When Death Smiles Upon You

 "The law exempts Death from taking a life, you know?"

I was walking down a poorly-lit street when someone brushed against me. I looked, and there was no mistaking him. He looked exactly like what I had imagined him to be. He was the familiar-looking old man in a white robe, long grey hair and a grey, knee-length beard, and hiding a scythe under his robe.

I was staring at the Grim Reaper himself in the face.

He smiled, came closer and whispered: "You're next," and reached for his rusty scythe. I turned around, put on a brave front, and said: "Look, you just can't pick me at random and do me in. There's a law against taking a life, you know?"

He looked at me coolly, smiled, and retorted mockingly: "The law exempts Death from taking a life, you know?" He was right. That's too bad. "Taking a life is my job. It's the law of nature. Nothing personal!" he added.

"The law's an ass; human law or nature's," I muttered to myself, flip-flopping my perspective.

I had called him a pirate chief wearing an eyepatch, rings in his ears, flying the Jolly Roger, sailing the seas of life and plundering people of their very own lives. Was this the reason why he picked on me?

There was also absolutely no doubt that he means what he says. So the only recourse for me was to flee for my life, hoping that I could easily outrun the doddering old coyote. Feet, don't fail me. This is real, he's going to kill me, I thought as I ran faster and faster, glancing back frequently. But the old man, unusual for his age, seemed to be flying towards me, gleefully brandishing his ugly-looking scythe.

I turned a corner and spied a place to hide, panting furiously. When I regained my breath, I heard someone also panting nearby, just as exhausted. When I took a peek, it was the Reaper himself, also seemingly recovering his breath. I wondered whether he was playing a cat-and-mouse game. Looks like it. Still smiling, he then abruptly started to reach for the scythe.

Here we go again! It's run, Sammy, run. And you don't need a starter gun to run when your life's at stake.

I was so gripped by the renewed terror that I ignored the honking and screeching sound of a car getting closer and closer to me. This was followed by a god-awful loud bang of a fast-driving car hitting something hard.

Suddenly I was flying in mid-air and landing with a big thud on my back. It seemed all the bones in my body have been broken. I could hardly move, and my head was bloodied and bleeding. Life appeared to be ebbing away from my mortal coil. I could also feel the gnawing pain, so intense that I was even ready to welcome death itself to end it.

Didn't they say death is the ultimate painkiller?

Then I heard a car door slammed shut and saw someone walking towards me in a leisurely manner. It was the old Grim Reaper again, smiling and looking down at me. But wasn't he the one chasing me all the time, a scythe in his hand? This time though I didn't see any ugly-looking blade at all.

This time he's really got me, I thought, and I was ready to go if that's my fate. I was waiting for the coup de grace -- the powerful swing of the scythe. Yes, let's get it over and done with, I thought.

But nothing happened. The Reaper knelt, touched my forehead and whispered gently: "I've changed my mind. Maybe some other time, OK?" The old grim beard then got up, walked back to the car and drove off -- actually the car seemed to have vanished into thin air as I moved my dying body for a last glance at him.

Then a strange thing happened: a miracle. The pain began to subside and I found life flowing back in, slowly at first, then picking up pace. Finally all pain was gone and I was back to normal -- as if nothing had ever happened to me! I checked again to see if I was all in one piece.

I stood up, confused, shaken and dazed by the experience, and heard sirens wailing as police cars headed towards me, an ambulance trailing behind. An officer stepped out, looked around, gasped and pulled his hat aside to scratch his head. He seemed lost.

"Excuse me sir, did you see an accident around here?" he asked. I just shrugged, looked confused myself and said: "Maybe you got the wrong info, officer. Maybe somewhere else." The red-faced young officer had a few words with his men and, scratching his head again, drove off shouting something into the police intercom about "goddamned prank calls."

Back to myself. Whatever had happened to me? Was it a life-changing experience? Was the old Grim Reaper teaching me a lesson on what it's like being so close to death? Am I a "born-again" what? Well, I wasn't ever "born again." I never died -- literally or figuratively!

Besides, there's no such thing as life after death -- only death after life.

All this was unsettling, so I just thought about one thing that really mattered: "Maybe some other time, OK?"  the old Reaper had said.

But when?

END

*

Death does not only work on a  first-come-first-served basis. It also serves those who jump the queue as well as the gate-crashers. (Me)

We sow seeds of life; Death reaps the harvest. (Me)

Death lurks in the seeds of life. Where there is life, there is death. You can't have one without the other. (Me)

If immortality should suddenly replace death, our fates would certainly be, well, worse than death! We could even be shouting Long Live Death, and Death to Immortality!

