When You're Dead, You're Dead

I picked up two Jehovah's Witness fliers someone had left behind last night on the med cart [I know who left them there, and who gave them to that individual, and why; but they did abandon them.] I read them last night and this morning. They were about everyone's hot topic: Death.

The whole thrust of these little illuminating leaflets was, "what happens to you when you die?" Interestingly, the writing style in these type of leaflets has perked up a little bit. They use a lot more psychobabble and wait until the nearly the last page to inform you about God's plan for reviving everyone He approves of in the last days. They never got around to telling the reader that we're all sinners, death is what we pay for sin, and the remedy is just to get saved, otherwise we're going to burn in hell . . . oh, wait, hell is for people who believe in an afterlife.

JW's only believe in life, not the afterlife, unless you are one the 144,000 lucky souls who actually get to go to heaven and help out there. So, there is a heaven, but not an afterlife, and all the slots have long since been filled--oddly, kind of a relief to me. So for the rest of us, there's just death. As in, when you're dead you're dead. Similar to agnostics and atheists. This whole theme is just so depressing.

One pamphlet went to great lengths to trace the origin of the supposed superstition that people have immortal souls [apparently from Babylon.] It uses Bible quotes to prove that the word "soul" just means something that's alive. It has photographs of every creature from butterflies to whales, with the caption, "this is a soul." I haven't looked up these particular quotes, but usually the translation they use is so different from mine that the meaning is warped beyond all recognition. So, even if one believes the Bible is essentially the word of God, it's hard to validate their point of view.

The rest of the story is that after Jesus comes back to purge the earth from all its problems and create an earthly paradise, all the people [who are saved, but these pamphlets neglected to mention this] will be physically resurrected and reunited with their loved ones to live in this park-like setting, with ample food and other resources which will have been magically provided for them. The illustration did make it look like a good spot for a picnic, with a park bench and mountains in the background. I guess after that they swarm about ecstatically and just . . . live.

All the people in the illustrations have expressions of joy and excitement on their faces, and all the families were properly matched up: caucasians with caucasians, African-Americans with African-Americans, Asians with Asians. But, according to the pamphlet, there's no racism.