Dante's Inferno and Captain Kirk

I'd like to start by saying that I have an incredible fear of death. Not terrbily surprising or noteworthy, but it's something that may be an issue for me because of a near death experience I had a few years ago (which I'll talk about in a different blog post in the near future). Having sensed the frailty of life, I think that death may cross my mind a little more than for the average person. I'm in no way suicidal, it's just that I have a hard time picturing the world, and my life in particular, without me in it. Is there an afterlife? Heaven and hell? Reincarnation? Ghosts and haunting? White light and tunnel? Blackness and nothing at all? I have no freaking clue, and I think that's the part that gets us. I was not raised with religion, so it's hard for me, at age 30, to just one day start taking the Bible as truth. It's like waiting until you're 30 to hear about Santa or the tooth fairy. That's not to say that it might not be real, it's just to explain how it's a hard concept to buy into without some solid facts to back it up. And no, I don't consider the mere fact that we exist proof. I'm stubborn like that.

Last night at work, we had a very interesting conversation that somehow wound its way through a vast web of topics until death was brought up. One of the guys I was talking to had two different ideas, both of which had been influenced by the large amount of reading he does. I'm not sure if the ideas were his own, influenced from the sci-fi books that he's read, or if it was a paraphrasing of someone else's concept. Regardless, I found it interesting enough to stay up too late and post a blog entry about it.

If you've seen the movie "Seven" and you remember what it is about, you have at least a passing concept of Dante's Inferno and the seven deadly sins. If you read Dante's Inferno, you should be writing this blog, as you are way more qualified than I am. Hell, I'm probably not even going to explain this well enough to have it make any sense, but I'm going to give it a shot. From my understanding (since my knowledge of Dante's Inferno doesn't even consist of a glance through Cliff Notes), the story attempts to describe a passage through hell. I'm probably way off, but that's what I got out of it. I'm likely to pick it up and start reading it, but I'm presently buried in the Black Dalia, so it'll have to wait.

Back on topic: The seven deadly sins are greed, gluttony (I'm doomed), envy, wrath, pride, lust (possible hit again, depending on how literal the judges are) and sloth (oops, shit, my goose is totally cooked). These sins are the things that send folks to hell. People fear death because we have an instinct that strives for self-preservation. All of these sins tend to focus on the that self-preservation. They focus on the body, on the state of happiness in the moment. These sins don't tend to focus on spirituality, nor the fact that the body is merely a vessel that is used and bound to the spirit and soul for such a short period of time when compared to eternity. The guy went on to explain that Dante's trip through hell described the horrors of the torture and suffering that one endures in hell. However, most of the pain and suffering endured were explained through having a body that is subjected to this brutality. Once you have died, afterlife or no, your body ceases to be of much use to you. What if we are so focused on the flesh that the soul or spirit is unwilling to accept that its former host is gone? Would that be a cause for hauntings? Would Hell be a way to force acceptance of being bodiless by using such unimaginable pain? Are those sins strong enough to bind a soul to a body for eternity? Would acceptance of your fate, no body but eternal life in some shape, be a key for making it into Heaven or whatever lies ahead? Should denial be the 8th sin? Can a bodyless soul or spirit be tortured?

Sounded a bit smarter when we were talking about it last night. Apologies for the poor transcription service. If you send me money, I might be able to remember ideas more clearly and provide more detail. I also accept strippers and/or candy. Better, hookers named Candy.  I mean strippers.

Okay, the other concept is more Matrix-like, except in that it's completely different. No robots, people aren't being used as batteries, there isn't anyone referred to as "The One," and there isn't a vitrual reality that we're actually not living in right now, even though we think we are. So, in retrospect, it's not at all like the Matrix. Imagine that people are walking USB Flash drives. Every experience, emotion, thought and action is recorded to the memory card in your brain. While not all of it is accessible after it has been uploaded, it's still in there. Not until the moment of your demise to you get a full review of your records, which comes quickly as your life flashes before your eyes. This process is the download. Transferring your info into the great database of life (or afterlife, or whatever the hell), making Heaven dwarf Al Gore's information superhighway. Kind of a cool concept, everyone sort of unifying and becoming Heaven.

There are a couple more tangents I could head off on, but I need to pass at the moment. It's late, my brain is frazzled from trying to put into type what sounded so intellectual when it was discussed just over 24 hours ago. More than enough to tide you over until I post again at any rate.