The hypocrisy is suffocating.

The suicide deaths of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate “cult” and the resulting public discussion have highlighted the ultimate hypocrisy in American culture today: Sanity is directly related to your choice of afterlife.

This hypocrisy smacked me right in the face as I was watching Des Moines news coverage of the event. One of the newscasters, omnipotent dude that he is, stated that “no one” understood why the 39 people believed an alien spacecraft was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet, waiting to take them to the “Level Above Human.”

Setting aside the fact that I sincerely doubt the newscaster talked to every person on the face of the planet to substantiate his claim, I have serious misgivings about the mentality behind the statement.

It seems kind of funny that we are willing to discount as insane the people who believed their souls would be transported to a spaceship, but it is considered perfectly reasonable to believe that when we die our souls will go to a place called “Heaven,” a place no one can locate on a map (even if they were functionally literate). What’s more, the eternal souls of people like me are supposed to hang out in a place called “Hell,” which is located somewhere south of Heaven. Better yet, my soul may first have to take a detour through “Limbo,” an even more ambiguous spot than either of the first two.

Then there is the whole resurrection thing. Why is it that some people can argue that Heaven’s Gate members were crazy for thinking they would get picked up by aliens, but they are more than happy to believe that some guy called Jesus rose from his grave? Dead people leaving their tombs versus aliens picking up hitchhikers — one sounds just as likely as the other if you ask me. The difference is that we have a holiday dedicated to the former.

And then there is “God” (no pun intended). It amazes me how people can seriously sit down and make the argument that there is this all-powerful, ever-present and all-knowing being who exists all around us (but who consistently manages to evade the security cameras at every Seven-Eleven around the world) and then make fun of people who believe in alien life. At least they have a rock from Mars.

“Oh, but God isn’t based in physical evidence or scientific fact. You can’t explain God through science. He’s based in ‘faith,'” is the usual counterargument. To this I simply say: So were the aliens in the Level Above Human. Hope you all have better luck finding your God than the Heaven’s Gate members probably had finding their aliens. As for me, if there is a Hell I am sure I will be given the proper directions.

Suffice it to say that all religions suffer from some degree of illogic. Some are just more moderate and widely accepted by the populace. What we call cults are religions, whether you find them palatable or reasonable. They are easy to pick on because most of them have few followers. Their beliefs often seem more extreme or far-fetched than mainstream beliefs, but some of them still aren’t as scary as the preachings of Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.

The Heaven’s Gate members are called insane not only because they believed they would pick a ride with aliens, but also because they killed themselves to do it.

My response: So what?

Do not take my argument as a promotion of suicide. I would rather people work through their problems, as my “faith” in an afterlife is not as strong as that of others. Take my argument, instead, as an attack on the merits of the anti-suicide arguments I have heard.

The main argument against suicide is that it is a crime against society. I hate to break it to everyone, but as a member of society I am not really feeling too strained by the fact that 39 people killed themselves. Yes, they have deprived our society of 39 computer programmers and 39 wage earners. I think we will get over it.

In this society, we also like to use the term “right to life.” Yet we never define whose right we are discussing.

The “pro-life” movement likes to say that fetuses, as individuals, have a right to life. If this is true, then the individual also has a right to terminate that life.

The government has also claimed a supposed “right” to end or continue the lives of its citizens. A government right to control the duration of life invites a government right to regulate life. Unless you want the government to tell you whom to marry, where to live and how many children to have, I would suggest that this is an unwise trend.

I am not asking anyone to support the group’s views or actions. I certainly do not. I am also unwilling, however, to support arguments that are grounded more in emotion and hypocrisy than reason. Then again, using reason to argue against faith is never easy, even if it is a cult.

---

Theresa Wilson is a graduate student in political science at ISU from Dubuque. She is a second-year law student at Drake University.