Tom Ellis
Feb 12, 2021

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An interesting exercise, but on the whole, I'm with Stephen Hawking on this. Every culture and religion of the world has some sort of afterlife mythology but you know what? They have NOTHING in common. Their sole purpose is to mollify--or in some caes manipulate-- people's innate fear of death.

We are born, we live, we die, we are recycled into the basic elements that comprised us to begin with, and these basic elements are taken up by other life--not just "another incarnation" of ourselves, but other life in general: bacteria, protists, fungi, plants, animals...And that's all there is. The rest is just imagination: stories we tell ourselves. So all that matters, as the Dalai Lama says, is cultivating kindness and compassion toward one another while we're still alive. If you are a jerk you will not "go to Hell" after you die. You're already there!

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Tom Ellis
Tom Ellis

Written by Tom Ellis

I am a retired English professor now living in Oregon, and a life-long environmental activist, Buddhist, and holistic philosopher.

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