Ship of Fools: What's the matter with death?

Thread: What's the matter with death? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by kankucho (# 14318) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
... The victory over death shown by the Resurrection made manifest on Easter, and then the reconciling of the creation to the Creator on Ascension are the vital elements of the Incarnation. Or so it seems to us.

(Click for context)

The above pulled quote echoes much of the tenor of the current 'Resurrection' thread, as I see it. I'm curious to know why vanquishing death is so important to Christianity, and its practitioners. As Christians, do you really set much store by your faith offering a 'Get out of Death' card? And what awful experience do you imagine yourselves to be actually avoiding (if so)?

Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :

I suppose the alternative to heaven/help is simply oblivion, or being no more. Like it was for us before our birth. It wasn't unpleasant before our birth and it won't be unpleasant after our death. C'est la vie.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

It's not unique to Christians. Wm. James suggested that what every worldview, every world religion holds in common the belief that things are really messed up-- the world isn't as it should be. Death, suffering, injustice-- they are all part and parcel of that "not rightness". Every time a loved one dies you have that sense that "this shouldn't be"-- that lurch as you realize this is forever. I don't think Christians are unique in longing for things to be different, to be set right.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

As Woody Allen observed: "I'm not afraid of death -- I just don't want to be there when it happens." I've recently had health problems that reminded me of my mortality, and I don't care either how much confidence you have in an afterlife OR how matter-of-factly one thinks of death as a natural process -- actually getting close to it is scary as hell.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I'm not sure about that. Some Sufis long for death, as they will meet the Beloved. And some Eastern religions don't see things as messed up, but rather, our perspective is, which I suppose is similar. It reminds me of a discussion of 'perfect' I had once with a Zen teacher, from which I came away convinced that this was perfect. Well, yes. What would I compare it with?

Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :

Death is the start of a new adventure in the
hereafter .And that is a comforting thought.
Oh if shipmates hear Gandalf speaking well
Tolkien gave him good lines.

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :

Death doesn't concern me, as I believe that I will be taken beyond death to be with my Lord.

Dying, however, does bother me, as it is likely to be very painful.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

The death which Christ defeated is the death of eternal absence from God, not the death at the end of this life.

Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on :

quote:
The death which Christ defeated is the death of eternal absence from God, not the death at the end of this life.

Call me thick, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Are you saying there are two deaths? (Yes, I suspect you are, I remember Revelation)

But if you have never known God, or not the "right" God, then how do you know you are absent from him, and are you conscious of this when you die?

Oblivion seems a much kinder destiny. If there isn't an afterlife, I'd settle quite happily for that.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Yeah, but oblivion sounds too good to be true.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
The above pulled quote echoes much of the tenor of the current 'Resurrection' thread, as I see it. I'm curious to know why vanquishing death is so important to Christianity, and its practitioners. As Christians, do you really set much store by your faith offering a 'Get out of Death' card? And what awful experience do you imagine yourselves to be actually avoiding (if so)?

Just to be quite clear ALL people have to be judged - christians and non-christians alike, so Christianity is most definitely NOT a 'get out of Hell free' card. God willing, you may be judged worthy of attaining the promises of Christ - but it will cost you, it isn't free.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

Addendum - to clarify, Jesus said we must "take up our cross" and follow Him - we wouldn't have to bother with any of that if eternal life was free, would we?

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

If life is a good then absence of life is an evil. It could be argued, from say a Buddhist or ancient pagan perspective, that life is not a good. Whatever is good about life is merely an illusion; life is suffering. It is better to die than to live; best of all never to be born at all (Sophocles). That seems to me a mistake: what is bad about most suffering is that it's the loss of what are genuine goods - health, material pleasure, loved ones, company.

As for why future death is worse than past non-existence, our life is lived forward and has meaning forward. Suppose a genie offered you a deal: you'd have the resources - time off work, money, physical health, etc - to achieve whatever you wanted (climb a mountain, travel round the world, write a book) on condition that afterwards neither you nor anyone you know would remember that you'd done it. Would it be worth taking the deal? How is that essentially different from our lives as they are assuming death is the end?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
I'm curious to know why vanquishing death is so important to Christianity, and its practitioners.

