Death sucks.

Unfortunately, it comes to us all, and making peace with that is not something everyone
can do. Before this year, I believed death was a transcendence into Heaven, or a recycling back to Earth
in a net life. !hat"s because #udaism believes that death is not the end of human eistence. $es, #udaism
is focused on the here and now more than the what%s to be, but there are many theories of what could
happen when you die. Unfortunately, you only really find out once, and it%ll be pretty hard to tell the
living when you do.
I was taught that before there was anything, there was &'d. &'d was everything, but &'d was lonely, so
&'d shrunk down to make space, and made a vessel which &'d called (dam )not (dam and Eve (dam, a
different one*. !his vessel was filled with pure divinity and knowledge. However, without
comprehending how to use the knowledge intelligently, the vessel burst. !his, I believed, was the Big
Bang. !his vessel burst into an unfathomably massive amount of +sparks,+ one of which each of us has.
,e all have a little piece of the infinite knowledge, and it is up to us to eperience close -uarters with
the other sparks, transferring opinions and other eperiences to turn that knowledge into intelligence.
!hen, when we die, our spark goes up to.somewhere. In /arel 0apek%s short story !he 1ast #udgment,
this somewhere is a courtroom between Heaven and Hell. &'d and the newly deceased have to appeal to
the 2udge, and &'d is simply the witness. In this place, you are either kept in Heaven if you have learned
enough and have made your spark holy, and your spark goes to live with the others, rebuilding (dam, or
you go back to Earth. 3ome people, like I used to, believe that Earth is the real Hell, and that getting
through it and achieving holiness while doing so will get you into Heaven. !o be able to physically go
through Hell, and to go through hell )because we all do* and still coming out a better person is holy.
0hanging the Hell you go through, for the better, will get you there, and making it better, is the greatest
thing anyone can do. !o -uote ,alter ,hitman, !he powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a
verse. !he powerful play of life continues indefinitely, and your verse is your spark, eperiences, story,
and changes which all go to (dam. $our verse, if seen as great in the holy courtroom, will determine
whether or not you continue the cycle or become the holiest thing you can be.
!hat"s what I used to believe. (nd here"s where I place my warnings. In short, I have re2ected religion as
a constitution for reasons I will soon eplain. Because of the eistentialism unit and 4f Human Bondage,
I was awoken and began to perpetually learn about life eperiences. !hat eistence is defined by
eperience, absurdist or anything else. !o really eist is to eperience, and my eperience has been one
not many (mericans go through, it was a path away from &od. !his is my revised, personal )and I mean
that in 5 ways*, and official new set of beliefs.
I have lived through $5/, 6788, Hurricane /atrina, the war in Ira-, the war in (fghanistan, the deaths of
family members, the deaths of friends" family members, my grandmother"s currently'worsening
(l9heimers, and oppression. 4f those 6, : I can directly link to religion. 6788 and the two wars following
it happened because there were people with religious beliefs who didn"t agree with ours. ,e were
infidels for not believing in the same peaceful religion as the one preached by those piloting the four
planes determined to destroy our country and way of life. !he irony is palpable. !hen there were wars
against the religious terrorists, fueling the viscious cycle of religious intolerance. Isn"t the whole point of
religion to be tolerable of those around you; !o perform mit9vot )charities, 2ustices, good deeds* and
make life easier for those around you; (nd as for oppression, someone in my family this year came out
as gay to the rest of my family, effectively changing our family"s way of life. !he entire family has been
and still is supportive, and nobody could be happier. But what I see is merely 85 out of the <= states
legali9ing e-ual happiness in the form of marriage. >? states see gay marriage as going against their
religious beliefs. It"d be like me telling you all not to eat hamburgers because I"m on a diet. 4ppression
based on religion in a country that separates church and state is enough, for me, to -uestion what religion
is really all about. !he eistentialism unit played in because it got me to really use my thinking to
determine my beliefs. I didn"t choose to be #ewish, I was born into it. !hat doesn"t mean I had to keep it
that way. 4f Human Bondage showed me my own bondage in some of the last pages of the book, where
@hilip discovers the meaning of life from the carpet and the story of the Eastern /ing who learned that
the entire history of man was, Ahe lived, he suffered, he died.B I used that story as a framework for my
thought process )to step away from details and see things from the larger picture* during the
eistentialism unit. ,e do things like convey ideas because we need to live. ,e talked about storytelling
as a sort of homeostasis, and it makes perfect sense to me. (fter being enchanted by absurdism and
haunted by the lack of response of &od in @hilip"s life, I tried praying for something to be changed.
(nything. But nothing happened. I begged for 2ust a sign that I wasn"t talking to myself. Cot a thing
happened. I had seen &od as a friend at that point, so when a friend ignores me when I ask for the
slightest bit of care, it"s not eactly hard to tell the friend doesn"t care enough.or is imaginary. I went
with the latter.
I embraced life for what it is today. I see science making the world more beautiful then anything religion
could have ever done. I see tetrasilver tetroide in2ections starting to cure (ID3. I see vinegar now being
used to spot cervical cancer cells. I see my phone sending and receiving all sorts of radio waves in the
form of :& and ,ifi. I see planes, trains, cars, bikes. I see medicine. I see buildings. I see process. I see
science. 4n the other hand, I see people preaching faith like there"s no tomorrow, and then leaving their
sermon, looking both ways before crossing the street. I see people Apreaching,B A&od hates fagsB on the
streets of D0. I see politically powerful religious people making important decisions based on their sole
beliefs. I see children dying because the child"s parents decide to wait for &od himself to cure. I see
killing in the name for (llah. I see, in the Bible that I used to follow, how to kill animals. How to tear a
bird in half by its wings when you sin. I see stoning your wife as a legal religious practice. I see hate. I
don"t see love. ,here I see the love is not in all this hatred covered by a thin veil of love. I see the love
in scientists working their asses off each and every day to make sure we live to see the net one. I see
people creating gods in the image of themselves. @eople creating a &od to worship them by granting
them @aradise, like what we would do to any god that entered our realm. I see selfishness in religion, and
blindingly fast progress towards knowledge of everything in sceince. I now see more beauty in knowing
life has no afterparty than I ever did believing I had to do good deeds for my own gain in ?= or so years.
I will still perform good deeds wherever I see fit. But because of @hilip"s all'too'relatable 2ourney,
because of my grandpa still turning to &od after my &randma forgets who he is, because of the
incredible lack of evidence, because of the lack of separation of church and state )churches don"t have to
pay taes, but schools do*, because of people claiming this country to be a 0hristian nation when &eorge
,ashington bashed on religion so hard it would have died had it been a person, because of the
resounding oppression of anybody who"s different )historicallyD slavery, marrying a woman only if you
give her father cattle, interracial marriage, gay marriage, abortion, and so. Eany. 4ther. !hings.*, I
decided, like @hilip, and most famous eistentialists, that oppressing others in the name of my god to get
paradise, to give someone hell and receive heaven in return, was as absurd as pushing a large rock up a
steep, icy hill for eternity.
(nd I am happy with that conclusion. !he conclusion beingD
1ive while you can, because you don"t have much time to do so. Be nice to others, make people laugh,
find love, accept all forms of love, -uestion everything, make smart decisions, let loose every now and
then, take risks, break molds, do what you believe is great work, shatter epectations, write legends. !he
future is ours for the asking. 3o ask. Fuestion everything. Believe what you feel comes the most
naturally. Because you do not choose your beliefs, your beliefs choose you.