by Alan Perlman

Created on: March 11, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

"All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why."

I have, unfortunately, been compelled to consider yet again these wise words from James Thurber.

If humanists are to offer anything positive to religious believers, it must certainly include a way to think about and deal with death. Fear of dying is, by my rough estimate, half of the reason for religion's perpetual appeal.

By cultivating their believers' fear of death and by relieving them of the necessity to deal with it (through the elaborate ideology of heaven, hell, God, and soul, none of which exist), clerics keep their religion's shared fantasies alive and maintain job security for themselves.

Two men I knew died recently. In less than a week, there was one visitation/wake; one funeral mass (couldn't stand it it was so primitive and barbaric that I had to leave); one funeral at which I officiated (opened, introduced speakers, closed out with my own material - that was my Father's Day); and two death-related semi-social meal events.

When the guy with the scythe comes through, he creates a lot of human activity in his wake (no pun intended. Been busy.

One died suddenly, on the golf course, a circumstance which gives rise to all manner of good-natured anecdotes about that being the way to go. And the other perished after a horrendous struggle with throat cancer; no one wants to die in that manner.

It's bad enough when people die suddenly or in agony, but at least these men lived long, full lives. To me, it's even more tragic when otherwise healthy people choose to give their lives for an imaginary political or religious belief system. (Would I die for truth? Be tortured the way Galileo was? I hope it never comes to that.)

As a humanist, I feel compassion for these people and their unnecessary sacrifice. And I'm even more determined to point out and resist the manipulative words and practices of the religious and political leaders who would mobilize mobs and armies and militias of unthinking young people to die for them. In addition to the death, even more lives are spent in chronic pain, mental trauma, wheelchairs - or worse, because of the politician's or cleric's mad dream.

Let me see large numbers of Ayatollahs commit suicide bombings - then I might be impressed by their certitude about the truth of this particularly heinous brand of Islam. Let me see the Bush twins in uniform on patrol in Baghdad - then I might be more impressed by Dubya's patriotism.

Politicians

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>