Afterlife: Judgement

If we are to be judged after death, the entire life must be judged.

If we are all part of the body of God, we must all pass judgement on ourselves and each other.

If a life is to be judged, every moment must be witnessed.

The corporate God, in the form of everyone who has ever lived, must witness every moment of your life, just as you must witness every moment of every one of theirs.

No wonder it takes eternity. And you probably don't know until it's over whether you're in heaven or hell. No doubt your opinion will change by the moment as you see how much more or better someone did, or how much worse. And because every life touches every other life in some way, more, better, bad and worse all relate to the ultimate whole result.

As you add things to the list of those you would not be caught dead doing, remember that you already have been caught dead doing it. Only the living lack the full knowledge. The overseeing spirit already saw every single gross or mean or unworthy thing you ever hoped to hide. And it isn't some single entity. It's everyone. It's the worst naked dream you ever had, magnified more than a billion times.

Now, try to relax and have a good time.

It starts to make inhibition look good, doesn't it? If you wouldn't do what you're about to do in front of everybody, maybe you don't want to do it at all. If you already did it, do you quit and hope to minimize the effect, or figure it's too late, and persist? If you did it at all, it's on your permanent record.

The whole long process is going to be boring and disgusting most of the time. But if we really believe in judgement, it has to be done. It has to be done to everyone, thoroughly, by everyone. Every fragment of the collective spirit gets to do it, has to do it, no exceptions, or it isn't fair.


Life isn't fair. Could afterlife be a similar ripoff?

Of course we don't really know. But when your movie plays it will probably have the strongest rating the motion picture industry can throw at it. Think of it. Every single instant, lighted at least as well as it was at the time, with perfect sound, and maybe multiple camera angles.

This is why they say the good die young. If you hang around past infancy, the questionable acts just pile up. Once you hit puberty, forget about it.

We will all know exactly what odd habits you had. We will also get to see every cool thing you ever did. Hey, it could be a good thing. But if you are alive at all, you will have to accept that the perpetual audience is in the room with you all the time, even after you realize they're there. You might address asides to them. You might ignore them. But you can't get away from them.

If you accept that all points in time touch each other, the audience watches even as you live. But you don't get to watch them until you've finished living this life. So you can't be sure they even exist.

If reincarnation is true, you get to do this multiple times. And the audience gets to watch you in multiple lives. But, apparently, the system is rigged so you don't know you're coming around again and you don't remember witnessing the lives of others.

The concept of judgement fits many faiths. Humans like the idea that accounts get balanced, misdeeds punished, virtue rewarded. It's just a lot easier to take if the watcher is a separate entity, above it all. But what if it isn't? What if it is everyone you ever knew or thought about, plus all the other people who ever touched their lives?

You know what I feel worst about? Not the biological stuff, everyone has that. Not the acts of injustice or cruelty, which were accidental or ignorant. I feel guilty that all the billions of people are going to have to listen to me struggle with the violin, knowing full well that I had no chance ever to be good at it and it benefitted no one that I should try. They'll send me to hell for making them all sit through that.