Great line in an editorial in today's Globe

[YankeyMCC]

For now, this coalition of the faithful (who literally believe that many of their allies of convenience are destined for eternal damnation) is willing to put aside differences that will be settled in the next life and join forces on behalf of the faith-based public trough and the ecumenical crusade against an independent judiciary.

Full piece: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/27/whose_nation_under_god/

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I've always marveled at some of these coalitions of the "faithful", the ones made up of the radical right at least precisely because of that they "...literally believe that many of their allies of convenience are destined for eternal damnation."

Now I can understand people on the religious left getting together they can believe in religious freedom as much as anyone but still there is that underlying, but seemingly to me rather big, issue of - You're not good enough to go where I'm going when we die.

I often wonder lately how my evangelical xian boss can justify promoting me. I mean isn't that furthering an "evil" person since as an atheist I must be evil in his mind.

Ah but there I go picking at those nasty hypocrisy blemishes on some people's thinking.

[Taxloss]

1. It was the paradoxes surrounding the afterlife, and retribution,

that destroyed my faith. As soon as logic and an enquiring mind turned to the problem of salvation ... it was like a warm hand pressing against a frosted window. I saw straight through it. It melted like it was never there. Of course there's nothing after death; how can there be?

And you know what - I didn't feel a sickening spiritual emptiness, like the believers seem to think we all feel. I felt like a drunk sobering up for the first time in years. I felt clear, unmuddled, unalarmed. There is life, and then there is death. There was no abyss; the abyss is what the superstitious see. I see simply a blank page, like an endpaper in a book.

A lot is made of atheists "finding God" at their moment of death. In some ways, this might be understanable; Pascal's gambit, and so on. I wonder how many theists, conscious of their imminent mortality, look up expecting the face of their creator and see .... nothing? How many fall from faith in those final moments? I do not exaggerate when I say I would be surprised if it wasn't millions, or billions.

Henry Ward Beecher, the noted evangelist, died on 8 March 1887 - incidentally, my birthday is 8 March 1978. His last words indicate a that he was less than certain of the salavation he should have been guaranteed:

"Now comes the mystery."