What to Say to a Non Believer Who is Going to Die


I just finished reading an article by a prominent academic scholar in religion who has ALS. It is a terminal disease though one out of 10 survive. People with this disease often can go to work and live normal social lives for a while before is shuts them down.

It must be a different end of life experience when people you work with know you have a short life expectancy but still function the same as everyone else. I would guess what people say to you is different than if you are confined to your home or a hospital.

This author, Michael Jerryson, is a professor of religion so he no doubt is surrounded by colleagues and students who want to talk about religion. He has taught courses on dealing with death. He says people ask him constantly, "Do you believe in God?"

His answer throws them off, "You are skipping an important question before asking this? I do not care if there are gods or not." His answer fits neither the large faiths of the world nor atheism. He follows a belief system called Pedestianism. He warns it has no organization and one will not find it on Wikipedia. It is passed around the world verbally.

One following Pedestrianism, he explains, spends his life pondering his own sense of right and wrong. Concepts such as heaven, hell and gods are distractions from a higher purpose and a higher moral plain. That is why his answer to "Do you believe in God?" tells us the question is so unimportant he does not bother with it.

What Professor Jerryson explains is one of the great issues of human kind. Humans need to focus on the future of humans, not on themselves or whatever god they prefer might be about. We are warming up the globe, killing others in wars while asking each other, "Do you believe in God?"

That is absurd.

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