I believe in The Rainbow Bridge. I think it is a place where I would feel comfortable, and if my dogs aren't allowed in any other afterlife venue, I don't want to be there. I know my parents would be there, too.
And I think "My Congressperson is an Asshole," or something similar is a much better bumper sticker. Especially when you drive all over DC.
I hope there's a Rainbow Bridge. I'll find out when I get there. I'm certain that the afterlife (if there is one) won't be like the Evangelicals and Christofascists think.
Or, for those of us who have sensible congresspersons (and for those who live in DC and have no voting representative): YOUR CORNGRESSMAN IS AN ASSHOLE. The misspelling is intentional, to make you think of corn passing through the digestive tract and emerging into poop. Or think of corn-growing flyover states. Whatever.
If you believe in an afterlife, do you believe in a beforelife? If we go somewhere after we’re dead, don’t you think we were somewhere before we were born? I hope we weren’t in Heaven before we were born, that sounds as though getting born was a demotion of sorts. Maybe we screwed up in Heaven and we were exiled to this world? Is that why God gave us Trump? To punish us while we’re down here?
I don’t believe in an afterlife for humans (thanks, Sister Patrick). I would like to believe in The Rainbow Bridge for my pets. None of them were with me long enough so I hope they’re happy and safe with their brothers and sisters. I know that sounds contradictory. I don’t care. I miss them all terribly.
I think the sticker I would come up with might have Jone Ernst at my door talking about all of us dying or the tooth fairy. I don’t know. Maybe that’s normal for Iowa, I live in Florida.
"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."
This newsletter, short as it may be, clinches it. Wes Anderson has a new movie out which now prompts me to opine that you are the Wes Anderson of Substack. Where else you gonna find the sublime to (official) ridiculousness: pay to play, Adam's genitals, dog poop bridging the ideological divide, roo-roo, pollinating partners --- everything in between and well beyond. Okay, okay. Wes is the Gene Weingarten of the cinema. Btw --- with the average movie ticket getting ever closer to 20 bucks (now at about $17 nationally) TGP is a bargain. At the movies, you get one Wes Anderson at a time. Here you get many Weingartens (including a Don), a wordplay competition with um...prizes...and an Empress for less than $0.14/day. I mean Save the Children or the ACLU is gonna set you back at least $0.63/day with a suggested contribution. And what they do is not in the least bit amusing.
This may not be what is called an “afterlife”, but I believe we continue as a spirit…or maybe, it’s just that we dream of loved ones who have died, or feel them close to us, because we want to? 🤷♀️ I need an “it depends” choice.
Wow, that was an unexpected poll result! Granted there are only 58 votes so far, but given that your readers are, I assume, fans of rational thinking, I would have expected a much higher percentage of "No." (It's currently at 53 percent.) I'm curious to see what the final tally will be.
Gene did leave the question wide open. I voted yes because I include the memories that those who survive have and share. Think of Dia de Muertos. I believe that I mentioned in a Chatalogical Humor post that touched on this topic that the first movie that I watched after my wife died was Coco, and that I found it oddly comforting. My kids and I still talk about my wife frequently, so in a sense, she is still with us. My father has been gone for over a quarter of a century, but his maiden aunts who died when he was still young are still with my siblings and me because he shared some of the witty things he overheard while they gossiped a hundred years ago.
Yes! I don't believe in the traditional "afterlife," but when "any sort" was emphasized, I started wondering if decaying into the earth from which new life will feed is a material afterlife, while some of the idiosyncrasies that make us who we are will live on through others speaking of us, or work we leave behind.
We are all star dust, and star dust is eternal.
But at the same time, some of us need to get a life before we think about whether there is an afterlife.
I believe we keep people alive in stories and language. The older I get, the more I start talking as my parents did. Many expressions are mysteries but I say them nonetheless. My crossword-playing daddy used words like "logy" and "modicum" and I believe I must use them as often as possible. He sang a little song that went "Heigh Ho, said Anthony Raleigh. Whether his mother would let him or not, a rolly-polly-gammon-and spinach, Heigh Ho, said Anthony Raleigh." Now my children are singing this song. No one knows what it means but it make me feel close to my late daddy.
I voted “no”, but sorta do hope that there is a rainbow bridge, like Leslie, where my critters and I—and all the other critters I’ve not yet met—can be together.
