I don't really know whether I believe in hell or not, but if the gods truly exist, they ought to invent one just for the likes of Kenneth Lay, the late former CEO of Enron. This guy and his cronies ruined more lives than anybody in recent memory, in America. He may actually take the grand prize in that regard .
Everybody knows about how he ripped off his investors and his employees, who were rpetty much forced to buy Enron stock, and as a result lost their 401 k's, while this turd had the temerity to encourage them to buy even more, knowing the stock was worthless.
Most people tend to forget that he almost bankrupted the state of California, holding the state hostage with Enrons predatory energy pricing policies, and engaging in a series of blackouts that amounted to almost a hostile takeover bid of the states infrastructure. He should have been prosecuted for this alone, yet he had friends in high places, in both the Clinton and the Bush Administrations.
Now, he's dead. Some people don't believe it,and some people think he was murdered. Take your pick.
* He committed suicide to protect his familys finances
*His wife murdered him; see reason stated above
*He was murdered by orders of someone in the Bush Administration in order to protect Bush from being confronted with the potential for the public release of Lays knowledge of his culpability in criminal actions.
*He was murdered by some of his own business associates, to protect their own skins.
*He faked his death. He is living somewhere high on the hog right now, laughing at all of us.
Well, he's dead, so I advise you to forget about that last one. I tend to think he simply died. He was an old man, under a lot of stress, was not that healthy to begin with, and may have overmedicated.
On the other hand, nothing would really syrprise me.
11 comments:
If there's a heaven you can earn (or be given as a gift by some god you were loyal to), then I can assure you that there must be a hell. (Of course, there's most likely neither . . .)
I think there is,or might be would be more accurate, but if so I think we make them ourselves while we live. Aside from that, no I don't believe in them as actual places created by some deity or deities.
I think the idea of heaven and hell is most useful as psychological metaphor.
In other words, a scare tactic. Yes, I agree, from the perspective of the leaders of a religion, what better way to keep worshippers in line. It's the ultimate carrot and stick approach. It's probably the main thing as well that has kept a lot of otherwise thinking people from long ago leaving religion behind. That "fear factor".
By the way, Fondfire, that comment you made on the old post that I linked to doesn't seem to have appearred on the old post, that's why I hadn't commented on it. But, put it this way-been there already, except for the pregnant part (I think).
I'm sensitive about infidelity. I don't often joke about it. Perhaps I took you a little too literally when you were being sarcastic. If so, excuse me. If not, well, then the wish stands, I suppose. ;-)
I just don't have a lot of personal tolerance for adultery nor do I think it a light matter. I'm a Puritan like that.
And as for heaven and hell . . .
Well, I meant more metaphors for how you feel about yourself. I think moral living usually makes a person happier. At least, if you're living in a community of consistently ethical people, you're probably all happier as a result. So, that's "heaven."
If you're living selfishly and others are living sefishly and you're all harming each other, that's "hell."
Most of us cope with something in between. But psychologically, you can allign yourself to gravitate more towards one or the other. (But it's extremely difficult to get entirely towards one or the other. It's generally felt that "hell" is easier to attain, but try to suffer consistently . . . It's hard. It might be harder to enjoy everything consistently. Of couse, there's reasons to enjoy things and to suffer. Only arhants go beyond that, eh? ;-)
I'm kind of mixed about it. On the one hand, I feel that fidelity is the best way to go. On the other hand, I'm too much a hedonist to be too much of a prude about it. At the same time, I certainly admire people who can remain faithful to each other, who can avoid temptation. I just doubt I could, given the right circumstances. I'm just being honest.
But I do have standards, I would never engage in a relationship with a friends wife, for example, or even just a girlfriend.
I've known some people though that are such dicks I'd rather fuck their wives than breathe.
Curiously, I see now that your comment did go through on that post, though at first it hadn't even though I received your comment in my Yahoo Mail in-box. Strange.
I understood too what you were saying about heaven and hell. But you can't deny that the concept does make anexcellent carrot and stick approach to herding people in line behind their religions rules.
As for the literal existence of heaven and hell, what I meant by people make it their own selves, I meant kind of what you were saying, but in the after life as well. I think we make one or the other with our subconscous minds in much the same way that our subconscous minds create dreams.
Then, our subconscous minds, being a kind of energy, as well as the energies of our memories, remain in this very "real" (in the same sense that dreams seem real)either joyously happy, heavenly dream-or nightmarish type hell.
Well, I'm extremely skeptical of any idea of an afterlife . . . Also, if our actions have any bearing on what kind of afterlife we get, one would assume (like in real life) that our chosen actions wouldn't necessarily lead to our chosen result. Soooo, I can understand the dream analogy (dreams often seem involuntary, too), but I actually tend to assume people could have an afterlife that no part of their being would allow them to have, if they had any control over it . . .
And, oh, yeah, it's a fine carrot/stick arrangement, but I think that most of the lasting religions actually give a lot of here & now benefits to most everyone involved, else it would have long-since disappeared.
The whole idea of the dream scenario is that it might be an actual consequence not so much of what you do as the type of person you basically become over time. Nor do I necessarily think it last for "eternity". It might only last for a few seconds, or minutes, before your conscousness just fades out entirely.
But note how long a dream that in reality only lasts a few seconds seems like it's never ending, how it seems to just go on and on. It could also be similar in that respect, in that a very short time in a heaven/hell/dream environment might indeed seem like an "eternity", but actually is a very short time in duration. That's because the concept of time in a dream state has very little similarity to how we perceive time in the material world.
And of course I definitely agree with your statement of religions offerring benefits for the here and now. They have to in order to remain relevant. But I was just speaking of that one aspect, which is undeniable.
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