The dead seem to be more alive than the living these days.
At least it seems to me that I'm finding more that I can wholeheartedly agree with among the writings of the deceased than among the ceaseless, ever more superficial and pseudo-intelligent babble of the large bulk of my contemporaries.
Well, as member of a group who never had a problem with life after death, and ever more evidence surging for it, including some refreshing accounts of how the dead seem to be alive and kicking and joyously communicating with those left behind on this side of the veil, I'm not too shocked. Although, who wouldn't wish he had a few more friends we can actually feel and see?
But then it's hard to come across minds even remotely comparable to some of those who dared to make a difference in the decades and centuries gone by - minds like that of Malcolm Muggeridge, whom I only recently discovered and find out I'm having more in common with than most of my living acquaintances.
I doubt, for instance, if I would find among the living anyone able to put into words as appropriately and eloquently my very own opinion on the topic of education as he did in his book "Jesus Rediscovered:"
"Education, the great mumbo-jumbo and fraud of the age, purports to equip us to live,
and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything, from juvenile delinquency to
premature senility. For the most part, it only serves to enlarge stupidity, inflate
conceit, enhance credulity and put those subjected to it, at the mercy of brain-washers
with printing presses, radio and television at their disposal."
"The most powerful instrument of all in bringing about the erosion of our civilization was none other than the public education system set up with such high hopes and at so great expense precisely to sustain it."
-- Or on the topic of science:
"We are perfectly capable of believing other things intrinsically as improbable as Christ's incarnation. Towards any kind of scientific mumbojumbo we display a credulity which must be the envy of African witch-doctors. While we shy away with contumely from the account of the creation in the Book of Genesis, we are probably ready to assent to any rigmarole by a Professor Hoyle about how matter came to be, provided it is dished up in the requisite jargon and associated, however obliquely, with what we conceive to be 'facts'.
I suppose every age has its own particular fantasy. Ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Pascal, though himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us it is the other way round."
--Or organized religion (aka "Churchianity"):
"Professing Christians and ostensibly Christian societies and institutions have by no means been true to the cross and what it signified, especially today when the nominally Christian part of the world is foremost in worship of the Gross National Product—our Golden Calf—and in pursuit of happiness in the guise of sensual pleasure. Yet there the cross still is, propounding its unmistakable denunciation of this world and of the things of this world."
The way I came across my new heavenly friend was by means of one of his quotes on evolution, to which, of course, I also couldn’t agree more:
“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. I think I spoke to you before about this age as one of the most credulous in history, and I would include evolution as an example.”
Since there are such wonderful aspects awaiting someone like me in the afterlife, of finally actually meeting folks on the same weird wavelength as mine, I can only agree with his following statement as well:
“As I do not believe that earthly life can bring any lasting satisfaction, the prospect of
death holds no terrors.“
To round off this train of thoughts, I’ll end this with a quote from wee little me:
When even that which is considered the worst that can possibly happen to a person – death – turns out to actually be the best that can possibly happen, then what is there to fear? What is there to lose? (April 20, 2008)
--
“That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14, 15).
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