You are a Buddhist, are you not? Why is vanquishing death so important to Buddhists? The prince Siddhartha Gautama himself entered the religious life after seeing the Four Sights: old age, illness, death and asceticism (attempt to master suffering). Consider what the Buddha called the "noble search" in Ariyapariyesana Sutta:

quote:
And what is the noble search? There is the case where a person, himself being subject to birth, seeing the drawbacks of birth, seeks the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding. Himself being subject to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, seeing the drawbacks of aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, seeks the aging-less, illness-less, deathless, sorrow-less, undefiled, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding. This is the noble search.

Is that really so different from Christian motivations? I think not, or at least not if one strips it precisely of the particular features of the religious answer given to the question. And that is after all what you do here when querying Christians about their preoccupation with death, because once the full answer of Christianity is given, also the quest to deal with death is transformed. As is, differently, in Buddhism.

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
As Christians, do you really set much store by your faith offering a 'Get out of Death' card? And what awful experience do you imagine yourselves to be actually avoiding (if so)?

My faith suggests that everybody has a 'Get out of Death' card, and it will get played. The question is rather whether one has a 'Get into Heaven' card to play next...

And setting aside issues of a painful or inopportune death, the core problem is not having an "awful experience". The core problem is not having any experiences. Quite frankly, the end of me is the end of all there is, and it is not good that everything goes. Of course, I'm not a solipsist and I realise that in fact the universe and other people will carry on just fine without me. Nevertheless, as far as I am concerned personally, the world simply ends with me. I can of course see myself extended into the future past my death by what I have achieved, or perhaps by the children that I have. That is nice, and perhaps comforting, but not the same. And I think this instinctive feeling can be put on a solid philosophical footing: in fact, the world according to IngoB will cease to be if IngoB dies, and while most people will take that loss in their stride it is no surprise that I find it quite devastating.

So that's the real deal here, as far as I am concerned. The world according to IngoB is not going to die, ultimately. Neither is the world according to kankucho pop out of existence, ultimately. These little world bubbles that are us are not made out of soap, they are building foam. They will coalesce and solidify to make something that will last eternally.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

What do death and life have in common? They are states of being. Thus are more the same than different. I've gotten further along with understanding this as I have experienced others' deaths and had some life threatening challenges as I've aged. Thus I think the answer to the quesion is a function of both or either of experience in life and age. Religion is important but not as exclusively so anymore in my view. Rather religion and ----, with it in combo.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Can we say that life and death are states of being? At least without a presupposition that life in some way survives death? It's not really problematic to me, except on a logical level, but if I were an atheist I think I would suggest you had smuggled something in there.

Though I suppose there is a certain paradox in most definitions of life that do not include the concept of their own eventual non-existence.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

If Christianity was only about life after death, I don't think I'd bother so much - to me it's all about how we live in this life. The Kingdom of God in the here and now.

Perhaps people bothered about it more in the past because a higher number never made it to old age?

Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
What do death and life have in common? They are states of being.

Presumably you also think that being a stamp collector and not being a stamp collector have in common that both are hobbies.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Right. "X" and "not X" can never be references to the same thing. But they can be references to the same sort of thing. Switching the light on and not switching the light on can be said to be the same sort of decision. You would really have to define further what you mean by life and death. Good luck with that.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

A humanist celebrant at a funeral I attended made the profound point that you can't experience being dead. Life after death seems to be central to most religions. Why? In a pre-scientific world it is easy to see that people assumed that their loved one must have gone somewhere and then imagined what that "somewhere" might be like. But in the light of scientific knowledge, I think it most unlikely that life continues after the death of the physical body.

In any case, Christians who think that, after they have died, their "spirit" will wake up in a different place have not been reading the Bible or paying attention to the Nicene Creed, both of which promise "the resurrection of the body". That is not the same thing as the spirit leaving the body at the moment of death.

Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:
In any case, Christians who think that, after they have died, their "spirit" will wake up in a different place have not been reading the Bible or paying attention to the Nicene Creed, both of which promise "the resurrection of the body". That is not the same thing as the spirit leaving the body at the moment of death.

Hi Gwalchmai - I suspect they also haven't thought through the logic of what they will have to give up to avoid being both bitterly disappointed and eternally bored.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

In any case, Christians who think that, after they have died, their "spirit" will wake up in a different place have not been reading the Bible or paying attention to the Nicene Creed, both of which promise "the resurrection of the body". That is not the same thing as the spirit leaving the body at the moment of death.

