What’s so great about the Great Beyond?

[Music] [Music] welcome to free thought matters i'm annie laurie galore and i'm dan barker we're executive directors of the freedom from religion foundation which produces free thought matters a tv show from the non-religious point of view ffrf is a state church watchdog we're also a national membership group of 35 000 atheists and agnostics working to educate the public that's you about the views of non-theists join us today or request a free copy of our newspaper free thought today at ffrf.org today's show is the last show of our spring 2021 season we'll take a summer break and be back the first sunday in september meanwhile we've aired more than 130 episodes you can find previous shows at the freedom from religion foundation's youtube channel look for the free thought matters playlist on today's show we are asking what's so great about the great beyond we're going to take a look at what non-believers think about the afterlife about heaven and hell we'll feature some cameo interviews from some wise freethinkers and we'll conclude with a funny song about death yes you heard that right followed by a fun animated video that may cause you to re-examine your views about heaven i used to be a pastor and evangelist i was a soul winner because i thought jesus was coming back any day and the world would end i didn't want anyone to spend the afterlife in hell by my early thirties i started reading books outside of christianity and as i like to say i eventually threw out all the bath water and found there was no baby there i lost faith in faith which is the title of my first book published by ffrf i not only rejected a god i also rejected the afterlife like annie laurie i now believe in life before death i on the other hand was lucky to grow up in a non-religious family my parents believed as do i that it's so important never to saddle young children with religious abstractions and fears they are far too young to understand among the most neuroses inducing concepts are the repugnant idea of hell and the opposite phony promise of heaven both are predicated on a belief in the afterlife so we're going to take a look at what free thinkers believe about life after death heaven and hell ffrf's principal founder ann nichol gaylor had a motto there are no gods no devils no angels no heaven or hell there is only our natural world religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds first let's talk about the afterlife generally and there are indeed atheists and foxholes including the great scientist and writer carl sagan carl sagan who died far too young of bone marrow cancer said as much as i want to believe that and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife i know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking we've interviewed the brilliant writer andrean on free thought matters andrean was carl's partner in life and writing was co-creator of the original cosmos and creator of the continuing series and this is her poignant comment about her husband carl sagan's death but the last two years of carl's life he faced three bone marrow transplants which in the 1990s were i think even more horrendous to experience than they are now and during that time he wrote the demon-haunted world and billions and billions he faced his death with such courage equanimity like as a samurai uh never a question of like why me or anything like that but what do we do next to hold on to this precious thing called life and i think if people understood his personal heroism and his loving kindness in his in his fact to his family to his children to me to our parents he would be an even greater hero we knew that we were saying goodbye forever neither of us ever entertained the notion that we would be reunited because that's why we lived every moment of those 20 years we spent together like the great gift that it was i mean do you think that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and the future of the universe is perhaps 100 billion or a thousand billion years for that one little 20-year moment he got to share as carl wrote a planet a world and an epoch a time together that was the wonder we didn't waste a minute together and that's what i that's what comforts me more than any illusion that i'll ever see him again that was very moving the physicist albert einstein had some blunt words about god in the afterlife he said i cannot imagine a god who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation whose purposes are modeled after our own a god in short who is but a reflection of human frailty neither can i believe that the individual survives the death of his body although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms another physicist stephen hawking put it this way i regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail there is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark the novelist kurt vonnegut said being a humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead bertrand russell the illustrious british philosopher humanitarian and agnostic wrote i believe that when i die i shall rot and nothing of my ego will survive i am not young and i love life but i should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting and we have a short clip of bertrand russell who died at age 98 in 1970 talking about what he thought about his approaching death as you approach the end of life do you have any fear of some kind of afterlife or do you feel that that is just nonsense there is no afterlife do you have any fear of something that uh is common amongst atheists and agnostics who have been atheists or agnostics all their lives who are converted just before they die to a form of of religion well you know it doesn't happen nearly as often as religious people think it does because religious people most of them think that it's a virtuous act to tell lies about the deathbeds of agnostics and such as a matter of fact it doesn't happen very often why do these scientists and philosophers reject the idea of an afterlife thomas edison explained it i have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell or future life for individuals or of a personal god dan we see things die and rot in front of us every day and we mourn and miss the dead there is no evidence of an afterlife a gentle