Sinner, Period
“Nobody’s perfect.” A common saying, one that is tossed around haphazardly all the time. Backed you car into a pole? Well, nobody’s perfect. Lost the sale at work? Well, nobody’s perfect. Drank a little too much, cheated on your wife? Well, nobody’s perfect.
I was talking to a Christian woman once and was telling her how I think every human’s goal should be to become as perfect (which to me means as perfectly me) as possible. She immediately, and angrily, retorted, “Perfection is impossible. We are sinners, all.” This is a pretty common sentiment in Christianity. The belief is that this sinful nature is why we need Christ to cleanse our souls. Implicit in that belief is that, in this life, we are never to be rid of this sinful constitution, we are never to become perfect. It is this “never” that I take issue with.
It seems to me that this idea, and this is merely my opinion, is just another form of escape from responsibility that Christianity seems to enable. If I am never going to be perfect, why even try? Better yet, to try is a form of pride, one of the seven deadly sins. A lyric from a Christian band comes to mind “Are so proud as to ever move on from Your [God’s] comfort?” Christianity teaches us that we will never attain perfection in this life and that to try is a sin. That really doesn’t leave us much hope for life, does it?
I have trouble imagining a father who would prefer his children to crawl and never learn to walk or run. It seems to me that Christianity has taken away our chance at sprinting. They give us a glimpse of the beautiful life in the incredible example of Jesus Christ and then say to us, “This is the standard, but you will never reach it.” Better, I say, to shoot for the stars, so that you may end up around the moon. If you shoot merely for the moon, then you may not even clear the atmosphere. And Christianity would have us not even try, thus getting us nowhere at all.
Heaven Is Just Like Earth, But Way Better
We all know the classic descriptions of the Christian heaven: the pearly gates, the streets of gold, the many-roomed mansions, God’s throne and kingdom. I have heard people talk about playing golf there, about all the different jobs we will hold there. Here’s the thing about these descriptions: Christians believe them literally.
The after-life has always intrigued me so when I was a Christian the concept of heaven naturally drew my interest. But, very early on, I noticed a strange trend in the descriptions of heaven. They all, to me, seem to be descriptions of the ideal community here on earth, a utopia. In fact, Christianity teaches that after the end times (their version of the apocalypse, whish is described the last book of the bible, Revelations) the kingdom of God will descend and we will have heaven on earth, literally. Pearly gates, gates streets, mansions, virgin girls? (the trend is present in other major religions as well) These are all things of worldly experience, experiences of life. The bible even teaches that we will have a body in heaven. A living body.
The real question here is: what happens after we die? I don’t have an answer, but when one takes into account that life is the opposite of death, it seems to me that the experiences of life would not be the same as the experiences of death. But this is exactly what the Christian perspective offers with death: the perfect life. It is a contradiction of terms.
In death we lose our bodies, the thing that links us to life. This isn’t to say our souls die. Our souls, I do believe, continue on in someway. But, if they do, it probably is not in the same way they did when they were anchored to a physical body. Death is irrevocable. It is the ultimate change in scenery, I suspect that nothing will be the same.
God Is Created In The Image Of Me
If the bible had an MVP, I think it would have to be God. Of course, Christ plays a pretty big role too, but according to Christianity Christ is God. Needless to say, God, and the way this deity is understood, is the most important part of the Christian religion. Let us examine the nature of this God.
There are a number of clues in the bible that give a picture of God. In Genesis, the first book of the bible, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Later, he passes his hand over the a cave that Moses is in, so that Moses may feel his presence. He is described as an angry God, a just God, a jealous God and a loving God. In heaven, he sits on a throne. He listens, He speaks, He commands, He creates and He destroys.
What does all this tell me about the Christian God? He has a form (a body), He has emotions, and he can do things. Well, to me, those are all very human characteristics. Indeed, the Christian version of God basically sounds like a human being, with super powers of course. Christianity has effectively turn God into a man (think about Christ being both God and a man).
