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My Mom was in hospice care for about the last year of her life. She was religious and I am not, I am an Atheist. We talked about that toward the end. We came up
by zw123456 8y ago
My Mom was in hospice care for about the last year of her life. She was religious and I am not, I am an Atheist. We talked about that toward the end. We came up with a very unique "pass phrase" and she agreed that if she got "up there" she would try to get it to me. That was 10 years ago, still nothing.
But I thought it was interesting that part of the way I think she dealt with it was writing her Eulogy. She had been the organist at her church for many years until she became too ill to continue. She had a friendly little rivalry with her much younger replacement playing little practical jokes on her like leaving a funny cartoon in the hymn book to "throw her off timing", silly fun things like that.
My Mom had been placing this idea with the church goers for some time, claiming that our family had Native American Heritage (we do not).
When I attended her funeral, many members of the church mentioned this and my sister and I just assumed maybe she was confused towards the end. But she was not confused at all. It was all part of an elaborate, one last practical joke from the grave.
She had convinced the church to allow the organist to perform a "Native American Chant" in her honor. The Chant was "O-what-ajerkiam" over and over but in native sounding phonology she had devised. She had even provided the poor unsuspecting organist an "official native American drum". (this whole thing shamelessly stolen from Mel Brooks). The ruse went off perfectly and my sister and I were cracking up, Mel Brooks was her favorite.
I hope I have a great sense of humor like my Mom at the end like that. It was her completely. And everyone got a huge kick out of it afterwards including the organist who was in tears of laughter after she realized she had been had one last time.
- DisruptiveDave 8y agoClap, clap, clap. That is absolutely wonderful.
- xamuel 8y ago>We came up with a very unique "pass phrase" and she agreed that if she got "up there" she would try to get it to me This sort of thing is addressed in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16. An excerpt: "'Then I beg you, father,' he [a rich man in hell] said, 'send Lazarus [a beggar in heaven] to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so they will not also end up in this place of torment.' But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.' 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.' Then Abraham said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Luke 16:27-31)
- paulryanrogers 8y ago> This sort of thing is addressed in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16 IMO that passage only addresses it in so far as to make up an excuse to explain the silence. If even a modest amount of the supernatural claims in the Christian Bible are true then at least one of them should be reliably repeatable. And despite years wasted looking I'm not convinced.
- whatshisface 8y ago>at least one of them should be reliably repeatable The entire idea is that a conscious mind is controlling things. The only truly repeatable aspect of a conscious being is their reflexes, and you can't hammer God in the shins. There are no predictions that you can draw from theism, so it can't be falsified or supported. The idea that you should look for ideas that yield predictions, although it is obvious to us now, took thousands of years to develop.
- paulryanrogers 8y ago> There are no predictions that you can draw from theism, so it can't be falsified or supported. Which eliminates any significant benefit besides some placebo effect. Therefore I won't be wasting another second fearing unprovable claims about eternal .
- chairmanwow 8y agoThis was the scariest decision I ever made to be honest.
- xamuel 8y ago>If even a modest amount of the supernatural claims in the Christian Bible are true then at least one of them should be reliably repeatable If it were reliably repeatable, it wouldn't be supernatural. That's tautological.
- 8y ago
- Alex3917 8y ago> We came up with a very unique "pass phrase" and she agreed that if she got "up there" she would try to get it to me. "Mom send back Satoshi's private key."
- mysterydip 8y agoGenuinely curious: if sometime in the past 10 years you had seen or heard or read this unique phrase, what would you have done?
- theprotocol 8y agoThere is a scriptural basis for believing that the proposed Christian afterlife does not begin upon death, but after the second coming.
- watersb 8y agoOweh t'zherkiam! Wow. Well played, Mom.