philosophy was embraced by the poet emily dickinson who also died far too young only 55 emily dickinson observed that it will never come again is what makes life so sweet the artist and atheist frida kahlo wrote i hope the exit is joyful and i hope never to return nehru pointed out i am interested in this world in this life not in some other world or a future life so what about hell mark twain once quipped heaven for climate hell for company will roger said if there are no dogs in heaven then when i die i want to go where they went the football player aryan foster once asked i don't believe there's a god why would i believe there's a devil quips aside it should be socially unacceptable to still believe in hell or teach small children that for the slightest so-called sin even the sin of being born into the wrong religion they could be tortured for an eternity burning and writhing in pain that terrible idea is why elizabeth katie stanton said the memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with any of the superstitions of the christian religion it's disturbing that in the united states almost 60 percent of the population continues to believe in hell we're talking about what's so great about the great beyond and when we come back we're going to talk about the lie of pie in the sky when you die and why even the concept of heaven and the more pleasant life after death is unhelpful to humanity [Music] hi i'm ron reagan an unabashed atheist and i'm alarmed by the intrusions of religion into our secular government that's why i'm asking you to support the freedom from religion foundation the nation's largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics working to keep state and church separate just like our founding fathers intended please support the freedom from religion foundation ron reagan lifelong atheist not afraid of burning in hell what's so great about the great beyond free thought matters this week is dissecting what's wrong with beliefs in heaven hell and the afterlife we recently asked the free thought scholar journalist and author susan jacoby what's so good about the afterlife what's so great about the afterlife i don't even think about it uh i just think that i just think as as many people have over the years but it's it's the deadline so to speak that gives life its meaning if we were never going to die uh it's the fact that's a lot what this last year has felt like never being able to leave my apartment and having to work at home but nothing was ever going to change what if life were like that like nothing is ever going to change nothing nothing to eventually eventually will you will die and what uh it doesn't it just doesn't make any sense i don't see not believing in an afterlife as very as very central to that in fact i i have never participated in debates on that subject you would have to offer me a lot of money really a lot of money to participate in the debate on the afterlife because i don't think it matters what matters is what we're doing now some have suggested that heaven if it really existed might be a hellish place james baldwin wrote about his own journey out of faith when i watched all the children their copper brown beige faces staring up at me as i taught sunday school i felt that i was committing a crime and talking about the gentle jesus and telling them to reconcile themselves to their misery on earth in order to gain the crown of eternal life was heaven to be merely another ghetto writer and atheist isaac asimov put it this way i don't believe in an afterlife so i don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell or fearing heaven even more for whatever the tortures of hell i think the boredom of heaven would be even worse the comedian and actress hermione gingle said i don't want to be anywhere forever and ever it's too much lucy parsons a chicago activist from the late 19th century wrote we are tired of hearing about the golden streets of the hereafter what we want is good paved and drained streets in this world the actress butterfly mcqueen whom dan and i were honored to meet and who was a lifetime member of the freedom from religion foundation told a reporter nearly a century later they say the streets are going to be beautiful in heaven well i'm trying to make the streets beautiful here when it's clean and beautiful i think america is heaven and some people are hell gloria steinem puts it like this it's an incredible con job when you think of it to believe something now in exchange for life after death even corporations with all their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous the environmentalist marjorie stoneman douglas said i believe that life should be lived so vividly that thoughts of another life are not necessary we've quoted a lot of prominent free thinkers including philosophers who reject the afterlife but i think the actress and comedian julia sweeney is right up there with the major philosophers here is a short segment from her wonderful one-woman show letting go of god one day i was walking along larchmont boulevard this busy shopping area near my house and i was lost in thought thinking so then i guess i don't think anything happens to us after we die consciousness fades and stops like every other organ so people just die and then i thought wait a minute so hitler hitler just died nobody sat him down and said you screwed up buddy and now you're gonna spend an eternity in a fiery hell so hitler just died we better make sure that never happens again and my brother mike ugh this means that he just died i always had this idea that mike's death while premature was his divine destiny somehow and that his spirit didn't really die but it lived on not just in the memory of those that knew him but in a real tangible sense and i realized that i now thought he died he really died and he was gone forever and then i realized i had to go back and basically kill off everyone i ever met who died who i guess i didn't think really died and then i thought oh i get it so i'm gonna die so i'm gonna die and i sat down on a bench and i watched people bustling by and i thought wow life is so cheap and so precious so i'm just another animal on earth just a type of primate the third chimpanzee better using tools and able to talk and then i am going to die and there will be eons of time