“she would rather you become someone who hurts her, rather than become someone who hurts you.” The voice said. It seemed intimate, like a soft spoken conversation between a doctor and a patient.
Yes, I thought. Yes! Fuck. That is true though. The weight of what that could mean fell on me as I fell back into my pillows. Am I prepared to truly hurt another? No. Am I truly prepared for another to hurt me? Also no. And that will be used, as well everything.
“You still have me. And you still have the idea of love. Shouldn’t that be enough?” The voice retorted, distorting into anger and despair, no longer an intimate hush.
How could it be, when I am still controlled? I thought, slipping into the imagination. “LET ME SHOW YOU” the voice rang out. The thought that my denial of the existence of Satan and God is once again angering the being pointed at me. It’s always getting angry at me my thoughts grumble and its always about God and Satan and what I do or think or whatever. It seems to shrug. It will take whatever role it wants, whatever name it wants, whatever title it wants. Whatever it thinks it deserves, I don’t think I have enough “intelligence” to understand. It does seem to want love, though. Or worship. Whatever that may mean.
I scoff. Worship is a word that has changed through my natural life, moved away from something like a God or a King and into a healthier space – one in personal relationships. The people who are deserving of healthy worship (imo) are deserving because of their goodness, their humanity. It will take one of two paths in order to get worship from me.
Both. He said, leaning against my kitchen counter. I will take both.
I have upset more than one person in this reality by telling them that I do not believe freewill and freedom of choice are the same thing, and what’s more: I do not believe freewill exists within this reality. I tend to think of it as something like an open-world RPG (or a choose your own adventure book, a card trick, etc.) , choices can even help make the world you are in more immersive and rich, but the choices you are given are at all times scripted, with only scripted outcomes resulting.
That’s not to say that the choices given don’t have important meaning. Philosophy is constantly buzzing around me, stretching my brain in many directions, demanding to be heard. “You are not a philosopher” the controller seemed to agree “so I have given you one.” The philosopher does seem to keep things somewhat focused on the importance of choice, of moral obligation, and even of the inherent value within existing, especially as a sapient and intelligent lifeform. This can be grand thoughts of the universe at large, now larger by my understanding of the being I’ve given my own moniker: Evil, and it can be tiny thoughts about the daily things that humans do and have in True Life that can be used against us in terrible ways.
A flash of memory enhanced imagination pushed itself through my mind, as they often do, while at work. You are hurting them. I was told. You are taking drugs, and what’s worse, you are taking one you already know your body did not agree with at the time of your death. It sounds so dramatic, considering what they are talking about is coffee. Coffee, the highly popular and accessible beverage. Something tiny and seemingly harmless, at least from a “eternal” viewpoint.
“The Mormons don’t think so” he retorted. If I questioned a Mormon about the qualities that would land someone, deservingly, in hell, I can’t believe that any of them would name drinking coffee as a sin worthy of eternal torture. But, they do preach something similar.
Anyway, I now no longer drink coffee. Again. If that choice means there is any relief for the other being(s) I share this reality with, I will happily make that choice. Having not believed in God nor the Devil prior to the afterlife, and believing less that man-made religions can be true now in the afterlife, the choices I made were for myself and the things I interacted with. I didn’t need threats of eternal damnation to scare me into being good.
Someone wrote this on a sticky note in the breakroom at work: “Always Be Kind God Is Always Watching :^)” I’m not going to lie, it rubbed me in bad ways. It still does. Even when I was a practicing Christian, this sort of thing is one of the reasons why I don’t get along with religious folk – a kind and loving God wouldn’t want you to be kind to others for him, or for fear of him. And even in this world, where something created and controls reality itself, why wouldn’t I instead choose to be kind simply because it’s the right thing to do and I genuinely care about the things around me?
“Imagine getting into heaven and someone tells you they’re only there because you told them about Jesus Christ” the internet ad blares at me. Does this not read as thinly veiled ego to most people here? And on the flip side, I’m already living in a reality where people may exist in a hell simply because I knew them in True Life. Again, while that sounds like “fault”, the true blame is on the creator of situation, not the human. Imagine getting into heaven and finding out that your friend didn’t make it there because they drank coffee. Or all those people you’ve seen and interacted with that you didn’t yell preachiness about Jesus Christ to. Or that you never made it because you’ve used “Jesus Christ” as a reactionary phrase to something stupid or bad happening.
Religion is really easy to pick apart, when you actually look at it. No one would be able to convince me that God has the right to destroy or torture sapient life just because he made it. No one can convince me that something that truly created life to begin with would make that choice anyway. The creator of this reality did not create life itself, and was evil and self-serving far before meeting another sapient lifeform.
All of that being said, I continue to find things to be grateful for – and some of those are a choice. Recognition that I don’t know what’s really going on here does not stop me from choosing to respect the life around me, or even choosing love when I am able to.
Something will come. My choices, as well as the choices of the evil at large, will undoubtedly make a difference in what comes after. After all, evil has proven that these things are possible, and have a degree of probability.
“How are you, today?” I ask him, tracing the outlines of my mug with my fingers. Oh, the cleverness of me 🩶 is painted on the inside of the rim, the blue handle chipped. It was my favorite mug, now broken and lost in this experience, probably still existing in True Life. He smiled. “I exist.” He responded.
“we exist.” I whisper.
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