Thread: The place of the afterlife Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 
I know several people who like to think of those loved ones who have died as if they are still around. Some connect their presence with the ashes or place of burial, others with the places they lived or enjoyed. Is this harmful or unhealthy?

It seems to me that if we think of loved ones as having moved on to be with God, no longer in the world, or even if we think that death is the end, this releases us to grieve and to move on.

A friend says that it would be cruel to wish a lingering on their loved ones rather than allowing them to go to God, as if we can somehow hold them.

What are your thoughts?
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
I don't know what to think, except that our mainstream churches probably have too little to say about the afterlife.

Or rather, there are plenty of liturgies and sermons for funerals, but you still don't get much of a sense of where your church leaders are coming from when they lead such services. The funeral is a place of pacification, not of theological struggle or engagement.

The result is that we can believe whatever we like, taking a mix and match approach drawn from popular culture as well as personal experience. Some believe the deceased rest until the final judgement; others talk about So-and-so going up to heaven to be with the angels. Yet other Christians even believe in reincarnation. Why not believe that your relatives are right there with you, if it helps? In some (Christian) cultures people still believe that the spirit of the loved-one can return in birds or other small creatures.

We might as well do what feels best to us, because there's little institutional help.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
Your church leaders are following the example of Scripture in not speculating re the afterlife. The reason there is such diversity in Christian views of the afterlife is that the Bible tells us precious little about it. From Scripture we know that there is an afterlife-- and that God is there. That's about it.

I think it's appropriate, then, for clergy not to speculate beyond that. Seemingly, that is all we need to know to derive comfort and to order our lives.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Cruel to whom?
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
Having lost 2 best friends, one in the 1980s and one 5 years ago, both inlaws, one parent, and a host of other friends and rellies, my sense is of my consciousness of them. Both of "<person> would have liked this" and I wonder if I couldn't conjour up some connection. But the latter is hopeful nonsense. The best I can do is think of what they might think and hug the living.

I have thought that I may be too jaded (or damaged/deformed in spirit) to feel presence, whether God, JC, HS or any one else. Just hold to the path and operate 'as if' seems best. Honour the memory and the afterlife, whatever it is/isn't will be just fine at the appropriate time.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The argument that cemetery owners and funeral directors make, when the family suggests scattering Grandma's ashes in the ocean or whatever, is that you cannot then visit the spot. This is also the argument against burying Gran in the back yard -- suppose your neighborhood is redeveloped in 15 years and the entire district becomes a shopping mall? Whereas cemeteries are usually protected, and (in the US) cannot be built over and turned into a hotel.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Your church leaders are following the example of Scripture in not speculating re the afterlife.

I'm not sure I agree there's no 'speculating' as such. After all, we do sing funeral hymns that make reference to what the afterlife will be like. Our clergy here don't seem to have a problem with that. What they have a problem with, in our country, is when people want to sing along to pop songs during a funeral! And that seems to be more a matter of good taste than anything else!
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Your church leaders are following the example of Scripture in not speculating re the afterlife.

I'm not sure I agree there's no 'speculating' as such. After all, we do sing funeral hymns that make reference to what the afterlife will be like. Our clergy here don't seem to have a problem with that. What they have a problem with, in our country, is when people want to sing along to pop songs during a funeral! And that seems to be more a matter of good taste than anything else!
I'm not sure what you meant by this then:

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't know what to think, except that our mainstream churches probably have too little to say about the afterlife.

I can't think of any funeral hymns in my tradition that do much speculating about the afterlife-- again, simply referencing what we know from scripture-- that there is an afterlife, and that God is there. Again, I think that's appropriate. The promises found in Scripture provide enough comfort w/o having to speculate about something we can't possibly know.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
You might as well ask about the presence of God. All we have are the first two circles in the gospels. The rest is silence that we fill.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
They are there in all our memories.

The myths help in a strange way.

There is a (complete and reasonably recent afaik) myth about pets which 'cross the rainbow bridge' to an afterlife full of fun and frolics. I have no sense whatever that any of it is true, of course. But I find it very comforting all the same. They are there in our memories.