To "believe" in any sort of afterlife suggests a significant degree of confidence that your opinion is correct. I couldn't vote Yes or No because we agnostics like to have some evidence on our side before committing to "belief" in anything. My stance is "I'm inclined to think an afterlife might exist," but won't put money down either way. That was not one of the voting options!
The notion that how the universe genuinely operates can be correctly deduced by "rational thinking" is self-deluding because real reality is weirder than we are apt to imagine. Would human reproduction be painful and too often fatal in a rational universe?
I want to know more about the “America Needs Librarians” and if there is more after that and if it is positive or negative. Retired military librarian, so I have to wonder.
I understand in Florida pictures of Adam (and David) have Bermuda shorts now superimposed over their nether regions. Although some scholars believe Adam did, in fact, suffer from the then only known case of produce package.
Neither do I. Some are scams to sell books, etc., but others seem at a minimum, plausible. Not within conventional understanding, but that in itself doesn’t make them false.
Believe? Any sort? Is there a Great Courses crib sheet for this question? Could we have had a button for Well, ... ? It'd probably get some votes. My friend A. says that if you don't get figs, pile on a bunch of compost early in the spring. I just read that most figs around here are sell-pollinators and you don't need the wasp that dies after laying its eggs and concomitantly pollinating the fig flowers inside the fruit. The U.S. Forest service has a neat little explanation with charming illustrations. Check it out now before it gets revoked by the president.
I believe in The Rainbow Bridge. I think it is a place where I would feel comfortable, and if my dogs aren't allowed in any other afterlife venue, I don't want to be there. I know my parents would be there, too.
And I think "My Congressperson is an Asshole," or something similar is a much better bumper sticker. Especially when you drive all over DC.
I hope there's a Rainbow Bridge. I'll find out when I get there. I'm certain that the afterlife (if there is one) won't be like the Evangelicals and Christofascists think.
Or, for those of us who have sensible congresspersons (and for those who live in DC and have no voting representative): YOUR CORNGRESSMAN IS AN ASSHOLE. The misspelling is intentional, to make you think of corn passing through the digestive tract and emerging into poop. Or think of corn-growing flyover states. Whatever.
Redundancy alert!
Lindsey Graham, especially: https://x.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1929266986455814415
If you believe in an afterlife, do you believe in a beforelife? If we go somewhere after we’re dead, don’t you think we were somewhere before we were born? I hope we weren’t in Heaven before we were born, that sounds as though getting born was a demotion of sorts. Maybe we screwed up in Heaven and we were exiled to this world? Is that why God gave us Trump? To punish us while we’re down here?
Because you apparently believe the Lord gaveth, please plead for Him to taketh away!
🤷♂️
I want a stack of bumper stickers that say “I’m a moron, and I vote!” I will put them on other people’s cars based on what stickers they already have.
I believe in a laughterlife.
I don’t believe in an afterlife for humans (thanks, Sister Patrick). I would like to believe in The Rainbow Bridge for my pets. None of them were with me long enough so I hope they’re happy and safe with their brothers and sisters. I know that sounds contradictory. I don’t care. I miss them all terribly.
I think the sticker I would come up with might have Jone Ernst at my door talking about all of us dying or the tooth fairy. I don’t know. Maybe that’s normal for Iowa, I live in Florida.
Joni must think Oscar Wilde is her speechwriter: She's infatuated with The Importance of Being Ernst.
Me too, Carol. I'll be inundated with Shelties and cats.
Not normal. Fuck that hag Joni.
Not with someone else's dick.
"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."
--- Robert Fulghum
This newsletter, short as it may be, clinches it. Wes Anderson has a new movie out which now prompts me to opine that you are the Wes Anderson of Substack. Where else you gonna find the sublime to (official) ridiculousness: pay to play, Adam's genitals, dog poop bridging the ideological divide, roo-roo, pollinating partners --- everything in between and well beyond. Okay, okay. Wes is the Gene Weingarten of the cinema. Btw --- with the average movie ticket getting ever closer to 20 bucks (now at about $17 nationally) TGP is a bargain. At the movies, you get one Wes Anderson at a time. Here you get many Weingartens (including a Don), a wordplay competition with um...prizes...and an Empress for less than $0.14/day. I mean Save the Children or the ACLU is gonna set you back at least $0.63/day with a suggested contribution. And what they do is not in the least bit amusing.