Yes. Which speaks to this post:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
The death which Christ defeated is the death of eternal absence from God, not the death at the end of this life.

Quite the contrary, I would assert that the hope proclaimed in the NT and in the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds is, in fact, that Christ has defeated the "death at the end of this life". We just have not yet witnessed the complete fulfillment of that hope.

Posted by Anglo Catholic Relict (# 17213) on :

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
... The victory over death shown by the Resurrection made manifest on Easter, and then the reconciling of the creation to the Creator on Ascension are the vital elements of the Incarnation. Or so it seems to us.
(Click for context)

The above pulled quote echoes much of the tenor of the current 'Resurrection' thread, as I see it. I'm curious to know why vanquishing death is so important to Christianity, and its practitioners. As Christians, do you really set much store by your faith offering a 'Get out of Death' card? And what awful experience do you imagine yourselves to be actually avoiding (if so)?

Mankind was created mortal, like the animals.

What we avoid is death itself. It is not particularly awful, it is just oblivion.

I don't particularly care what happens to me after death. My faith is about making sense of my life, and finding meaning in a very confusing and meaningless world.

Posted by Anglo Catholic Relict (# 17213) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

In any case, Christians who think that, after they have died, their "spirit" will wake up in a different place have not been reading the Bible or paying attention to the Nicene Creed, both of which promise "the resurrection of the body". That is not the same thing as the spirit leaving the body at the moment of death.

'This very day you will be beside me in Paradise'.

[Smile]

Posted by Anglo Catholic Relict (# 17213) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:
A humanist celebrant at a funeral I attended made the profound point that you can't experience being dead.

Clearly someone who has never attended Christmas dinner with my extended family. [Smile]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Cliffdweller, Yes, my post was badly expressed. In fuller terms, Jesus had already shown his power over physical death, most clearly by his raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the grave 4 days. We proclaim this in the Creeds. He confirmed this by his won physical resurrection, made patent not just by his showing himself to his followers and by eating with them. But His death, resurrection and ascension show his victory enabling reconciliation of the created with the Creator.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Cliffdweller, YIn fuller terms, Jesus had already shown his power over physical death, most clearly by his raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the grave 4 days.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
[b]In fuller terms, Jesus had already shown his power over physical death, most clearly by his raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the grave 4 days.

But nowhere is it suggested that Lazarus remains alive to this day, so one assumes he died a normal death in old age. It is more likley that Lazarus was in a coma - in biblical times that would have seemed like death and it is quite understandable that his family buried him.

Sorry for posting the quote a few minutes ago without a comment - still learning how the mechanics of the boards work.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
[b]In fuller terms, Jesus had already shown his power over physical death, most clearly by his raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the grave 4 days.
But nowhere is it suggested that Lazarus remains alive to this day, so one assumes he died a normal death in old age. It is more likley that Lazarus was in a coma - in biblical times that would have seemed like death and it is quite understandable that his family buried him.

Why would it have seemed like death in Biblical times? Were comas fundamentally different then? Or are you merely assuming that everyone before the enlightenment was an ignorant primitive who couldn't understand the difference between living and dead with the sophistication of us modern westerners.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
The death which Christ defeated is the death of eternal absence from God, not the death at the end of this life.

I think both are true. Both parallel and teach us about the other.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
[b]In fuller terms, Jesus had already shown his power over physical death, most clearly by his raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the grave 4 days.
But nowhere is it suggested that Lazarus remains alive to this day, so one assumes he died a normal death in old age. It is more likley that Lazarus was in a coma - in biblical times that would have seemed like death and it is quite understandable that his family buried him.
Why would it have seemed like death in Biblical times? Were comas fundamentally different then? Or are you merely assuming that everyone before the enlightenment was an ignorant primitive who couldn't understand the difference between living and dead with the sophistication of us modern westerners.

No need to be so aggressive. There have been medical advances since 30AD that do make it easier to detect faint signs of life where death may appear to have occurred; people being buried whilst still alive is documented and can still happen today.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
What's the matter with death?

Nothing. It was working fine yesterday.

Personally, I have no problem with the idea of not existing after death. I didn't exist for a long time before my birth, and that didn't bother me. (Except for a niggling disappointment that I missed the first Bayreuth Festival, and can't remember the early episodes of Doctor Who.) Neither the promise of heaven nor the threat of hell is what makes me a Christian. And since I can't imagine an everlasting life that wouldn't soon become unbearably tedious, then any possible heaven must be unimaginable.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Originally posted by kanchuko:

quote:
And what awful experience do you imagine yourselves to be actually avoiding (if so)?