In my opinion, this is an impossibility, an immense contradiction that leads to many misconceptions. Just as one cannot be both dead and alive, one cannot be God and a man. In my mind, they are opposites; they cannot share any qualities. Man is capable of being irrational, fallible, and preoccupied. Man has imperfection as a possible form of existence. That does not sound like whatever it was that set the universe into motion.
As human beings, our understanding has very specific limitations. We are limited to our experience, that is, the experiences of life. The anthropomorphism that Christianity has placed on God is a way that we can take something that clearly exists outside of our sphere of possible understanding and make it intelligible. We give it arms and legs, a voice and emotions, and we say, “there, I understand.”
This is a defense mechanism. We find things we can’t understand difficult to cope with. It is an affront to our superiority. We also find things we don’t understand difficult to control or manipulate. God cannot bend to man’s will, but God the Man can. Look for yourself at the history of Christian reform and change. God seems awfully inconsistent. In the face of something to large for us to understand, the Universe, we create a version that is manageable: God.
This is fear-driven weakness. If we are to come nearer to the Truth, if we are to “call things by their right names,” then we must give up this view of God. We must open the open the box and stop even using the word God. We must accept the fact that this is something we cannot understand at all, at least, not in words. Sometimes, true understanding is only possible when you acknowledge ignorance. When you let go of your own humanistic projections, the wall surrounding your mind is brought down to reveal the doorway to the universe that abides behind it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is no conclusion. I have spent the last so many pages ranting like a lunatic about my personal issues with Christianity, all the while probably only managing to successfully sound like an asshole. Philosophy dances on the razor’s edge of language; it gets pretty damn close to falling into petty word play and games. Now I have nitpicked the shit out of Christianity in this short series of essays, but, in my mind, that’s what a religion opens itself up to when it claims the absolutism of its work. When Christians claim that the Bible and it’s principles are entirely and absolutely true, well, then they asked for it.
I take metaphysics pretty seriously. As far as I know, I have but one life to live, and in trying to decide the manner of the reality that this one life runs its course in, I feel I cannot nitpick enough. Truth is an interesting thing. If something is absolutely true, it must be capable of withstanding any amount of criticism. I merely wished to never waste my mental and spiritual energy on something so blatantly in contradiction with the reality around me again. Maybe someone else out there feels the same, and then hopefully this work will have been of benefit to him or her.
We all want answers. This urge within us to give life meaning and value is the source from which religion springs. Death the unknown stands before us all as a great beast ready to devour the one thing we know: life. On the other side: who can tell? I have never been dead, nor have I ever had an opportunity to question a dead man. And so, trembling for fear of the end we cling desperately the answers that religion provides: a moral code and a promise of everlasting life. I am no different. In my darkest moments, I wish my faith were still intact. But this I know: life ends with death, and though I do believe that something continues on the other side, I know that once you pass through Death’s door it is not life that awaits on the other side. So where does this leave us? I do not know. As far as I can tell, the answer is to find your own answer. It is the journey on the path to finding your answer that will lead you to enlightenment and nirvana.
There is a great and shiny world out there, full of people and the things they have done. But none of it will lead you to yourself. With all the distractions of the modern world so ready to capture our attention, and so efficient at it, I do not wonder why people never make that journey, why people readily accept the cookie-cutter answers given in religion. Who has time for personal metaphysics when there is so much money to be made and so many movies to watch, amusement parks to go to and great cities to shop in? Well, I say take what steps you must, but make that journey. Do not forsake the world within your soul, and your soul will not forsake you. I would not be one to care what your conclusions are, so long as they are just that: your conclusions. And, when the time comes for you to face the beast of the unknown, you will be equipped with the weapons and armor of the self, the only thing that can face death without fear, and your death will be a noble one. You will be able to see, in your minds eye, that your life was your own and no one else’s, and when you cross over, no matter what it be to, the joy of a life potential actualized in freedom and in knowledge will go with you. That is heaven.
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Originally Posted by caelum
