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From: Jasper
Date: 5/7/03
Time: 7:33:41 PM
Remote Name: 68.73.54.122
John,
You are an atheist because you have never experienced an event in your life that was so profound and so inexplicable by “common sense” rules that you HAD TO admit to a force in the universe more powerful than human intellect or random events can account for. In the absence of that experience nothing can convince you that a higher power exists.
I have had many of those profound experiences – true euphonies. Some were every bit as strange as what happened to Rose with the possum. I have had them at times would I would died if I hadn’t.
When brother died two years ago I got one those messages the form of an old photo I hadn’t seen or thought about in decades that could only have come from him. I think that the only point was to assure me that he was okay and that I should tell that to his friends and the rest of the family at his funeral. Until now, Rose is the only other person I told about it.
I loved your story about the bull. Whether you realize it or not Jean and Kari said pretty much the same thing. You can take some symbols to mean a lot of different things but you have to go with your inner voice in interpreting them for yourself. I think that’s what life is all about.
I was an atheist for about a day and a half when I was twelve. Fortunately I grew out of it with the help of something in the universe a hell of a lot wiser than I was. I now believe that death takes different people to different places for different reason. Maybe that’s why some people are Christians, some are Jews, some are Hindus, etc. Maybe atheists don’t go anywhere. Maybe that’s why they’re atheists.
When I go, I hope that you will be around to joke about it. I take death very seriously for the living but not for the dead. The dead have done whatever it was they were ever going to do in this world – except, perhaps, to clean up a few messy details for the living. –Jasper