Is There Death After Life?

     I present the fourth of 65 short stories from my book: Life, Love and The Pursuit of Happiness. The printed book is available on Amazon for gift giving, but in this blog you can read them free of charge, at the rate of one or more per week.

   This is a story about life after death with a twist; it is not meant to be taken seriously. If you don't burst out laughing at the surprise ending, you don't have a sense of humor. Please hit the like button and follow me on Facebook and Twitter to make sure you continue to receive more stories. Thanks.

Is There Death After Life?

Amos had sought the truth all his life. Even on his deathbed, with his closest friend at his bedside to console him, Amos hoped to know the truth.

      “I’m afraid I don’t have much time left, Marcus; I feel life ebbing away from my decrepit old body,” Amos said. “All I ever wanted to know was if there’s a God and life after death.”

      Marcus bowed his head and patted Amos on the shoulder. As a neurosurgeon and theologian, he felt he could answer the questions, but he’d never discussed this question with his highly opinionated friend for fear of angering him. Now, with Amos’ imminent demise, perhaps it was time.

      “Are you sure you want to know the truth, my friend?”

      Amos coughed and wheezed. He was hooked to a respirator, struggling to breathe and barely able to whisper. “Yes, I want to know the truth before I die.”

     “You may not like the truth, my friend,” Marcus warned.

      Amos’ weak laughter set off another round of hacking coughs. Suddenly his heart stopped, and he slipped into the black world of nothingness.

      A nurse happened to be in the room, and she paged the duty cardiologist. But Marcus didn’t wait for him to arrive; he snatched the paddles and pressed them against Amos’ chest. He had flatlined.               “Nurse, give me all the juice we got,” Marcus instructed. Immediately, Amos’ body jumped a foot off the table. His heart restarted and Amos awoke.

    “What’s with the paddles?” he asked.

    “Your heart stopped but we’ve got you stabilized.”

    The hospital cardiologist arrived and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks for helping out, doctor.”

    “No problem, we all help each other.”

The news that he had died didn’t frighten Amos; he’d been expecting it for some time. The only thought that consumed him was the answer to his questions that Marcus had promised. “Well, are you going to tell me the truth about God and life after death before I die again?” Amos asked.

    “Okay, pal.” Marcus sat down in a bedside chair. “For starters, the two questions are nonsensical.”

    “What are you talking about? These are the same questions mankind has been asking for millennia.” Amos kicked the sheet in frustration.

    “True, but they’ve been asking the wrong questions. The wrong questions lead to wrong answers. A classic example of asking the wrong question is that of a Benedictine monk named Anselm, who, in 1078, came up with a famous but absurd ontological answer to the question of God’s existence. He first defined God as “something than which nothing greater can be thought.” From this unfounded premise he concluded that since God exists in thought, as the greatest possible object of thought, then God must also exist in reality.”

    Amos shook his head in confusion. “That makes no sense to me.”

    “Me either. I only offer it as an example of the mind-trap people fall into by asking the wrong questions. If you want the truth, the first question you should be asking is not whether God exists but why you want to know and who you are. You see, God’s existence is ancillary to what most people want to know.”

     Amos coughed. “I don’t understand.”

    “What people really want to know is how to avoid pain and suffering – and find pleasure. We are fundamentally pain-avoiding, pleasure-seeking creatures. Though most of us won’t admit it, deep down inside we don’t want to serve God – it’s all about getting what we want and avoiding what we don’t want.”

    “That’s blasphemous!”

    “No, it’s human nature.”

    “Are you trying to tell me there’s no hope for life after death?”

    “I didn’t say that. The proper question isn’t whether there is life after death. Rather, we should ask whether there is death after life.”

    “That doesn’t make any sense, either, Marcus,” Amos rasped.

    “You’re alive at this moment, right?”

    “Barely.”

    “Well, then, the specific question is whether you will die once and for all or transition to another body or form of consciousness. After all, the popular Christian belief is that we’ll live for all eternity, either in heaven or hell. In other words, is there death after life? Similarly, Hindus and Buddhists believe we’ve lived before and will live after death by reincarnating in new bodies until we extinguish our karma and achieve a higher consciousness without the pains of rebirth into this world.”

    “Everybody knows that!” Amos growled.

    “Then why ask if there’s life after death?”

    “Because I don’t believe in religion, that’s why!”

    “Fair enough. Speaking as a neurosurgeon, you still cannot die because, get this: You are not you.”

    “Now you’ve completely lost me,” Amos said.

    “The person you think you are is a mental construct you’ve created to deal with the world. You came into the world as a blank slate, mentally. We call it tabula rosa. Your entire sense of identity, your ego, was mostly developed during childhood. Your parental upbringing, thoughts, genetics, inclinations, hormonal balance and body chemistry have all helped form the personality you present to others. Our behavior is adopted to maintain our relationship with others. And once that veneer of civilized behavior falls away, say in anger or aboard a sinking ship, the person you thought you knew is suddenly another person altogether.”

      “But I’m more than personality, I’m a self-conscious entity,” Amos protested.

      “That you are, my friend. So are elephants and dolphins, but what does that prove? Listen to me, I’ve done lots of surgeries and if I slice away pieces of your brain, I can take away your speech, hearing, emotions, memory, personality and even your consciousness. A husk of flesh would remain that keeps you breathing but that’s all that’s left. So, tell me, where did your beloved self-consciousness go?”

    Amos was suddenly uncomfortable with his position. He reddened and scratched his head before answering. “It died – I mean I died because I am my self-consciousness and nothing else.”

    “No, you didn’t die. The reason is because the ‘you’ that you think you are never existed to begin with. The ‘you’ that you think you are is merely brain cells communicating with each by electrical and chemical means. Further, the dust that your body and your thoughts are composed of is merely sub-atomic particles communicating with each other. Thus, everything you mentally think, hope, dream or perceive with your imagination or senses is merely sub-atomic bundles of energy moving about.”

    “Here I am dying, Marcus, and all you give me is some sophomoric science hogwash. I refuse to accept that’s all I am.”

    “You asked for the truth, didn’t you?”

    “Of course, but you obviously don’t know it.” Amos almost spat the words out in a coughing fit.

    “I haven’t finished explaining. The ultimate truth you seek is that you and I and everyone else were not created from nothing. Even science recognizes you cannot get something from nothing. Therefore, that something must pre-exist and that something must have intelligence to bring order into a chaotic universe. And that something, that undeniable force of creativity, is sometimes called God, nature, or the universal consciousness. Whatever we call it, this force is clearly intelligent, infinitely powerful and creative. In fact, we are called creatures because we were created by this higher power and are necessarily part of it.”

     Amos thought a full minute before speaking.

    “That all sounds fine, Marcus, but how do us pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding bundles of thinking sub-atomic particles, sadly burdened with the illusion of self, avoid our suffering and physical death in this life?”

    “Who knows?”

The End
Copyright © 2018 by Ken Pealock