An Atheist’s Creed

Like smoke from a hot fire,
we briefly soil the air,
then vanish and disperse to nothingness--

The souls ruling our bodies,
like rainclouds drifting in sky,
suddenly scatter in cold north wind,
gone traceless in vastness--

Nothing exists after death,
and death is not a state--
only the end of the final lap
of fleeting life--

Greedy men, stop hoping for reward--
Anxious men, stop fearing punishment--
Time’s rapacious jaws devour us whole--
Death cannot be divided:
it destroys the body,
does not spare the soul--

There is no Hell, no savage god who rules the dead,
no guardian dog to hinder your escape--
These are just idle folktales, empty words,
myth, woven into nightmare--

“Where will I lie when I am dead?” you ask--

You will lie among things never born.

(Seneca, The Trojan Women, Act II, Lines 393-407, Trans. Frederick Ahl)

Quote for the Week

And are we chosen out of all earth's children
To perish in the last catastrophe
Of a disjointed universe? Are we
To see the world's end come?
A cruel fate brought us to birth, if we
Have lived to lose the Sun, or if our sins
Have driven him away.
But we must not complain, nor fear;
Too fond of life is he who would not die
When all the world dies with him.

--Seneca's Thyestes, Act IV (Trans. E. F. Watling)