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Paradise

Wearing a diaphragm

More on atheism: Nabokov wrote – I believe it was in an afterword to Lolita – that one of the most improbable things on this world would be an atheist elected to be president of the US.
We all know more or less about the paradise of Christians and Muslims.
This famous poem by Philip Larkin might shed a light on the paradise of atheists:
“High windows

When I see a couple of kids And guess he's fucking her and she's Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives-- Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if Anyone looked at me, forty years back, And thought, That'll be the life; No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide What you think of the priest. He And his lot will all go down the long slide Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless."


8 comments Last_comment
Do you aspire to become an atheist?
@Arnon
Thanks, it feels like a wonderful atheistic morning prayer ;))
This paradise seems in between the common Muslim dream (40th virgins) and the Christian wish (porridge with golden spoons). We may conclude that the Atheist paradise is a more moderate pleasure. Or to quote Houellebecq more or less: all tourism is sex tourism, from here to eternity.
(Today I bought Confessions by Tolstoy. To my shame I have to admit I had never read anything by him.)
Isn't the idea of paradise a religious idea?
Lila L
Probably yes. The idea of God is also a religious idea, nevertheless atheists, some of them, talk a lot about God.
Maybe an atheist is even capable of shouting "this is heaven" while having sex or eating sauerkraut.
But then there are people who don't have any talent to be young and reckless
Dries
If you are young and reckless you don't flock to this site.
Haha