The Topsy-turvy World of Religions

Gurus lurking behind gods and religions have this amazing ability of seeing things upside down -- and inside out! Let's see how the gurus see the world from their topsy-turvy position when they stand on their heads.

Guru's brain projects reality
Fact:
The real, outside world is reflected onto our brain through the senses, enabling us to learn about reality and to study it.

Topsy-turvy: 
Fantasy is projected from the guru's brain onto the outside world --  much like a movie projector throwing images onto a screen. The world is whatever the guru thinks or says it is, and you'd better believe it ....

God needs man's protection!
Fact:
The truth is that the all-powerful God strangely needs protection by man. Otherwise he's as helpless as a new-born babe. In fact, God is such a helpless spook that he even can't ruffle a baby's downy hair!

Fiction:
God is the most powerful being in the world who created the universe and mankind. He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni-everything else.

Fiction is fact
Fact:
Supernaturalism, a.k.a. spookism, is a blatant and unalloyed superstition and a fiction. Since religions are invariably based on spookism, that unmistakably makes religions a superstition.

Topsy-turvy: 
Supernaturalism is the truth and foundation of religions. Supernatural beings, called spooks in common parlance, such as God and angels, exist in this world. To have religion, you must believe in them. Or pretend to believe?

Believing is seeing
Fact: 
Seeing is believing, as they say.

Topsy-turvy: 
Believing is seeing. Delusion, as long as it's religious, is true and real. And you'd better believe it ...

The creator is the created!
Fact: 
Man created imaginary beings called gods as well as religions by the thousands since the dawn of humanity. Gods, including the super spook simply named God, are therefore the children of man.

Topsy-turvy: 
The boogeyman called God created man and everything else in the universe! We are the children of God.
(It's like saying Mickey Mouse created Walt Disney, Disneyland and the universe.)

Word of man is "word of God"
Fact:
The guru puts words -- his raves and rants and other stuff he scavenges from elsewhere -- in the boogeyman's mouth, and proclaims it as the "word of God." He and his sycophants also get this written down and call it the holy book, to be cited and parroted.

Topsy-turvy: 
The guru demands that the "word of God" (read: the guru's words) must be obeyed and parroted to all and sundry and threatens those who question it with terrible consequences, here and in the hereafter.

God-fearing man or man-fearing god?
Fact:
God is a figment of man's imagination and will unerringly say anything that his creator wants -- as long as the creator is doing the talking. Thus we have an obedient "man-fearing God!"

Topsy-turvy:
Gurus love a "God-fearing man."  They can cite the "good book" (which the guru and his sycophants said or wrote) and make him obey and do God's (read: the guru's) bidding -- even commit murder of the guru's opponents, or risk their lives to defend God (again, read: the guru). In fact, there are no "God-fearing men" -- only man-fearing men around.


Science and religion great pals
Fact:
Science and religion are mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed and as far apart as the earth and the sky. Any sane and honest thinker can see that clearly and easily.

Topsy-turvy:        
Science and religion get along just fine, thank you. Never mind the superstitious humbug about the existence of spooks (such as God, the devil, the soul etc.), creation myths, afterlife, the other-world, imaginary places (Heaven, Hell), reincarnation, rebirth, etc.

Seems like fishermen, carpenters, shrine-keepers and peripatetic peddlers of household goods know more about the world than all the scientists put together!

A two-timing mind
Insightful people explain that this amazing and contradictory attitude is possible due to the compartmentalized way of thinking: religion is held low-key and put inside the mental compartment marked PRIVATE & PERSONAL; the realistic and scientific views of the world are put in the other compartment marked PUBLIC. So now they can have their cake and eat it too.

But sometimes there are glitches. Things don't always work out this way. Things in the PUBLIC compartment tend to seep into the other side, like reverse osmosis, and clean up the PRIVATE & PERSONAL compartment, ridding it of impurities. That's a time of personal crisis of belief for the self-deceivers!

You only need to read the confessions of former priests who couldn't indulge in lying and deception any more and moved out from the "House of God" into the "House of Humanity". No more playing the shepherd-and-sheeple game.


A bum was munching on some stale, discarded dog biscuits at a garbage dump. When passers-by stared at him, he growled: "Just because it's not fit for a dog doesn't mean it's not fit for humans".

                                                              *************


They say religion is a compass for morality and for just about everything else under the sun.

Me:
Excuse me, there's a spook in your compass! It's wobbling and rattling; north is going south, and east is going west, and it's out of control. Good luck to your navigation! Hope you can make it to your destination! (Me)

The shepherds and the sheeple: First they fleece the woolly-headed, then they keep them in line with hooks and sheep dogs, and finally they drive them towards meat-processing centers and convert the sheep into lamb chops and lamb kebabs! (Me)