[In this, one of my father’s many entries dealing with his still-gelling thoughts about religion, he rejects the notion — and the appeal — of life after death.]
November 21, 1942 (Middlebury College)
I just killed a tiny spider, – crushed the life out of it with a snap of my finger. The thought came over me: Is there some power in the world greater than I which can as completely snuff out my life? And of course there is. The hand of society can just as unfeelingly snap down on me, and the chances of its doing so are greatly increased in a period of war like the present. I have no recourse; though conscious of my fate, I have not the power to oppose its coming. Nor has society, for that matter, the ultimate power, but serves only as the instrument which may direct my death in advance of the time when it would overtake me naturally.
Certainly it has ever been such a consideration as this which has led men to a belief in a beneficent power that stood on his side beyond death. If he could convince himself that death itself was but a passing mutation in a life that was eternally his, would not he have foiled the fate that otherwise seemed inescapable and all-powerful?
At this stage of the game, such reasoning doesn’t appeal to me. If you insist on calling it faith, I shall just as stoutly insist that I have no faith, at least, of that variety. The idea of life going on eternally is to me a repugnant idea, and one that takes the purpose out of the living that is surely now within my grasp. Today I am a man. I shall never have another chance to be a man. The elements of my body undoubtedly will continue in existence, but I shall cease to exist. This idea pleases me. Fear has no place in my thoughts of death. The only fear that I would keep alive is that I may fail to make as much of life here and now as is within my grasp. If I can do a good job now, according to the strictest measure that the morals of my society provide, I’m willing to say to hell with eternity.
Paul Davis Journals Blog 