I reached the stage of going into shock through blood loss once, and if our wonderful NHS hadn't fixed me up, then my last conscious thoughts and feelings before going into shock would have been my last thoughts and feelings ever.

It wasn't unpleasant. My recollection is of everything growing increasingly blurry, unreal and golden. No tunnels of light or anything, but it wasn't at all unpleasant. It didn't hurt. I was lying in a hospital bed feeling increasingly adrift from reality, in a rather lovely way.

I sincerely hope that I don't die any time in the next 40 years, but that when I do, it's like that.

Posted by kankucho (# 14318) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
The death which Christ defeated is the death of eternal absence from God, not the death at the end of this life.

Point taken - and heard before. But that doesn't seem to be the issue addressed by the Resurrection, as noted in Gee D's words in my OP, which prompted my enquiry here.

Posted by kankucho (# 14318) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
I'm curious to know why vanquishing death is so important to Christianity, and its practitioners.
You are a Buddhist, are you not? Why is vanquishing death so important to Buddhists?

Yes, I am. And just to be clear: I'm not needling Christians with my topic question, just crowd surfing the house majority - so thanks to all who who've chipped in so far.

As you note, Siddhartha was entirely candid about the mystery of death being central to his meditation and teaching. Buddhist thought has become fractured on the precise answer, some of it (eg, Pure Land) being not dissimilar to Sunday-school Christianity in positing a better world on the 'other side'. But the general view is that the physical and spiritual universe is a closed system in a constant cycle of birth, death and rebirth. So reincarnation, one way or another, is taken as a given: there's nowhere else to go or any other state of being than latency or manifestation. Oblivion isn't an option, as desirable as it may seem to the world-weary as has been mentioned already.

I'm with ACR who states above:

quote:
I don't particularly care what happens to me after death. My faith is about making sense of my life, and finding meaning in a very confusing and meaningless world.

Death comes to us all, and que sera sera. It's the quality of living that counts, and which must be enhanced by faith if faith is to be more than an excuse for having a crap life.

[ 29. August 2013, 13:31: Message edited by: kankucho ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
[b]In fuller terms, Jesus had already shown his power over physical death, most clearly by his raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the grave 4 days.
But nowhere is it suggested that Lazarus remains alive to this day, so one assumes he died a normal death in old age. It is more likley that Lazarus was in a coma - in biblical times that would have seemed like death and it is quite understandable that his family buried him.

Sorry for posting the quote a few minutes ago without a comment - still learning how the mechanics of the boards work.

the question of whether Lazarus was in a coma or "really dead" is a bit of a bunny trail into the larger discussion of hermeneutics and inspiration and naturalism.

But it does point us to something else-- that Lazarus' healing/ restoration over death is not portrayed in the NT the same way as Jesus'. This is the point I was laboring unsuccessfully to make with Gee D. The death that Jesus has won victory over is not some elusive sort of "spiritual death" or "separation from God" or "death of the immortal soul". It is death exactly as we see and experience it-- the physical death of our bodies that every day tears apart our families and our homes, that brings tragedy and heartbreak. We do not yet see the fulfillment of that hope of victory over physical death, but we look forward to the fulfillment of that hope found in the NT & the creeds, for which Jesus' resurrection is the "first fruits".

[ 29. August 2013, 15:33: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

I see it as a very important aspect of my faith to be able to hold on to the hope of life with God forever. As others have said, it is more about life in the here and now lived in the service of God: but the thought of knowing God face to face fully in his kingdom, rather than 'through a glass darkly' in the broken world, is the ultimate bliss to look forward to, to keep us going when all might otherwise be seen as doom and gloom ending with our own demise, sooner or later.

I like the idea of everyone passing 'go' at death into the new realm of bliss, but if God has given us the free will to decide for ourselves, and some choose not to stay in the game, I guess it's not for me to insist that they should want what I want.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
What's the matter with death?
Nothing. It was working fine yesterday.

