On Death

 I am fond of saying that every faith has to answer three questions: Why are we here? Why do bad things happen? and the one we're going to focus on today - What happens when we die?

Now, I'm fairly certain I've covered before what Primali believes happens when we die - we are bound to the ground with our wrong actions, or if we have attempted to correct those wrong actions with a true heart, we can wander with the Beast. Maybe as a way to start this, I'll explain my thinking on why this is what must be past the final door. And perhaps the door itself.

Each person makes decisions based on their base of information. We use what we know to make choices, correct? That's how thinking and choice work. So when I introduce these things, I want you to know how I got there, and why it's the most logical, sensible things for me to conclude at that time. It's when your base of information changes and you cannot adapt that you have truly failed. So forgive me while I write disparaging remarks about Christian mythos, but that's what I emerged from, so we have to start there.

Southern Baptists, at least, believe heaven to be an infinite walled city (how something can be walled and infinite I never did figure out). You achieve this place by signing a divine contract that declares you enslaved to their god and the reward is to worship Him forever and ever until the heat death of the Universe. The punishment for not signing this contract is to suffer the separation from God until you are cast forever into the lake of burning fire. Can we unpack that for a minute?

Human beings can't conceive of "forever". We literally can't grasp it. We can barely grasp what the term "1 billion dollars" means, and that's finite. So, does it seem fair to punish someone forever for simply not signing the contract? We let people out of prison for murder after 20 years. But the theory here is that someone can be punished in perpetuity for being a perfectly good person who just chose not to sign the contract. Point one, that's terrible. That's a terrible thing, and not the "I'd better avoid that consequence" terrible, a "I'm fairly certain that's not how anything works" terrible. 

Second point is that this version of heaven sounds like hell. You spend one lifetime with rich choices full of possibles and maybes and mistakes and triumphs to....what, spend eternity (there's that word again) on your knees praising God? Most people can't make it through a 1 hour church service without getting bored. What makes them think that sounds like a good idea - a good afterlife? And what about any of the people who either didn't sign the contract, or, as some denominations believe, lost their salvation? Just eternal separation, welp, guess they're damned for all eternity, oh well?

No. Any afterlife without choice is hell. So we must be able to exercise that divine choice if it is to be a reward. Why would we truly be punished forever for mistakes we make, when every mistake is informed by our base of information, which is inevitably flawed? No, we are simply denied our reward of endless exploration and curiosity and travel and rest until we decide to try again. Even then, we are only a prisoner of our own deeds until we decide to try again, not the Beast, and not any other Force. I believe we have our worldly ignorance stripped from us in the Dreaming Place, and can see clearly. I believe we can watch over others and wait for them to join us or not. I believe ultimate freedom is the perfect "heaven", to visit the other heavens and hells, to dance across the Cosmos and touch stars without burning. 

And that question has multiple possible angles as well. For instance, what happens when we die to others? I generally believe pagans and others who subscribe to reincarnation of some variety have a different relationship with death. We are absent the horror that the person we're mourning is dead forever and we will never see them again/that they're burning in hell. We know they're off to try again, and maybe they'll wait for us to join them before they do. It's comforting. It means that the only thing we're mourning is our own separation from them. That's why Primali have Separation Rites. And, like our concepts of the Dreaming Place itself, it has multiple uses. We mourn that same loss when someone passes from our lives, when a deep relationship ends, when we lose something fundamental that changes how we perceive reality and affects us with a palpable ache. I would rather be honest about what I'm mourning. I miss them, and I hate that it had to end even if it needed to. 

But death is a part of the cycle, and an important one. If we never died, the world could never support us. We wouldn't be able to have children, watch them grow, watch things bloom and grow and wilt. It would be stagnant, like the Christian concept of heaven. Just the same thing over and over. That's a terrifying prospect, one I do not want as part of my worldview. Death is a necessary part of things, and it happens when it will happen. That is something the Forces control, and it is something we defy when we can and accept as a welcome friend when we cannot any longer.

One of the main arguments I hear about this particular belief is, "You can't just cherry pick everything good and ignore consequences!" And my response is...why not? If we make decisions based on our desires, based on our information, based on our own choice, why would I choose a no-win situation for eternity? Why would I choose anything other than my own will? 

Death is given shape by our Beast, who gave birth to the Four Sisters. It is death, and the underworld, and dreams, and mischief. 

Our Death is also our Trickster. And this is good, because I intend to fight until I cannot and then go laughing to the next adventure.