Praying For my Eternal soul

MY RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS, pantheism with a twist of deism, have been at least cursorily articulated on this website. I love Einstein's quote: "My religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what lttle we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personal god who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation. Morality is ofthe utmost importance, for mankind,but not for God." That, in a nut shell, is me. My religious role model is, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Einstein. Problem is, people keep praying for my eternal soul, even though I deny having one. Currently there are only two people doing this, but that is more than enough, two people more than enough. Culprit number one is the ninety year old church lady who plays the piano for our Monday morning goepel singing group at the senior center. Seems ironic, in a way. As they say, go figure. The second is my dear cousin on my father's side Tommy, a well educated retired sales person for a large corporation, a world class pianist with a Steinway in his front room, and he is also, I fear, a devout Baptist. Funny thing is, neither of them ever confronts me directly with this allegedly altruitic endeavor. Never a word to my face about my eternal soul, nor much of anything else. This arouse within me suspicions that what they are not so altruistic after all, that their real consern has nothing to do with my eternal soul, but rather, with their self esteem. By saving my soul, they can either elevate me, magnanimously, to their level of spiritual attainemnt, or by failing to save it, take condescending pity me as I languish at their blood washed feet. The way I was raised, whatever you say about others, be willing to say it to their face. And no, with a topic of such immediacy and importance,they shouldn't have to be asked. If you really think my eternal soul is in grave danger, which you don't, tell me to my face. At least give me a chance to do something about it, since you seem to believe that I'm not already aware of my dire peril, which indeed I am not, because there is none. This, I would bewilling to tell either of them or anybody else, I consider presumptuous, arrogant, narrow minded, condescending, and insulting, among other bad things. Aside from my continued amazement that anybodoy would be gulllible enough to believe that God speaks to us in books and stories, to believe in this perfect, bucolic, enternally unchanging heavenly paradise I find no less amazing. Amazing, but entirely under-standable. (Can you even imagine how boring that would become?) We are the only species of animla who is aware of and fully comprehends the implacations of our own mortality, so we are told by modern science. Fair enough. Lucky cats and dogs. We rare afraid to die, again, quite understanddable. To assuage somewhat our fears, we invent religion,we invnet our various and sundry sky gods, we we write "scripture" giving us gods rules, and we invent the loveliest possible place for us to inhabit not merely after death, but to inhabit eternally, rent free, as they say. Its that simple, and you'll have to show me some astronomy and phsyics books explaining to me exacly how heaven and hell are written into the fabric of the universe. If you haven't done the math, or if our modern science hasn't yet reached the point of being able to prove a negative, that heaven is sheer fantasy, I can wait. I'll have a long wait, an eternal one, because nobody can prove a negative,and nobody ever will. As some Arab said to Peer O'toole said in "Lawrence of Arabia", "It is written", written into the fabric of irreversible logic, that you cannot prove that something does not exist, but only that it does. I'll go on attending my Presbyterian church and Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, on alternate Sundays, loving every minute of both. My Baptist friends and family memvers will keep playing their instruments, at vastly different levels of proficiency, Both will, I assume, keep praying for my eternal soul, while I bask in the afterglow of my beloved cosmic big bang spirit god, pitying them for their folly, fearing only their intolerance.