Personally, I have no problem with the idea of not existing after death. I didn't exist for a long time before my birth, and that didn't bother me. (Except for a niggling disappointment that I missed the first Bayreuth Festival, and can't remember the early episodes of Doctor Who.) Neither the promise of heaven nor the threat of hell is what makes me a Christian. And since I can't imagine an everlasting life that wouldn't soon become unbearably tedious, then any possible heaven must be unimaginable.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

And since I can't imagine an everlasting life that wouldn't soon become unbearably tedious, then any possible heaven must be unimaginable.

If there is life after death, it may be in a universe which lacks the dimension of time, and without time there can be no tedium. Physicists can conceive of universes with 17 or more dimensions, so I see no problem in principle with a universe that lacks the dimension of time. Isaac Watts had no diffiuclty with the concept in the 18th Century:

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

Posted by kankucho (# 14318) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Addendum - to clarify, Jesus said we must "take up our cross" and follow Him - we wouldn't have to bother with any of that if eternal life was free, would we?

Mark, coming from a different choir to the one you're preaching to there, I have to say 'no, we wouldn't'. Eternal life is not only free, but unavoidable. What costs, perhaps, is the effort of making that life sustainably enjoyable and worthwhile - in which case 'taking up our cross' is less about denial of self than shouldering full responsibility for one's circumstances (karma, if you will) and transforming them into something of value.

Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

And since I can't imagine an everlasting life that wouldn't soon become unbearably tedious, then any possible heaven must be unimaginable.
If there is life after death, it may be in a universe which lacks the dimension of time, and without time there can be no tedium. Physicists can conceive of universes with 17 or more dimensions, so I see no problem in principle with a universe that lacks the dimension of time. Isaac Watts had no diffiuclty with the concept in the 18th Century:

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

Conceivably there could be some sort of suspended existence - but that is that "Life" after death? Heaven as a cryogenic bath is not exactly appealing is it?

Incidentally, Isaac Watts was not a physicist and probably was unaware of string theory (the origin of the idea of many dimensions) which was first studied in the 1960s. I think you will find that the vast majority of theoretical physicists are atheists.

Differing figures abound but

this quotes sources

Only 7 per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God. Whilst only 3.3 per cent believed in God in the UK’s Royal Society.

Posted by Plique-à-jour (# 17717) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I think you will find

There we go, the authentic voice of atheism.

Posted by kankucho (# 14318) on :

Take it to Hell, guys.

(Who do I show my OP'er's junior host permit to?)

Posted by kankucho (# 14318) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

And since I can't imagine an everlasting life that wouldn't soon become unbearably tedious, then any possible heaven must be unimaginable.
If there is life after death, it may be in a universe which lacks the dimension of time, and without time there can be no tedium. Physicists can conceive of universes with 17 or more dimensions, so I see no problem in principle with a universe that lacks the dimension of time.

Time is an odd dimension, which doesn't behave in the same way as the other three that we non-physicists are usually content to deal in for day-to-day purposes. Only one speck of time really exists at any one... er, time. In that sense, the present moment is an eternal one right here in the universe that we've got. Whether or not it is heavenly is a matter for our perpsective.

I expect this is akin to what quetzalcoatl gleaned from the conversation with the Zen teacher on perfection, related upthread. The prime definition of 'perfect' in most dictionaries is 'complete' - not the superlative of 'lovely'. In that sense, our circumstances, heavenly or otherwise, perfectly accord with the life that experiences them. The two are indivisible and the condition for heaven lies in whether we apply our volition to perpetuating or transforming them.

In Buddhist parlance though, the word that is usually translated as heaven, or rapture, is really only a partial condition of happiness, a reward state when sensory desires are fulfilled. To me, this interpretation accords with the expectations many people have when they imagine a better life in the hereafter. We might then wonder, if all our sensory aches and woes are magically deleted there, to whom is our eternal bliss experience actually happening?

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
Only one speck of time really exists at any one... er, time. In that sense, the present moment is an eternal one right here in the universe that we've got.

I have heard the analogy that eternity is a circle and time is a tangent. The point where time touches eternity is the present moment

Moo

Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
God willing, you may be judged worthy of attaining the promises of Christ - but it will cost you, it isn't free.

It's not? That's not what Nicky Gumboil told me!

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
God willing, you may be judged worthy of attaining the promises of Christ - ...

*Me* judged worthy? "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' love and righteousness." His righteousness, not mine, we don't work to deserve a ticket to heaven.

