Life Without Doubt

Death is sort of like life without doubts. 
The worst has happened, what a huge relief.

Years of nagging doubt can wreck your looks, hence the best thing folks muster at funerals is, “(S)he looks good.” My friend Ed was at the funeral of his uncle, whose remains had been returned north following his unexpected demise in Miami. Gazing into the coffin, his mom said, “He looks good.” Ed reflected a minute and replied, “Well, he should, ma— he just got back from Florida.”

Ed’s mom thought that the immediate lift this gave her Irish spirits should be shared with her grieving sister-in-law. Ed had his doubts. Ed in fact had grave doubts. But his stubborn mother crossed the parlor and Ed watched her convey the Florida angle to the widow. The result was bad, confirming Ed’s doubts.

Doubt is a nag. You want a life strategy that’s nag-free but not necessarily doubt-free. Doubt is important; it’s life-affirming. Doubt hedges against stupid. Doubt reads the label, vets strangers, checks the forecast and calculates the consequences. A decision without doubt is called impulse. Impulse is what you resort to when your starship gets four flats. Impulse is what stampedes herds and what fills junk drawers with stuff you had to have from the shelf at the checkout counter.

Religion, not to be impolite, is a doubt strategy. Somebody’s letting you in on the secret to a doubt-free life. Lots of somebodies belong to this religion; its doubt strategies have all been thought through. The doubt-work’s been done for you. The worst that can happen— death— no longer holds you in fear. You want to share this wonderful doubt-free life. Eventually you come to learn that competing religions cast doubts on yours, so they need annihilating. Your capacity to doubt this logic has been removed, so killing for your infinitely loving deity makes sense.

Life with doubts is better than a doubtful death. Poltergeists (not a religion) have this problem. They’re nagged with doubts whether they’re dead or not. Poltergeists want it both ways, sort of like folks who voted for Ralph Nader or Ross Perot. The only guaranteed doubt remedy is death, so if you fervently and noisily insist you’re doubt-free, you may in fact already be dead and not know it.