Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates Quotes

“It's only when we dare to experience the full anxiety of knowing that life doesn't go on forever that we can experience transcendence and get in touch with the infinite. To use an analogy from gestalt psychology, Non-Being is the necessary ground for the figure of Being to make itself known to us. It's only when we're willing to let go of all of our illusions and admit that we are lost and helpless and terrified that we will be free of ourselves and our false securities and ready for what Kierkegaard calls "the leap of faith."

p. 43”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between

“It got crowded in Heaven, so Saint Peter decided to accept only people who’d had a really bad day on the day they died. On the first morning of the new policy, Saint Peter said to the first man in line, “Tell me about the day you died.” The man said,“Oh, it was awful. I was sure my wife was having an affair, so I came home early from work to catch her in the act. I searched all over the apartment and couldn’t find her lover anywhere. So finally I went out on the balcony, where I found this man hanging over the edge by his fingertips. So I went inside, got a hammer, and started hitting his hands. He fell, but landed in some bushes and survived. So I went inside, picked up the refrigerator, and pushed it out over the balcony. It crushed him, but the strain of hefting the fridge gave me a heart attack and I died.” Saint Peter couldn’t deny this was an awful day and that it was a crime of passion, so he let the man enter Heaven. He then asked the next man in line about the day he died. “Well, sir, it was terrible. I was doing aerobics on the balcony of my apartment when I slipped over the edge. I managed to grab the balcony of the apartment below me but then some maniac came out and started pounding my fingers with a hammer! I fell, but I landed in some bushes and lived! But then this guy came out again and dropped a refrigerator on me! That did it!” Saint Peter chuckled a bit, and let him into Heaven. “Tell me about the day you died,” he said to the third man. “Okay, picture this. I’m naked, hiding in a refrigerator . . .”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between

“Doctor: I have some good news and some bad news. Patient: What’s the good news? Doctor: The tests you took showed that you have twenty-four hours to live. Patient:That’s the good news? What’s the bad news? Doctor: I forgot to call you yesterday.”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between

“And speaking of burial get-ups, some special economic questions need to be addressed here, like, if you are buried in a rented tuxedo, at what point do you own it?”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between

“1 Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight (New York: Viking, 2008).”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between

“In any event, Socrates’ proof of prenatal immortality is that one of Meno’s uneducated slave boys actually comes up with the Pythagorean theorem without ever having studied geometry! Therefore, he must be remembering it. You recall that theorem: in a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Huh? We can barely remember that from tenth grade, let alone from before we were born.”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between