But about death - if love is temporary (romantic love, platonic deep friendships, et al), the nature of reality would teach us to regard all relationships as disposable. But if relationships are merely interrupted - or put it this way, if we all have to get along in a later longer life, we'd better start figuring out how to get along! Very different message about relationships with others.

So while I think Christianity - awareness of God - is primarily about life today, which is why we aren't told much about what's next, awareness there's more affects what we see as being of value or not in this life.

As to eternity being boring, I used to worry about that, but I've been taking free courses from Coursera on all sorts of things - physics, songwriting, archeology, business planning, Calvin, Internet history, astrobiology, English composition, social psychology, rise and fall of Jerusalem (6th century B.C.E.), programing in Pylon, Greek mythology, American modern poetry, gastronomy, organizational theory, Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, etc - they are offering 400+ courses (up from 300 a couple months ago), all free, I sign up for things I know nothing about and discover new to me topics people can spend their life pursuing!

There is so much about this planet and it's life forms to be amazed at, and who knows what else there is in the rest of physical and non-physical reality?

Yup, gonna take an eternity to enjoy exploring it all.

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:

quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
God willing, you may be judged worthy of attaining the promises of Christ - but it will cost you, it isn't free.
It's not? That's not what Nicky Gumboil told me!

Well it is and it isn't. You can't earn your way into heaven by your own merits - only Christ can merit us that (so in that sense it is free) - yet we are still judged according to our works (the Bible says so), our works in Christ where we have to take up our cross and deny ourselves (so in that sense it isn't free.)

There are many other far more prominent Evangelicals, living and dead, who would agree with me. Nicky Gumbel doesn't have a monopoly on Evangelicalism.

Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:

quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I think you will find
There we go, the authentic voice of atheism.

1 - Did you read the lines below "I think you will find" and click through to the source material?

2 - Atheism doesn't have a voice - authentic or otherwise. Atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods. For me that continues into an absence of certainty in other areas which I can't personally verify. Since I can't prove that physicists are included in the quoted statements I refuse to claim certainty, but it seems very, very likely doesn't it?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Since I can't prove that physicists are included in the quoted statements I refuse to claim certainty, but it seems very, very likely doesn't it?

Ecklund & Scheitle find among physicists at US elite universities about 20% belief in God, 30% if one includes "something higher", about 30% agnosticism and about 40% atheism. There are no clear patterns across various fields, though the corresponding average is about 30/40% God/higher, 30% agnostic, 30% atheist, making physicists somewhat less believing than average. However, there could be selection biases there, e.g., there was a smaller sample of physicists.

From my personal experience as a theoretical physicists at German / Australian universities, I would have guessed around 30% "religious" physicists as well. Thus I expect these numbers to be roughly right also outside the USA.

Mind you, overt religiosity is really rare in my experience. And there's a consistent discouragement of religion along the Laplacian "I don't need that hypothesis" lines in the academe. Religion is very much not order of business. So I'm not particularly surprised if the more "elite" - and hence the longer in the academe and the more engaged with it - the less religious. That may tell us something about correlations between scientific "performance" and religiosity, but it may also tell us something about the influence of decades of socialisation in a particular setting.

I furthermore note that in my personal experience excellence at theoretical physics does not correlate terribly well with superior social skills or emotional stability. (The comedy series "Big Bang Theory" is a caricature, but not a lie...) There may be considerable "psychological" selection effects there against religions, in particular contemporary Christian religion, that emphasise social gatherings and emotional display. One could even wonder if religion does not require its own set of talents more in general, and whether the lack of religious people in the academe is simply a game of chance, with bad odds against multiple talents. That few elite physicists are great painters does not mean that art is an invalid field of human excellence.

Posted by moron (# 206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I think you will find that the vast majority of theoretical physicists are atheists.

There was a recent Purg thread where someone bemoaned something or the other (IIRC) 'encouraging' atheists to share their views... why, when they're at least equally amusing as 'religious' believers? And arguably more so because they allegedly rely on 'the scientific method' yet routinely spout unsupportable nonsense.

Dawkins is a HOOT when he pronounces on God stuff.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
As Woody Allen observed: "I'm not afraid of death -- I just don't want to be there when it happens." I've recently had health problems that reminded me of my mortality, and I don't care either how much confidence you have in an afterlife OR how matter-of-factly one thinks of death as a natural process -- actually getting close to it is scary as hell.