This may not be what is called an “afterlife”, but I believe we continue as a spirit…or maybe, it’s just that we dream of loved ones who have died, or feel them close to us, because we want to? 🤷♀️ I need an “it depends” choice.
I don't know what I believe, but I certainly hope that reincarnation isn't a thing. I don't want to have to go through this shit again.
🙋♂️
Wow, that was an unexpected poll result! Granted there are only 58 votes so far, but given that your readers are, I assume, fans of rational thinking, I would have expected a much higher percentage of "No." (It's currently at 53 percent.) I'm curious to see what the final tally will be.
Gene did leave the question wide open. I voted yes because I include the memories that those who survive have and share. Think of Dia de Muertos. I believe that I mentioned in a Chatalogical Humor post that touched on this topic that the first movie that I watched after my wife died was Coco, and that I found it oddly comforting. My kids and I still talk about my wife frequently, so in a sense, she is still with us. My father has been gone for over a quarter of a century, but his maiden aunts who died when he was still young are still with my siblings and me because he shared some of the witty things he overheard while they gossiped a hundred years ago.
Beyond that, I have no idea.
Yes! I don't believe in the traditional "afterlife," but when "any sort" was emphasized, I started wondering if decaying into the earth from which new life will feed is a material afterlife, while some of the idiosyncrasies that make us who we are will live on through others speaking of us, or work we leave behind.
We are all star dust, and star dust is eternal.
But at the same time, some of us need to get a life before we think about whether there is an afterlife.
Yes, for me, too. Like this: https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2024/08/25
Or this, by George Eliot:
O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence...
I believe we keep people alive in stories and language. The older I get, the more I start talking as my parents did. Many expressions are mysteries but I say them nonetheless. My crossword-playing daddy used words like "logy" and "modicum" and I believe I must use them as often as possible. He sang a little song that went "Heigh Ho, said Anthony Raleigh. Whether his mother would let him or not, a rolly-polly-gammon-and spinach, Heigh Ho, said Anthony Raleigh." Now my children are singing this song. No one knows what it means but it make me feel close to my late daddy.
I voted “no”, but sorta do hope that there is a rainbow bridge, like Leslie, where my critters and I—and all the other critters I’ve not yet met—can be together.
To "believe" in any sort of afterlife suggests a significant degree of confidence that your opinion is correct. I couldn't vote Yes or No because we agnostics like to have some evidence on our side before committing to "belief" in anything. My stance is "I'm inclined to think an afterlife might exist," but won't put money down either way. That was not one of the voting options!
The notion that how the universe genuinely operates can be correctly deduced by "rational thinking" is self-deluding because real reality is weirder than we are apt to imagine. Would human reproduction be painful and too often fatal in a rational universe?
I want to know more about the “America Needs Librarians” and if there is more after that and if it is positive or negative. Retired military librarian, so I have to wonder.
I understand in Florida pictures of Adam (and David) have Bermuda shorts now superimposed over their nether regions. Although some scholars believe Adam did, in fact, suffer from the then only known case of produce package.
So did Eve suffer from fig leaf envy?
Not sure, but one commentary on Genesis indicates she was always after the guy to turn over a new leaf.
Don't worry. Soon they're going to be sporting three piece suits and the Handmaiden style robes. 🙄
Do you discount ALL accounts of near-death experiences?
I don't.
Neither do I. Some are scams to sell books, etc., but others seem at a minimum, plausible. Not within conventional understanding, but that in itself doesn’t make them false.
To paraphrase another comment I made, the theory of relativity doesn’t exactly fit within conventional understanding.
God, no. Jesus, no. Aslan and Narnia? In my dreams.
Rampant tomato plants. Unrestrained fig trees. Let us know when Sir David Attenborough shows up with a crew.
Believe? Any sort? Is there a Great Courses crib sheet for this question? Could we have had a button for Well, ... ? It'd probably get some votes. My friend A. says that if you don't get figs, pile on a bunch of compost early in the spring. I just read that most figs around here are sell-pollinators and you don't need the wasp that dies after laying its eggs and concomitantly pollinating the fig flowers inside the fruit. The U.S. Forest service has a neat little explanation with charming illustrations. Check it out now before it gets revoked by the president.