Poofsters

It's Not What You Think

11-19-22

I watched a movie the other day called "Cruel and Unusual."

The tag line said it was about a man wrongly accused of killing his wife who ends up in an institution where he relives the killing over and over. I thought it was about some dystopian future penal colony movie and would be a good time waster.

It was actually about what happens to you after you die. Specifically what happens to murderers after they die. One line in the movie really stood out to me and why I wrote this post. It was said by an alcoholic woman who committed suicide and has to relive over and over the moment when her children found her hanging from a tree. She said: "I did it to myself. I thought everything would go black and silent and it would all be over. Boy was I wrong."

That film character was a "poofster," someone who doesn't believe there is an afterlife and that when we die we go "poof" into the blackness and nothingness from which we came before we were born. The “poofster” believes that since we don't remember "being" before we were born, there is no afterlife, there is only the life here on earth. If you get tired of living on this earth, you can kill yourself and "poof" everything is gone.

Is it though? Do we go "poof" at death?

Of course the movie was just a movie. Someone's made-up interpretation of purgatory or hell or some sort of afterlife. It's not real. But what if it is? What if there is an afterlife? What if when we die we don't go "poof" into the blackness? What if what we are doing here on earth right now translates into where we go after we die? How would society be different if we knew we carried on after death and the way we live our lives here determine that?

But I thought we went “poof!”

Do you notice that all the questions I listed above are never talked about in "polite society?" It's the default in this world that "poof" and the “poofsters” are right. There is no afterlife, no God, no Jesus, no consequences for your actions on this earth. You can do whatever you want and then you go "poof!" Sweet!

I have noticed that the "poofsters" are often the narcissists in the world. An acquaintance I know is a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying "poofster" and narcissist. He tells me all the time that we just go "poof" after we die and that he could care less if he is wrong (he believes he’s never wrong about anything of course) and if life continues on - so what? I ask him all the time if he believes in God and of course he says "hell NO, because this is all there is and we just go ‘poof’." He is a narcissist and the most unhappy person I have ever met. When he gets in his "woe is me stages" because he isn't getting what he wants in his life at the moment, I often ask him why he doesn't just end it all and go "poof" since that is what he believes. Like the woman in the film, all pain is gone forever into the blackness. He has no answer and dismisses me as usual. I believe some sliver of "a belief in an afterlife" is still stuck in his "poofster" ego-filled soul.

My “poofster” acquaintance going down with the ship.

To believe in an afterlife means we don't go "poof." We continue on forever. We go somewhere and what happens on this earth is so VERY important to that journey. God exists and we are destined to go back to the Creator. If you have a belief in an afterlife, that makes living here on this earth so much more difficult, yet so much more meaningful. You have to start making choices about your actions that lead you to Heaven in the afterlife (I am assuming nobody wants to go to hell or even purgatory, but then you never know), and those choices often result in poverty, ostracization, ridicule, self-sacrifice and sometimes even death on this earth:

1. First, if you believe in an afterlife, you have to believe in God and most "poofsters" will tell you a Creator doesn't exist because we are just atoms made from the "Big Bang" and crawled out of the sludge and evolved into a bucket of matter destined to decay and rot into a "poof." Fun times! Since God doesn't exist, then humans can do whatever they want in this life, and it's all about us. No ultimate consequences for any of our actions lead to a society of narcissism and chaos.

2. Second, if you believe in an afterlife, you have to live your life according to God's Ten Commandments and rules and what fun is that? If you just go "poof" then why would I have to follow some made-up rules by a made-up sky fairy? Following the rules doesn't get you earthly delights. We all want fame, money, sex, and power in this world. It's carnal fun and intoxicating. The Godly rules are opposite to that and depressing. If we go "poof" we can do what we like while we live here, rules be damned (since we're not going to be).

3. Third, if you believe in an afterlife and are Catholic, you have to believe that Jesus is our Savior and is † "… the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live." † (John 11:25) Nobody comes to God but through Jesus, and if you die a non-believer in Him, you will not reach Heaven. Well, now you've gone too far as usual Napoleon! What if I don't believe in Jesus but still believe in God? Are you saying just because I think Jesus was a mere mortal with a good marketing scheme that I'm condemned by God to hell or purgatory? That's stupid. Well, yes that is exactly what I am saying, stupid or not. As for "poofsters," Jesus is completely irrelevant since if He existed, He just went "poof" too when he was crucified as a criminal, so my "poofster" acquaintance tells me.

Thus, my question to all "poofsters" out there - are you happy taking the chance that an afterlife doesn't exist, God doesn't exist and Jesus was just an insane mere mortal and can be discarded as such? What if we don't go "poof" as the movie shows? What if we continue on and everything God and Jesus say is true? Would you just not care or would you finally care and realize it is too late as you walk around the afterlife institution eternally and relive your bad choices over and over again?

Are you willing to play Risk that we go “poof”?

Belief is such a simple thing, but requires humility and submission to a higher being's authority and guidance. That is counter to our human ego, which says this life is all there is, so deny yourself nothing and ride your wants and sins to the final "poof!"

If you are a "poofster" or even a non-”poofster” I'd be interested in hearing what you think about an afterlife in the comments.