… The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery of men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with torture, with being flayed alive and with burning. Men who burned their fellow men for a moment believed that God would burn their enemies forever.
Robert Green Ingersoll, Crembling Creeds, The Twentieth Century, New York, April 24, 1890.
Introduction: in the beginning
I became a Roman Catholic early in life and continued in the faith until I reached the age of reason, more or less, around the age of twelve. I don’t remember being asked if I wanted to be a Catholic, or if I received any special instructions before being initiated into the fold, but since my mother and father were Catholic and all my relatives were Catholic, I guess I just agreed. with the crowd. Besides, I didn’t know anything about alternatives. I had never heard of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or other isms, and had no idea that he could be an atheist, an infidel, or a freethinker. Why then Catholicism?
Well, let me put it this way, borrowing a few stanzas from the Monty Python Every Sperm Is Sacred company:
There are Jews in the world, there are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those who follow Muhammad, but
I have never been one of them
i am roman catholic
And have been since before I was born
And all they say about Catholics is
They’ll take you as soon as you’re hot
You don’t have to be six feet
You don’t have to have a big brain.
You don’t have to have clothes on.
A Catholic at the time when dad cam…
I had no clothes on when I became a Catholic, at exactly 5:59 am on July 18, 1938 at Mercy Hospital in Southwest Philadelphia.
So the Roman Catholic Church caught me before I knew where the hell I was, how I got here, who were these people who were messing with me, or the nature of my mission, i.e. the meaning of (my) life. Long before I managed to wander 78 years down the road, I realized that theories about the last two questions could only come from within, informed by experience, education, and, as Ingersoll suggested in Improved Man, keeping the mind so open as day to the insinuations and suggestions of nature.
So long ago I settled on a satisfying hypothesis about the meaning of life that seems more plausible by the day, namely, there is none. It’s up to me (us) to make up for it, and doing a good job is key to a good and dignified existence. As Ingersoll observed, life is a narrow valley between the cold, barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights.
It is enough, I think, that we decide for ourselves what to do with our brief time along the narrow valley between the two eternal peaks.
The long arm of Catholicism: after the end
While I walked away from Catholicism around the age of twelve and left for good a few years later in indifference, I never lost my sense of wonder at the level of insanity the Catholic Church is capable of. In the realm of the strange, the Catholic Church never disappoints. The latest example is the new Vatican guidelines for Catholics regarding cremation.
Just what Catholics needed: more guidelines from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Not content with a life of guilt-inducing, endless rituals, countless obligations, restrictions galore, and the fear of endless torture for a single deadly mistake, Catholics must now abide by new rules regarding the cremated remains of their dead.
Do you want to scatter, divide, or store your or a loved one’s ashes at home, perhaps in an urn? No way. This could somewhat hinder a spell resurrection. According to an Associated Press article published on October 25, 2016, cremated Catholic ashes can no longer be scattered, divided, or kept at home.
The faithful must be buried in a consecrated hole in the ground, so as not to inflict brutal destruction on the corpse. Furthermore, someone might think that anything else flirts with pantheism, naturalism or nihilism or, worse still, with individualistic thought. Imagine what kind of problems individualistic thinking would ensure.
The only approved place for a dead Catholic in a poetic state of ashes to ashes, dust to dust is a church-approved cemetery, temporarily, until the Catholic version of The Rapture comes along and then all will be well. Provided, of course, you don’t find yourself reassembled, only to be sentenced to eternal torment beyond human comprehension. Well, don’t worry about that, as long as you’ve been a good, obedient Catholic, and haven’t flirted too much with individualistic thinking.
You see, to think for yourself would be an impertinence that the Church won’t put up with, otherwise there might be no Church very soon.
A solution
But, there is a way around the new rule promulgated by the cardinals, priests. bishops, lay theologians and canonical lawyers who make up the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, created for the express purpose of defending the church from heresy. (It is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia, founded by Pope Paul III in 1542 with the sole objective of spreading sound Catholic doctrine and defending those points of Christian tradition that seem to be in danger due to new doctrines. and unacceptable).
What is the way around the Congregation? It’s doing what I did when I reached the age of reason, more or less, at 12 years old! That is, opt for heresy. Become an individualistic thinker. Give up Catholicism during Lent, and the rest of the year before and after Lent. From now on, make your own decisions about why you’re here, what it’s all about, and how to be a good person while enjoying life.
Oh, and if you’re worried one way or another about what happens to your remains, tell your friends and family about your wishes. After all, if they’re Catholic, you don’t want them to be constrained by the outlandish proclamations of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
I wish you all good fortune, sunshine and intellectual prosperity in abundance enough to last you a long life.