Just this side of heaven.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The argument that cemetery owners and funeral directors make, when the family suggests scattering Grandma's ashes in the ocean or whatever, is that you cannot then visit the spot.

My parents were both scattered at sea in our favourite spot for sailing, near a lighthouse - and so will I be, fish food all.

Of course you can visit the spot - I go there often and look out to sea and think of them.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Of course at the bull's eye is God in the flesh. The assurance of eternal life. That all will be well. The ONLY comfort.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I can't think of any funeral hymns in my tradition that do much speculating about the afterlife-- again, simply referencing what we know from scripture-- that there is an afterlife, and that God is there. Again, I think that's appropriate. The promises found in Scripture provide enough comfort w/o having to speculate about something we can't possibly know.

You and I probably sing different funeral hymns, which wouldn't surprise me!

As you say, I'm probably asking for too much. This is my problem with church in general; wanting what it can't give. The problem then is that church begins to seem a bit optional. If vagueness is what the church does best, why do we need the church? For the social side, of course. In which case, perhaps we need a lot less of the pious waffle and more of just hanging around with our church friends!

In response to the OP, I think people just have to grieve in their own way. I often 'talk' to my mother, who died this year. Maybe it doesn't make much sense, but what does?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I can't think of any funeral hymns in my tradition that do much speculating about the afterlife-- again, simply referencing what we know from scripture-- that there is an afterlife, and that God is there. Again, I think that's appropriate. The promises found in Scripture provide enough comfort w/o having to speculate about something we can't possibly know.

You and I probably sing different funeral hymns, which wouldn't surprise me!

As you say, I'm probably asking for too much. This is my problem with church in general; wanting what it can't give. The problem then is that church begins to seem a bit optional. If vagueness is what the church does best, why do we need the church? For the social side, of course. In which case, perhaps we need a lot less of the pious waffle and more of just hanging around with our church friends!

In response to the OP, I think people just have to grieve in their own way. I often 'talk' to my mother, who died this year. Maybe it doesn't make much sense, but what does?

Not surprisingly, I think the church has far more to offer than just socializing.

But whatever it offers, it should be genuine. Which is why I appreciate what you call "waffling". I appreciate when my fellow clergy don't speculate about something we cannot and do not know-- and am irked when they engage in random rumor-mongering about things they know nothing about (yes, Franklin Graham/ Beth Moore, I'm looking at you). Again, the only thing we know about the afterlife is that there is one, and that God is there. And that's enough: as we say in my tradition, "that'll preach." There's enough in that promise to provide hope and comfort to those who grieve. All the more so IMHO precisely because it is genuine, rather than undermining the whole thing with groundless speculation.

But, as you say, we're different.
 
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't know what to think, except that our mainstream churches probably have too little to say about the afterlife.

Or rather, there are plenty of liturgies and sermons for funerals, but you still don't get much of a sense of where your church leaders are coming from when they lead such services. The funeral is a place of pacification, not of theological struggle or engagement.



Well said! I believe the funeral is primarily for the person who has died, for their soul. Those left behind and their grief is a secondary purpose.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Why do they need it?
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
I think it's problematic to say that the funeral is just for the person that's died. Or, at any rate, there also needs to be some forum for the bereaved to explore what death means. If that's not the funeral, then it has to be something else. However, at the moment, there is nothing else. You get the vague, supposedly comforting theological pieties of the funeral sermon and hymns, and that's it.

[ 20. December 2015, 22:29: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't know what to think, except that our mainstream churches probably have too little to say about the afterlife.

Or rather, there are plenty of liturgies and sermons for funerals, but you still don't get much of a sense of where your church leaders are coming from when they lead such services. The funeral is a place of pacification, not of theological struggle or engagement.



Well said! I believe the funeral is primarily for the person who has died, for their soul. Those left behind and their grief is a secondary purpose.
Maybe I'm misreading Svitlana, but I heard her as saying the exact opposite of what you're suggesting.

At any rate, I would certainly say the exact opposite. I don't think funerals are "for" the person who died. The person who has died is dead. Either they are in a better place, or they are worm food. Either way, whatever we do or don't do here on earth can't be of much consequence to them one way or the other. Their soul is with God, and God will sort that out with or without anything that happens at the funeral.

