Re: Admiring Winona

Author: J.Amenta
Date: 1996/11/03
Forums: alt.fan.winona-ryder

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>But whether they die or live, our children are gone forever. Rather than
>pondering their fate after the crime, we should all work to protect the
>safety of children before they become victims. I contacted the Klaas
>Foundation and received lots of good information on how to better protect
>my children.

There is the possibility that death is not the end.

I'd like to bring this up because in the times we live in, religion
as a force and a faith have I believe, fallen by the wayside.
Western culture and the news media have been caught up in the
tragedy and victimization of people and their deaths - and it seems
that thought in regards to people having a "soul" or something
beyond just this physical existence is rarely mentioned.

LMedhurst writes: "But whether they die or live, our children
are gone forever."

I think this statement underscores the implicit beliefs many of us
automatically have these days when someone dies - especially
someone young. They are gone forever - that's it, and life does
not continue period. At least this is often our first and
most overwhelming reaction, and because of modern day beliefs,
is often the most compelling thing to believe about a death - even
though nothing - absolutely nothing definitive as ever been proven
about what happens to the personality once physical death occurs.
(In my opinion.)

Now I'm not a Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim myself. I don't
belong to any denominational faith. But I also don't believe
like many western scientists will have you believe, that
life is a result of chance (random gene mutations), and the
events in the Universe are based on laws of probabilites
with no teleological base. (I think the idea that everything is
just based on chance one of the most bizarre of human ideas ever
posited about reality - given the remarkable complexity and
immensity of reality itself, or even the magnificent complexity of
one human being.)

But again, there is a possibility that death is not the end. And I
think this really needs to be thought about when it comes to
thinking about Polly's death, or even our own which will eventually
be. And I think the way we do perceive the event does dramatically
change the way we live our lives. That is - upon what basis do you
and I live our lives? Is it in the belief that reality is a
horrendous puppet show in which you and I jaunt our way onto the
stage (with a modicum of control over what happens) and then are
put away forever? Is that the loveless, cruel reality you want to
believe is a reality? And if so, why bother to do anything or care
for anything? Why continue to take part in an immense evil?

On the other hand, if there is more to reality than meets the eye
(and certainly as we discover more and more about reality, we
realize there is a lot to it that is not immediately visible), we
can refuse to believe it is all just some collosal accident where
individual life is a random event. We can believe that there are
reasons each of us our alive - or else we wouldn't be alive in the
first place. We can believe that no one really does die in the
sense of being gone forever - that each of us have a soul. We
can believe that whatever power created the Universe in the first
place, created time and space and the Big Bang, would not be
cruel enough to annihilate an individual's soul and would be
powerful enough to let it continue on.

John