when i will not exist just like the eons of time before i did so dan it's not so hard to understand why the human race has made up an idea like the afterlife and heaven you were once asked to write a funny song for children about death it's called no hurry to die and you recorded it for us don't want to end up on somebody's plate don't want to be what a cannibal ate i wanna live to a hundred and eight i'm in a hurry to die i'm in no hurry to fall over dead i'd rather fall over laughing instead i have a whole lot of living ahead i'm in no hurry to die don't want to drown or be killed by a gun or alligator don't wanna crash in a plane or a train or die of thirst i know that all people have to die sooner or later and that is fine with me just as long as i am not first don't wanna end up on somebody's plate don't wanna be what a cannibal ate i wanna live to a hundred and eight i'm in no hurry to die i'm in no hurry to fall over dead i'd rather fall over laughing instead i have a whole lot of living ahead i'm in a hurry to die don't want to strangle or starve or be bit by a black widow don't wanna smother or die by smother catastrophe [Music] i guess we all have to face the fact that dying is normal but it would be just fine if it never happened to me don't wanna end up on somebody's plate don't wanna be what a cannibal ate i wanna live to a hundred and eight i'm in no hurry to die i'm in no hurry to fall over dead i'd rather fall over laughing instead i have a whole lot of living ahead i'm in no hurry to die i'm in no hurry to die i'm in a hurry to die [Music] some folks may ask what's wrong with believing in a false paradise if it gives comfort and solace why not tell children their beloved ones even their pets go to heaven the problem is that there is no proof or evidence of an afterlife or a heaven the idea of a heaven takes our eyes off the prize if we invest our best energies and thoughts in achieving some reward in the afterlife it detracts so much from what we do on earth so we've assembled some more thoughts by wise freethinkers and prominent non-believers about that francis wright an abolitionist and early feminist cautioned time it is to arrest our speculations respecting unseen worlds and inconceivable mysteries and to address our inquiries to the improvement of our human condition albert camus wrote i have no idea what's awaiting me or what will happen when this all ends for the moment i know this there are sick people and they need curing i believe said suffragist and agnostic helen gardner that it is better to build one happy home here than to invest in a thousand churches which deal with a hereafter feminist charlotte perkins gilman said improvement in the human race is not accomplished by extracting any number of souls and placing them in heaven or elsewhere it must be established on earth the early 19th century english free thinking activist emma martin wrote religion with an upward glancing eye asks what there is above philosophy looks around her and seeks to make a happy home of earth the actress natalie portman says i don't believe in the afterlife i believe this is it and i believe it's the best way to live this echoes another actress catherine hepburn who said i'm an atheist and that's it there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other the happiest people i have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others noted elizabeth k.d stanton and now we come to an animated video it takes a poem by british poet rupert brooke called heaven which my co-host dan barker set to music now it's been animated by katie troy did you ever wonder about heaven from the point of view of a fish fish fly replete in depth of june away their watery noon ponder deep wisdom dark or clear each secret fishy hope or fear fish say they have their streaming pond but is there anything beyond this life cannot be all they swear for how unpleasant if it were one may not doubt that somehow good shall come of water and of mud the reverent i must see a purpose in liquidity we darkly know by faith we cry the future is not holy dry mud unto mud death eddie's near not here the appointed end not here but somewhere beyond space and time is sweater water slimier slime and there they trust their swimmeth one who swam air rivers were begun immense of fishy form and mind squamous omnipotent and kind and under that almighty finn the littlest fish may enter in oh never fly conceals a hook fish say in the eternal brook but more than mundane weeds are there and mud celestially fair fat caterpillars drift around and paradisal grubs are found unfading moths immortal flies and the worm that never dies and in that heaven of all their wish there shall be no more land saved fish let's look at what the scientist richard dawkins author of the god delusion says about the afterlife in this memorable clip from the dawkins documentary the root of all evil people sometimes say there must be more than just this world than just this life but how much more do you want we are going to die and that makes us the lucky ones most people are never going to die because they're never going to be born the number of people who could be here in my place outnumber the sand grains of sahara if you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted you and i are quite grotesquely lucky to be here the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist in order for me to exist we are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world as mae west said you only live once but if you do it right once is enough we record free thought matters in the stephen yule friendly atheist studio here at free thought hall the office of the freedom from religion foundation in madison wisconsin stephen yule a former priest turned atheist who sadly died this year had this to say about heaven atheist work to make this world heavenly well that's our show for our final program for spring 2021 we'll be back in the fall the first sunday in september thank you for watching free thought matters because free thought matters [Music] you

Channel: FFRF

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Keywords: Annie Laurie Gaylor, Dan Barker, Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF, Atheist, Freethought Matters

Id: MuUB_eBvXiU

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021