Where there was a mirror. They just wanted to remind you. In case you forgot: You're going to die.
As the younger folk scamper off, the older man is hoping they'll come to Jesus before it's too late.
(Click here for a large enough version to read the signs: "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God" and "Jesus said: I am the door: By ME if any man enter in, he shall be saved.")
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42 comments:
VIVE MEMOR LETI FVGIT HORA
RESPICE POST TE! HOMINEM TE ESSE MEMENTO! MEMENTO MORI!
It's hard to define creepy anymore. This is, but I can't quite put my finger on why.
Because it's sort of a gotcha?
QVOD VOS ESTIS, EGO QVONDAM FVI; QVOD NVNC SVM, ET VOS ERITIS
The coffin is not necessarily creepy at this time of year.
But, somehow it is.
Palladian I don't get it.
This isn't lightweight religion, it's very heavy indeed. They are trying to save your soul, no one will enter the kingdom of heaven but through Jesus. No Jew, no Muslim, no "unsaved" Catholic or Protestant.
NEMO ANTE MORTEM BEATVS DICI POTEST
"In case you forgot: You're going to die."
I was told 6 years ago that I had only months left, unless I got very lucky. Obviously I did, but ever since then, I remember my immortality every single day. I never thought about it before that. It's not at all a bad thing. It's calming, and gives you focus, and reminds you to take a minute and plan something good, do something good, have a great day. Like I said, it's not a bad thing at all, and I wish it could have happened 30 years earlier. My life would have been different, but I probably would have killed myself by now living better.
FINIS CORONAT OPVS!
And certainly no atheist or agnostic, no gay people either.
That's very profound, Palladian. Did you write that?
Haha, just kidding. Mind, it would be equally ostentatious in English, so you can provide a translation without losing cool points. But no googling! We'll know if you cut and paste someone else's translation. They never come out the same.
MORS VLTIMA LINEA RERVM EST
And certainly no atheist or agnostic, no gay people either.
Does it really say all that on those signs?
Oh, no, you're just making shit up again.
Do atheists care if they get into heaven?
"And certainly no atheist or agnostic, no gay people either."
We have friends at the back door, and once you get in, nobody cares how you did.
No that is what I was taught in my church growing up, those people are evangelicals or fundamentalists or both. That is their core belief.
those people are evangelicals or fundamentalists or both. That is their core belief.
Maybe so. I can't tell from the photo, though. Like you can.
If that is indeed what they are saying Inga, yes that's creepy.
Well if there is a heaven and they croak, yeah I guess they'd be pissed if they didn't get in, it's an awfully nice place from what I hear, better than the burning pits of sulfurous hell, I suppose.
I know these people.
Alright Coketown, you bitch, I'll do an off-hand, casual rendering of my previous comments:
VIVE MEMOR LET[h]I FVGIT HORA - Live mindful of death, [the] hours flee
RESPICE POST TE! HOMINEM TE ESSE MEMENTO! MEMENTO MORI! - Look behind you! Remember that you're a man! Remember [your] death!
QVOD VOS ESTIS, EGO QVONDAM FVI; QVOD NVNC SVM, ET VOS ERITIS - What you are, I once was; what I am, you will become [usually a skeleton is saying this].
NEMO ANTE MORTEM BEATVS DICI POTEST - No one before their death can be called happy
FINIS CORONAT OPVS! - The end crowns the work!
MORS VLTIMA LINEA RERVM EST - Death is the final border of everything.
Well, Inga. Can't argue with that.
Thanks Coketown
you too Palladian.
I'm undereducated in Latin. (That is to say uneducated)
The message being delivered by the coffin people is a thoroughly conventional and ancient one, with pre-Christian roots in classical Latin literature and culture. It's also a very, very common theme in Western art, especially in medieval, Renaissance and Baroque art.
You can wander through any pre-19th century American cemetery and see these same messages in words and pictures.
Even after thinking of it a million times and seeing many close friends and relatives go, it still seems impossible for a person to end. Consciousness and being is our reference to everything, so how can this infinitely wide and detailed universe possibly be attached with such a delicate tether?
The message shouldn't be death, but eternal life. I think that's where people like this go wrong.
At the very least, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee".
The message shouldn't be death, but eternal life. I think that's where people like this go wrong.
What you do in this life matters in the next?
I think that's the message.
Palladian is on a peyote trip?
That whole tempus volat, hora fugit thing is a pun that works nicely in English, time takes to the wing the hour flies, but it's a bit truncated.
Time flies like an arrow,
fruit flies like a bannana
hardeeharhar.
Pallidian is right. I've seen those gravestones myself in East Coast cemetaries.
On Ash Wednesday, Catholic priests used to say as they administered the ashes, "Thou are dust and to dust thou shalt return." Now they say something so Hallmark card-bland I can't recall it. "Thou are dust and to dust thou shalt return" certainly packed a punch.
Amen sister.
I am an atheist. I don't believe in heaven.
I'm in heaven--I don't believe in atheists. Never seen one here.
Can we be sure they're not just soft-selling coffins?
I think it is a little illogical to think that since I fear death there is this eternal life. Yet we perceive that there is both mortality and meaning in life and religion speaks to us from there.
Time flies like an arrow,
fruit flies like a bannana
And then you're dead.
hardeeharhar.
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