I'm glad you're not as close to death as you were before, LutheranChik! Take care, will you? [Smile]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
What do death and life have in common? They are states of being.
Presumably you also think that being a stamp collector and not being a stamp collector have in common that both are hobbies.

I've been away for a few days, but thought this was worthy of picking up.

I would say no, not really, unless the transcendent part of this is left out. My life was not my request, its extinguishment will also not be. The state of life I am told will transmorgify into death. It is said repeatedly that this death will also be life. So they are really the same thing, just somehow oddly connected. Now because we have such limited information, we cannot focus too much on it, except to say because it is merely a stage of life to die, that there's nothing the matter with it. It just is.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

And since I can't imagine an everlasting life that wouldn't soon become unbearably tedious, then any possible heaven must be unimaginable.
If there is life after death, it may be in a universe which lacks the dimension of time, and without time there can be no tedium. Physicists can conceive of universes with 17 or more dimensions, so I see no problem in principle with a universe that lacks the dimension of time. Isaac Watts had no diffiuclty with the concept in the 18th Century:

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

But from where we're standing now, a timeless life would be a life without experience, since experience requires time. In fact, existence as we know it requires time. (And let's not even get into the idea that eternal/everlasting existence would require zero entropy!) So we're back to what I suggested: any possible eternal life is unimaginable.

(I'm also reminded of that nice bit in one of Terry Pratchett's books - Wyrd Sisters, I think - in which a ghost realises he can't get angry because he no longer has any of the necessary chemicals.)

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
But from where we're standing now, a timeless life would be a life without experience, since experience requires time. In fact, existence as we know it requires time. (And let's not even get into the idea that eternal/everlasting existence would require zero entropy!) So we're back to what I suggested: any possible eternal life is unimaginable.

I have no worked out concept of the afterlife, but some ideas. Roughly I would say that the whole "New Creation", "City of God", "Resurrection of the Body" line of thought points to an existence in time. Perhaps not the same sort of time as we have now, but some form of having one thing happen after another. Concerning this time, our lives will become endless rather than eternal. However, there's also another line of thought pointing to "Becoming like God", "Uniting in the Body of Christ", "Seeing through a Clear Mirror" and so on. These point to some real partaking in the eternal, not endless, life of God. And I think the interface of these two could be what is classically called the "Beatific Vision". Let's take that serious, perhaps that is really something like what we would call contemplative visions now: a temporary "mind blend" with the Divine.

So perhaps we can basically fade in and out of Divine eternity, somewhat like moths flying around a light source. And this would explain why endless temporal lives would not become an unbearable drag. Living in the City of God would be like taking a break from these explorations into the Divine. That life doesn't get old because it is not where you ultimately seek your satisfaction. You can imagine yourself chatting to others about what you have seen, passing the time until you are ready to go again, like divers in a boat before they dive back in again.

So while I think that you have a serious point, I would disagree that the afterlife is "unimaginable". I also do not think that it is quite correct to say that "experience requires time". In the sense that in this world we can time all experience in terms of say brain processes, perhaps. But contemplative experiences are quite regularly "beyond time", and explicitly feel like that, as are perhaps other, more mundane things. How much time passes during an orgasm, for example? Of course there can be someone standing there with a stopwatch while you orgasm, but that does not mean that experientially time is really passing for you. Or even less dramatic, perhaps you have at some time worked very intensely on something, and suddenly found that the day had passed without you noticing. Our minds can be too busy to keep track of time. Time may be passing externally, but internal focus has stopped it from attaching to what we are doing. So I think we do see hints of a human ability to "eternalise temporarily" even in this life.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

Incidentally, Isaac Watts was not a physicist and probably was unaware of string theory (the origin of the idea of many dimensions) which was first studied in the 1960s. [/QB]

I was not suggesting that Isaac Watts was a physicist, let alone acquainted with string theory. The point I was making is that the concept of a timeless eternity has been around for some time, whether or not it can be proved.

This is a a religious discussion and religions involve a lot of concepts which cannot be proved in the scientific sense.

To move the discussion on, let me ask this:

Are belief in God and belief in life after death interdependent or can you believe in one without the other?

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:
Are belief in God and belief in life after death interdependent or can you believe in one without the other?

Independent. You can believe there really is a creator God, even an actively involved God, and believe this life is all there is.

