Thu, 19. December 2013
Life After Delivery
One asked the other: "Do you believe in life after delivery?" The other replies, "why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.
"Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?"
"I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths." The other says "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short."
"I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here." The other replies, "No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere."
"Well, I don't know," says the other, "but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us."
"Mother??" You believe in mother? Where is she now?
"She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world."
"I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist." To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her." I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality.
This was a story posted on Facebook by a very good friend recently. A cute and original story - with the silent implication, of course, that we should have faith in life after death, a rather unscientific conclusion if ever I heard one.
Let's assume for a moment that the two babies are intelligent; can think logically; and are able to communicate with each other immersed in fluid.
They had direct evidence of an outside world and of Mother! The sounds they heard. Their Mother's heartbeat. Both parents talking, listening to music or driving a car. The faint light through the Mother's abdomen. The gravitational push which changed direction when their Mother stood up, layed down or went out for some exercise. Her warmth and her movements would be felt. Her internal bodily functions would be clearly known about and her daily routines would be easily detected!
Mother was providing sustainence through the umbilical cord. Mother can be seen, touched and heard. The outside world can be easily deduced! An exit route was observable and they could deduce that as they grew bigger they would be forced to leave the confined space of the womb!
So the kid who developed speculative theories about Mother; about delivery; and about the exterior, was smart. He or she was a critical thinker who deduced post-delivery survival from the evidence all around. Faith played no part in deducing such an obvious conclusion.
He or she will grow up as a clear thinker; will consider the god hypothesis; and will come to the only conclusion possible - that there is no credible evidence for any god; nor for heaven; nor for post-mortem survival; and that therefore these things are extremely unlikely to exist at all.
The doubting kid who dismissed the very strong evidence for post-delivery survival will grow up ignoring real evidence put in front of him or her in real life - and will turn to unsubstantiated beliefs such as astrology, pseudo-science, UFOs, religion and post-mortem survival.
So I "liked" the story - which may have raised my friend's eyebrows.
I "liked" it, not because it was a convincing argument for Heaven (quite the opposite) but because it was a typical demonstration of twisted religious logic. It presented a logical argument which had indisputable evidence to support a proposition, whilst implying that the logic supported a different illogical conclusion which had no evidence.