In one of his public speeches recently, Vice President Mike Pence briefly touched on
the subject of religion, where he proceeded to give his ecclesiastical opinion on the
existence and rewards of a heavenly afterlife for the truly faithful.
Since the beginning of civilization, people have watched other people die and in all that
time there has been no empirical, factual evidence other than death is final.
From my perspective, at least, there is no reason to think our end should be any different than the one faced by all other living creatures. There is nothing in the nature of things to
suggest our species has been granted a celestial exemption from the rules governing
the fate of all other living things.
The fact is, back of life we cannot go, beyond death we cannot see. To this question no
man or woman has ever lived, who know anymore about the existence of an afterlife
than another – that is to say, nothing!
I do not say that man is not immortal, all I say is there is no proof that he is, despite all
the Sunday promises and the Vice President’s assurances; better to honestly, hopefully
hope, than to dishonestly affirm.
All which reminds me of what one skeptic once said about the promise of heavenly rewards: “I will invest in no corporation that does not pay dividends until after you are dead.”
Is there life after death? I do not deny, I do not know, but unlike the Vice President, I do
not believe. What I believe in is – life before death!
We are all part of the natural world to which, in time, we all shall return and in between,
we garden.
Borden Applegate
Jackson
