Why afterlife fantasies irk me.

Well, there's of course, the injustice and horror of the idea of Hell, and how disturbingly casually that gets thrown around as a wish on people in our culture.

Then you've got the poorly thought out notion of Heaven (Thanks, Jonathan), and the disturbing lengths some people will go to to get there.

And you've got the disturbing mental contortions that result from this whole Heaven/Hell deal, and how it's barely ever questioned in our culture.

And you've got the equally disturbing mental contortion of the necessity of eternity, and how it tells people that their lives are bleak and meaningless without it, and how it allows them to culturally get away with the insult of saying YOUR life is equally meaningless, yet there's something wrong with *you* if you protest or argue in any way.

And then you've got how it's all shielded behind this idea of comfort.

And a lot of other bullshit hides behind comfort, but you're allowed to poke around and question those things....

....and it just points up how much inconsistency there is in this goofy culture of ours.

Like I said in another rant, when it's the other guy's superstition, no one has any trouble seeing what the problem is....

...this speech from South Park really nails it.

Watch more South Park videos on AOL Video

...now, when it's a horrible charlatan like John Edward, we have no trouble at all seeing the problem, and speaking up against it.

The problem is obvious with anyone with a brain.

This vulture is not only exploiting grief, he's replacing the real memories of a real loved one with a dopey voice in a room.

There's very little that's uglier than that.

And all these mediums and psychics ply in that nasty trade.

Houdini knew it, he devoted the latter half of his career to debunking those motherfuckers, and he was a fucking hero for doing it.

BUT....replace John Edward with a minister, and ghosts with angels, and the pseudo-palliative somehow becomes acceptable.

And there's no logical reason.
Just culture.
As I've ranted previously, our culture is in dire shape, mostly a heap of slogans and superstitions, and I think we deserve better.

There's another disturbing mental contortion, and it's also something we deserve better than as individuals, and as a society, and it's this craving for death, this wish for it all to go away, and how it manifests in this whole end times/rapture bullshit.

There's no other way to frame it that isn't bullshit, if you really sincerely want the world to end, you're in a death cult.

And the Left Behind (thanks, Baron Scarpia, excellent review) books are creepy death cult literature.
And it's more exploitation by cynical charlatans.

The movie (ditto, B) is a piece of shit too.

Case you didn't know.

But yeah, that's why it bugs me.
Why mediums bugged Houdini, why John Edward bugs every-fucking-one, and knowing we deserve better as a society, as a species, and as individual human beings that I care about.

I'd have to be such a cynical evil fuck not to give a shit.

I could be lazy, and let myself be, but then I'd be no better than John Edward, and everyone's better than John Edward, or should fucking aspire to be.