By the time you read this, the contents of this letter will prove to be rather pointless, and yet I have left it for you to read in my absence. There is always a need for closure, and hopefully this will provide you with some. I, on the other hand, will already have it.

Dead men have no worries.

I am gone now; gone for good. I am not partaking of some great journey to some fabricated place in the sky, nor to some unfathomable depths in the fiery pits of some drug-induced imagining of hell. How these concepts even got started is beyond my limited ability to reason out, though they do basically seem like stories originally taught to children to frighten them into obedience and submission. And by children, I mean not only in a manner of age, but in a general immaturity of mind.

I have found that the living only barely worry about the living. And they worry so much about the dead. How strange is that? Even within the confines of their limited thinking, the religious ones still go to extremes when it comes to handling the carcass of that which was once a person. I have endeavored to hide myself away, where nature can do with my remains as she will. As is proper. The thought of having my body drained, injected, preserved and then buried in a metal box is both disgusting and egotistical. What in the name of Hades would I ever want to come back here for? I left of my own accord; ahead of my proscribed time; because I found living to be too great a burden.

I have had that particular clarity of mind that sees beyond the great delusions most others live by. They find happiness in their ignorance. I find such pathetic, weak-mindedness to be offensive. Oh, I have longed for happiness, but there is a great burden to one's soul in abstaining from the usual sources of it. If I find any joy, it is in the world around me, in the things that have evolved on this planet alongside us, and in many cases, far before our meager appearance on the face of this planet.

Some claim a god created all of this. A god? Again, a fairytale spoken out of ignorance. Which god then, created this world? Not everyone will agree. It's all up to whatever teachings you were given. Given and accepted I might add. You have the right, nay, the responsibility to question everything set before you. If your meal is bland and tasteless as compared to your neighbors, do you not have the right to question why? It is in asking that you receive an answer; or, I might say, you have the chance of getting an answer. Blind faith only makes you handicapped. Active pursuit of the truth, and dare I say - the facts, is what sets you apart from the simple-minded drudges that seek to anchor society in the past.

But there is always a price to freedom. Others hate you for not being restrained by whatever tenets they find compelled to follow. Creeds define them, as they define all of us, but which ones do they follow? They follow those they wish to follow, and ignore those they wish to dismiss. That is their choice, but it makes them hypocrites; pretenders and dissemblers all.

They say to be good to everyone, but what do they mean by everyone? Everyone that fits their mold of what is, or is not, a worthy soul? In the end; what it boils down to is this; their beliefs do no mold them, but they mold their beliefs around what they feel is the correct way of dealing with the world. Instead of being the skeleton upon which to flesh themselves out in a manner that would make them better people, they use their own ignorance, their racism, their anger and their hatred to be the flesh for their skeleton of ideology and mythos.

This I cannot stomach. I could, I suppose, if they kept their brash ignorance to themselves. While they say that misery loves company, and ignorance is bliss, then I must wonder that these people keep trying to infect others, and yet don't seem particularly happy in their wallowing, theist ways. Certainly, atheists, or even those who simply have no opinion whatsoever; they do not go door to door trying to convince others of their beliefs in a vain effort to legitimize their own stance.

I do not believe in science. There is nothing to believe. Science is built upon foundations laid down as time progresses. True, there are times when new information challenges the whole structure down to its base, but unlike religion, this makes it stronger. It is based upon facts, not flights of fancy. Not edited, reworded, translated bits of lore from ages gone by, when magic was real and superstition could not be separated from one's religious beliefs.

But I digress.

You will do as you see fit, mourning perhaps, or rejoicing, however you see fit. It matters not to me now, and it did so only marginally before I left. I have always desired to be part of something bigger than myself, but from all sides I find the rising muck of unintelligible miasma to be choking - suffocating - debilitating – deathly despairing. I blame myself, as I always have. Maybe I have a few more brain cells - rogue ones – that refuse to accept what others can readily accept. I accept only what I see. I am Thomas; a hundred times over I am Thomas and have always been proud of that fact.

Science does not break down when you question it. It grows stronger. Your religion; does it do the same? Can it maintain its integrity upon close examination? Or is that why you are told to have faith; to believe in the absence of proof? Wouldn't that be a fine way to run our justice system? But again, I am making you read more than is necessary, assuming you are still reading this at all. In the end, all will be dark, of this I feel assured. For if we go to some great beyond, then will we not go with all other creatures with which we exist? And what of those who have done us wrong? What of murderers who have “repeated". If they go to heaven too, how awkward will it be for their victims?

But then, that would require thought. So just hug your faith. I'm sure it has been far more comforting to your than my freedom. May your bliss always abound, but not so much that it finds you taking someone else's away from them. That doesn't make you right, it makes you a monster.

And so ends my final words. Find peace; find goodness, but mostly, find it within yourself.