Why I believe in a sweet hereafter

First, there's the near-death experience (NDE) described in encouragingly consistent forms by throngs of returners from the brink of doom. The NDE, more than anything, including that song by Blue Oyster Cult, persuades me not to fear the Reaper.

Thanks to the NDE, I fully expect to ...

• Hover overhead after drawing my final breath, personally witnessing and profoundly moved by the heroic measures being applied in vain to retain me in the here-and-now, as well as the inconsolable grieving of those inconsolably aggrieved by my demise
  

• Float through a long tunnel toward a brilliant light
  

• Encounter, on emerging, not only every loved one who's gone before me but a spirit-being from whose side I shall never wish to stray

• Make really good use of the Ultimate Magic 8 Ball® *

And don't go trying to rain on my parade with your battery of physiological explanations for the NDE. I will shut my eyes, plug my ears, and loudly chant gibberish until you go away.

Second, there are these reassuring and compelling passages from Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason:

The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are the winged insects, and they are not so originally. They acquire that form and that inimitable brilliancy by progressive changes. The slow and creeping caterpillar-worm of today passes in a few days to a torpid figure and a state resembling death; and in the next change comes forth in all the miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly. No resemblance of the former creature remains; everything is changed; all his powers are new, and life is to him another thing. [If] we cannot conceive that the consciousness of existence is not the same in this state of the animal as before, why then must I believe that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue to me the consciousness of existence hereafter?

... [T]he belief of a future state is a rational belief, founded upon facts visible in the creation; for it is not more difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter in a better state and form than at present, than that a worm should become a butterfly, and quit the dunghill for the atmosphere, if we did not know it as a fact.

Just imagine: Maybe all those dreams we've had of soaring high above the world below are, in truth, visions of what's to come once we have "quit the dunghill." Visions benevolently bestowed by a kind and caring God.

For further reading:
Life After Life, by Raymond A. Moody Jr.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine

* See February post entitled My idea of heaven
Magic 8 Ball is a registered trademark of Mattel Inc.

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