About this post:
Here is the WEIRD thing: After it was announced that the "there is no life after death" side won the debate, there was loud cheering.
Now - why would a crowd CHEER when they find out that life ends when one goes to the grave?? What they are cheering is that billions upon billions of people are DEAD FOREVER and the 7 plus billion on the planet are also, within a relatively short time, going to be DEAD FOREVER. Why is this something to cheer? It is actually MUCH WORSE NEWS than hearing that someone died. When someone dies we console ourselves [correctly so] that the person continues to live in another realm in a much more beautiful way. But if there is no afterlife - boom! Dead and over. How incredibly tragic. Not just a passing from our very pain filled world but from an eternity of bliss. And people CHEER that??
And what about JUSTICE? A Nazi dies peacefully in his bed surrounded by family while he gassed babies or did medical experiments on little girls, crippling them for life. Is that fair?? Does that make people happy?? No. We all want to believe that there IS justice and one can't get away with living an evil life. No afterlife means in most cases no justice. And what about a child born very ill who suffered every day for years until dying a painful death?? Horrible. Believers can say [correctly] that this was part of G-d's plan and in the world of truth they will experience eternal bliss. But those who don't believe just see cruel fate before their eyes. And then they CHEER it??!!
It also makes our lives pathetic. Let's face it. We are all suffering. Whether it is from a job we don't like, financial stresses, trouble finding a partner, a difficult marriage, problems with our kids, health challenges, losing loved ones and dealing with the pain of loss [which never really goes away], traffic jams, constipation, diarrhea, waiting in long lines in airports, worry about future events that may or not occur, your team losing after being five runs ahead in the ninth, and the list goes on and on. I haven't had one perfect day yet - have you?? Of course we are all surrounded by the chesed of Hashem every second of every day and for that we are eternally [!!] grateful but that doesn't negate all of our suffering. Again, I stress, NOBODY gets out of life without having a LOT of problems. And even if there is such a person, unless he is a sociopath, he suffers from the suffering of all those around him. We repress our pain but it is THERE - like it or not.
If there is an afterlife - that is the point. We live in this world with a myriad of challenges in order to grow and thereby become worthy of closeness to Hashem and an eternal blissful bond. But according to the non-believers [or better - the believers whose god is science], we suffer, suffer, suffer - and then disappear into oblivion.
How indescribably sad.
ברוך א-להינו שבראנו לכבודו והבדילנו מן התועים ונתן לנו תורת אמת וחיי עולם נטע בתוכנו!!!!