When I asked a Jewish friend some heaven-related question he said the concept is irrelevant. Life isn't about getting into heaven. Life is about responding to God in how we live every day right here.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:
Are belief in God and belief in life after death interdependent or can you believe in one without the other?
Independent. You can believe there really is a creator God, even an actively involved God, and believe this life is all there is.

What about the other way? Can you believe in a life after death without believing in a God? If you can't, then they're not truly independent. I can't quite imagine how it would work in a godless universe. But then I've never figured out who oversees the reincarnation process in Buddhism either.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

IngoB's stuff about time above, is interesting. Some people in Eastern religions cite the present moment as being without time, ironically. Yet you can see why, for example, it seems impossible to measure the duration of it.

Hence, the view that the present is eternal. This is also to do with the present having no boundaries - written about by Ken Wilber, amongst others.

However, none the less, we look back (and forwards) and seem to be confronted by a series of present moments, and then eventually, by a lack of them! This is disconcerting or possibly dismaying or possibly celebratory. But then, as they say, oblivion seems far too good to be true.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Another interesting topic from Eastern religions is ego death, or death of the separate I. This is connected with non-dualism, which seems to underlie notions of enlightenment, satori, and so on. Thus, the normal dualistic structure of subject/object collapses into One.

But this idea is found in Christianity, although often in disguised form. The idea of dying to oneself is clearly important.

Some Sufis argue that these little deaths and rebirths go on all the time, so that in a sense, we are continually rehearsing for the big death. See also sleep, and the 'heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to'.

Hence, learn to die before you die.

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:
Are belief in God and belief in life after death interdependent or can you believe in one without the other?
Independent. You can believe there really is a creator God, even an actively involved God, and believe this life is all there is.

What about the other way? Can you believe in a life after death without believing in a God? If you can't, then they're not truly independent. I can't quite imagine how it would work in a godless universe. But then I've never figured out who oversees the reincarnation process in Buddhism either.

Belief in God can be independent of belief in afterlife, even if belief in afterlife is dependent on belief in God.

Actually, I think a lot of agnostics I know assume an afterlife.

Some "spiritual but not religious" seem to believe in angels and other spirit beings and a world beyond this one we will all enter but they don't seem to think in terms of a God who was or is active, not a creator God, not all wise and loving etc God. More like spiritual reality (heaven) just is, and always was.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

IngoB:

quote:
One could even wonder if religion does not require its own set of talents more in general, and whether the lack of religious people in the academe is simply a game of chance, with bad odds against multiple talents. That few elite physicists are great painters does not mean that art is an invalid field of human excellence.

Just resurrecting this to point out that the practice of religion tends to involve "playing the game" as defined by some sort of hierarchy, whether formal priests or "the way we have done things" enforced by the (self-)appointed leaders.

Academics tend not to "play well with others" in one sense or another, if nothing else because they are so often thinking about something else.

As my mathematician son-in-law says: "An extroverted mathematician looks at your feet": so being part of a congregation is an unlikely pursuit.

This does not prevent book-learning about such weird things as religion. Einstein was well-informed about "The Old One", but he didn't have much interest in synagogue attendance. Oppenheimer could quote Hindu scripture in response to the Trinity test...and so forth. Physicists may be closer to being deists than to being good little pew-sitters.

Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

Belief in God can be independent of belief in afterlife, even if belief in afterlife is dependent on belief in God.

Philip Pullman in "His Dark Materials" envisages an afterlife without God - and a multiplicity of universes. This trilogy is quite a profound religious story despite the author's professed atheism.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Gwalchmai: This trilogy is quite a profound religious story despite the author's professed atheism.

I liked the first book, after that it went rather downhill to me because of the phony religiosity.

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What about the other way? Can you believe in a life after death without believing in a God? If you can't, then they're not truly independent. I can't quite imagine how it would work in a godless universe.

A bit late replying. John Gray's recent book "The Immortalization Commission" has quite a lot of godless believers in immortality: the founders of the Society for Psychic Research for example. The philosopher Henry Sidgwick was a notable member. He promised he would try and communicate after his death. Various mediums claimed to have channelled him. The best message was, I think, "You no more discover the secret of death by dying than the secret of life by being born."

In the TV program "Being Human" one character reports back from the afterlife. She reports there's a lot of form filling and queueing involved.

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