Stephen Hawking debunks heaven, Glenn Beck is mystified and a blue eyed boy lies dead

I couldn't think of a short pithy title. Opening up my mail today on AOL, which now owns (though I find this baffling) The Huffington Post, the first news item to greet me was that photo of a gorgeous little boy with the biggest baby blues staring out at me. Cute kid, I think, before I look at the headline. The kid is missing. No, the kid is dead, and he does not appear to be missing. He is a 4 - 6 year old John Doe found lying by a roadway in Maine and no-one is missing him? And then I think, oh, they have a family photo of the kid, and then, finally I am fully awake. This is not a family photo because they have no idea who his family is. This is his death pose. Still clothed, with his eyes fully opened as if concentrating hard on his surroundings, I am staring into the eyes of death.

My first reaction is one of horror at the release of the photo. Followed fast by my horror that he has been dead for days apparently and yet there are no reports of his absence. And then an assumption that an entire family is colluding in a terrible crime, followed by a sort of realisation 'oh, yes, this is what human beings do on an unbearably regular basis to other human beings'. Just last week a horrific story emerged of a boy being buried in concrete while being kept confined to a dog crate. But you all know the stories as well as I do. We are living now, in a world of unending horror delivered to our morning screens like clockwork and our senses are so dulled by the grime and the darkness of the human soul that we barely blink. After all, tomorrow will bring fresh kill to our doorstep.

It turns out that Stephen Hawking thinks heaven is a fantasy. In the entire universe he just couldn't find space for it. And I agree with him. But that revelation unsettled Glenn Beck today and he said he found Hawking's attitude 'very sad'. 'God Bless America' said Beck and I could only wonder whether he was thinking of the blue eyed boy. Perhaps Glenn knows for sure in his heart that the unclaimed boy is now sitting at the right hand of God in the life hereafter. Because for sure, the one he could rightfully have expected to live here ain't happening. Frankly, I am sick to death of religion/s. All of them.

I am deeply troubled by the boy in Maine. But there is a part of me that wants to believe there is a perfectly plausible explanation for his lack of identification. A part of me that wants to believe that somewhere there are people desperately looking for him. I take that as a good sign that my own humanity is still intact somewhat. If only I were a religious person, I could say a meaningless prayer for his soul. But I do not believe in souls, in an after-life, reincarnation or heaven and hell. I believe the little boy was brutally deprived of the one thing that we have a right to once born into this world - to belong. To life.

 

Comments

[Jane Tierney]

Amazing that many people still put their faith in something so capricious and self made as religion. We say we despise abortion, while the same folks abuse the children who exist because their parents couldn't stand the idea. All the while they don't really want them and will resort to anything to get rid of them. (Like pets?) Commitment in any form seems to have disappeared completely from our culture. Whether commitment means to refrain from drunk driving or texting while driving (see Rhonert Park teen guilty of manslaughter while texting, killing a toddler ) to unsafe sex practiced by our former governator with his household staff while married. Commitment is a lost practice that results in not thinking of anyone but yourself, and stealing other people's right to just live. Those things worth having cannot be bought. Those things worth knowing cannot be taught.

[susie fought]

oh jill

sorry to be so public about this but this is why i fell for you so many many years ago

this is you at your most beautiful

thanks for writing it

susie

[nina]

admittedly i have not read your recent entries. but i have disappeared (on FB) for reasons which are so maddening and convuluted that i doubt that they would make any sense.

thank you for the mother's days call. i wished i had been there to pick up.

life is.... well life is, it just is...

my email is [email protected]
and my blog is morethanjustgay.blogspot.com

and or course, you have my number.

the fragility i show outwardly seeps deep. it always surprises me when there is something else that rises above that and comes out swinging and ready to put people and situations in their places. i am sure there is a psycological definition for that. knowing its name really wont help me deal with it so i just dont ask.

i hope you are well. i think of you often jill(ie).

nina