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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGene Wilder - Atheist
Sad to see him go. He was suffering from Alzheimer's.
He came out as an atheist at a time when one could be severely ostracized for their non-belief. The man had guts.
In the book Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish (by Abigail Pogrebin) Wilder states, "Well, I'm a Jewish-Buddhist-Atheist, I guess." He was Jewish in descent and a Godless Buddhist.[1]
Wilder was the subject of a prolonged interview on "Inside the Actor's Studio." That program was cablecast during Fall of 1998 on Bravo, a US-based cable television network. The instructor-host asked the famous comic actor what heaven is. Wilder responded by saying that he is not sure if heaven exists and immediately added that everyday life can be thought of as heaven.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)He brought joy to the world - However much he got back, he was woefully underpaid.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)"A tribute to Gene Wilder:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028131613
Younemeen
(58 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,202 posts)Gutsy for sure. I tried to find it on YouTube. Lot's of other Actor's Studio but not that one.
mucifer
(23,553 posts)I love it!
rug
(82,333 posts)edhopper
(33,587 posts)to tell yourself that.
rug
(82,333 posts)edhopper
(33,587 posts)he isn't an atheist anymore, because he is with God. Not the right reading?
pintobean
(18,101 posts)whether there's an afterlife, or not.
REP
(21,691 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)They teach that in Sunday School, huh?
rug
(82,333 posts)Do you think he still exists in some fahion, atheist or otherwise?
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)because I can still read his stuff on the internet.
'course, as drunks go, I've read much more entertaining ones than Hitch.
"do you think he still exists in some fashion"- hmmm. Yeah, in some fashion. Or maybe define exactly what you mean by "he".
But if you're being a jerk to one dead guy because you're still mad at a different dead guy, you might need new hobbies.
rug
(82,333 posts)Atheism is presumably based on reality, in this case stark reality.
Becoming misty-eyed and conveniently ignoring that does not honor the man.
And no, I'm not being a jerk to him. I enjoyed him for decades and my kids grew up with him.
Hitchens on the other hand was a war-mongering jerk, to be mild.
It's time to grow up Warren and practice what you preach.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Okay, what is? Gene Wilder the baby? Christopher Hitchens the adolescent? None of us are even the same person from moment to moment.
I know, Death is spooky black stark nothing, and this is supposed to be the great looming threat which drives us all into the warm embrace of the holy church.
Ignoring the fact that the scenery is made of balsawood and you can see the ropes holding up the angels.
But nothing is "nothing". Certainly not nothing. There's no such thing as nothing. So-called "empty space" is teeming with things popping in and out of existence all the time, borrowing time and matter and energy and probability from the randomness, uncertainty and chaos that is the REAL firmament underlying everything.
It's not that I'm not scared of anything, but I'm certainly not scared of nothing, Rug.
(It also may be completely meaningless to try and speak of what is "outside" existence, because by definition there is no outside, but that's a post for a different day)
Gene Wilder - and Christopher Hitchens to boot- the individual, the ego, the organizational system of molecules holding forth for however many decades against the relentless and always victorious forces of entropy? Gone. But where? Back to the nameless, the Tao, the great mother of the ten thousand things which has no name and can never be created or destroyed. That's not Misty-eyed, that IS the stark reality.
At least, that's what I choose to think this week. You think whatever the fuck you want, holmes. Your head, not mine.
How's that, for "preaching"?
rug
(82,333 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)and a space.
Off to work. Enjoy your day. It may be all we have.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I think it was Jesus who said, "man does not live by McChicken alone"
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Phew, what a relief!
Although, come to think of it, I've always been here.
rug
(82,333 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)You know, I'm not going to regale you with my pearls of wisdom if you're not even gonna be bothered to pay attention. Sheesh.
I've got people climbing up my mountain in birkenstocks to avail themselves of my very valuable guru man-hours, and I'm giving my shit to you, here, for free. At the very least a "thank you" is in order.
WestCoastLib
(442 posts)A ghost, if you believe that thing, is often thought to be the afterimage of a deceased person still in this world.
Technology has left us with the literal afterimages of millions of people long (and more recently) deceased.
So, what is that, if not ghosts?
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I mean to my mind, there are some real interesting philosophical questions- what are "we" or certainly what distinguishes one of us from any other, if not the things we say, the things we do, the people we influence, love or touch, etc? And by extension, the words and thoughts we leave behind? Thomas Jefferson is with us, I believe, through the documents he wrote and ideas he put down. Van Gogh still talks to us through his paintings. Etc. etc.
And like I said upthread, we are not even necessarily the same person from moment to moment, year to year. As all things do, we change.
So on the flip side, if one does believe in a self or a soul or a point of awareness that exists beyond the temporal or the ego or the individual, beyond names and selves and all that, one that exists above and beyond the transitory, then at its core is that whatever-it-is any different inside of "me" than it is in "you"? Once we strip away the ego and the name and all the things "we" leave behind?
I don't know. Words are clumsy tools for communicating some concepts. But I appreciate your insight on the question, here.
Response to rug (Reply #4)
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Response to Post removed (Reply #14)
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rug
(82,333 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Just like you will not be Catholic when you are gone.... just gone.... right?
edhopper
(33,587 posts)at all those "now he is with Gilda" posts I've seen.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)the wife who was by his side through his senior years, and the years of Alzheimer's. What was she, a placeholder?
DawgHouse
(4,019 posts)I have to say, I had so much respect for him on how he supported Gilda during her illness. If there is a heaven, I hope they are there together, laughing.
Response to DawgHouse (Reply #9)
edhopper This message was self-deleted by its author.
Besides being disrespectful of Jewish beliefs, which do not have a heaven nor hell, it completely disregarded a marriage of 25 years.
Sometimes I wish I did believe in an afterlife.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)While it's true Jews don't believe in heaven or hell (the way it's normally thought of), we do believe in eternal life. Don't ask me what that means, I have no idea.
REP
(21,691 posts)Becoming part of a whole, not the Afterlife Cocktail Party. 'Hell' is the opposite and oblivion. (Reform; Conservative and Orthodox probably have different interpretations.)
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)that heaven was being part of the larger "world" and hell was your soul ceasing to exist.
REP
(21,691 posts)Nonetheless, the idea of Wilder and Radner "together again" does show a lack of understanding (at best; at worst, disrespect) for their Jewishness and Wilder's atheism
about both the assumptions about "where" he is and that we often do have more opinions than people in a room with Jews. You should try also having a family of lawyers - they'll change their minds just to keep an argument going. Insane.
Lunabell
(6,089 posts)Must have been hard living in Gilda's shadow.
REP
(21,691 posts)There is no heaven or hell afterlife in Judaism, and obviously atheists don't hold such beliefs. I was surprised at how many knew so little about Judaism - or knew that Wilder and Radner were Jews.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)or to put it another way, at death the illusions of separateness, ego, and the finite dissolve into oneness with all things. So in a way one could say he's "with Gilda" (or, they never were apart) because like her he's everything again, not that 'they' ever truly stopped.
This is of course just my own paltry attempt at putting words around one interpretation, as another Jewish-Buddhist-Atheist. No more or less valid than anyone else's, I guess.