tekHedd – the blog

“You can’t take it with you!” they cry, pointing out the pointlessness of having nice things. But nice things are nice. I think stuff is underrated by people who don’t have stuff, sour grapes style. I have a new perspective on stuff and death.

“You can’t take it with you.”

1. Who says?
2. How do they know?

Number 1 is important. Who says you can’t take it with you? People who’ve observed death? These people will have correctly observed that your things don’t seem to go with you when you die. But, neither does your you. Your body stays here as well. If you continue after death without your physical body, why don’t your things? It’s wrong to assume one but not the other, a conceit, the assumption that people are special.

Or perhaps they refer to experts like the stories of Jesus. He spoke of not wasting time on earthly treasures. If you follow the story, you’ll note that he said all of this before he actually died. Did he really know, or was he just ad libbing? Which brings us to #2: how does anybody know? Did you die, notice that your stuff was not there, and then come back to tell us? Nobody comes back from the beyond, and neither does their stuff. Stuff is at least equal to people in terms of returning from the grave.

So, one of two things is true. Either this life is all there is, and therefore stuff is awesome and the more you have the better, or your spirit and the spirit of your stuff continues after death, and the more of it the better. Either way, stuff is awesome, and the ever-present weight of mortality on our shoulders does not change that.

(Of course, the Bhudda had a slightly more convincing point about the dangers of attachment to material goods…but he doesn’t say you shouldn’t have them, just that you can’t get attached. :)  )

“shouldn’t I expect an all-knowing god to understand my simple human mind?”

Well, you’re forgetting that “you can’t understand God” is a trump card. You shouldn’t expect to understand why it seems to you that God doesn’t understand you, because you can’t understand God. Sure, it seems to you as if he doesn’t understand, but that’s because your little mind can’t comprehend the greater purpose. You still lose. You can not win against this argument.

Of course the “incomprehensible god” gambit is really cheating, because the one using it always claims to know what God really does want. Well, better than you anyway.

No no no, you don’t understand. You see, we were *created* perfect but were *rendered* imperfect because, um, of the corrupt world and because Eve ate an apple, but that’s not to be taken literally, it’s a metaphor for how, er, somehow God is required to allow us to become imperfect, even though it’s also his will and part of the plan, because otherwise we won’t be free which is somehow also part of his plan. See? It all makes, er, perfect sense. See? (Although don’t forget that he *hates* our imperfection too. But that’s OK because he loves us, although not enough to forgive us for being imperfect, unless we drop his son’s name, which is somehow also part of his plan. See?)