The funeral is precisely for those left behind. That is it's primary-- it's only-- purpose. To provide comfort, pastoral care, and hope for the ones left behind. To stand with them in their grieving.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I think even the term 'afterlife' needs questioning. It comes, I think, from spiritualism, as do the ideas of having passed or passed over. It identifies the person with an incorporeal 'spirit' that can leave the body and live on on the other side.

My understanding of Chistianity is that it talks of death and resurrection, which is not the same at all.
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think even the term 'afterlife' needs questioning. It comes, I think, from spiritualism, as do the ideas of having passed or passed over. It identifies the person with an incorporeal 'spirit' that can leave the body and live on on the other side.

My understanding of Chistianity is that it talks of death and resurrection, which is not the same at all.

The 19th century fad for spiritualism has faded but not the ideas which continue to echo down. But when a friend tells me that he is sure that he felt the presence of his dead wife, to tell him he is mistaken feels the coldest of arrogances. I sometimes find it interesting how counter-intuitive some of the traditional theologies are - death and resurrection, sola gratia.
 
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't know what to think, except that our mainstream churches probably have too little to say about the afterlife.

Or rather, there are plenty of liturgies and sermons for funerals, but you still don't get much of a sense of where your church leaders are coming from when they lead such services. The funeral is a place of pacification, not of theological struggle or engagement.



Well said! I believe the funeral is primarily for the person who has died, for their soul. Those left behind and their grief is a secondary purpose.
Maybe I'm misreading Svitlana, but I heard her as saying the exact opposite of what you're suggesting.

At any rate, I would certainly say the exact opposite. I don't think funerals are "for" the person who died. The person who has died is dead. Either they are in a better place, or they are worm food. Either way, whatever we do or don't do here on earth can't be of much consequence to them one way or the other. Their soul is with God, and God will sort that out with or without anything that happens at the funeral.

The funeral is precisely for those left behind. That is it's primary-- it's only-- purpose. To provide comfort, pastoral care, and hope for the ones left behind. To stand with them in their grieving.

I'm agreeing with Svlitlana's opinion that our churches have too little to say about the afterlife, and that funerals tend to be a place of pacification. I'm also stating my own view that the funeral is primarilyfor the person who has died. It is certainly primarily about the person who has died. This idea that funerals are mainly for the bereaved is a fairly recent development - in the past the religious rituals for the dead were focused on the soul of the person who had died and transition of that soul into what lies beyond. To provide comfort and support for the bereaved is also a purpose of a funeral however it is not IMO the primary purpose.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
I'm also stating my own view that the funeral is primarilyfor the person who has died. It is certainly primarily about the person who has died. This idea that funerals are mainly for the bereaved is a fairly recent development - in the past the religious rituals for the dead were focused on the soul of the person who had died and transition of that soul into what lies beyond.

By "in the past" do you mean within Christianity, or are you talking of pre-Christian peoples? Can you point to any sources for that? In the Reformed tradition that view (the some sort of religious ritual is needed to help "transition" the soul to the next life) is explicitly repudiated.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think even the term 'afterlife' needs questioning. It comes, I think, from spiritualism, as do the ideas of having passed or passed over. It identifies the person with an incorporeal 'spirit' that can leave the body and live on on the other side.

My understanding of Chistianity is that it talks of death and resurrection, which is not the same at all.

The 19th century fad for spiritualism has faded but not the ideas which continue to echo down. But when a friend tells me that he is sure that he felt the presence of his dead wife, to tell him he is mistaken feels the coldest of arrogances. I sometimes find it interesting how counter-intuitive some of the traditional theologies are - death and resurrection, sola gratia.
So we must wonder (not necessarily alongside your friend) what the sense of a presence is, and what it means.

This discussion of the afterlife is a funny little theological corner, but perhaps we need to think carefully about smaller things before we have any right to be heard on the bigger ones, like gospel, neighbourliness and justice.

I think that people are present to us, living people, in complex ways. Ultimate reality is not about atoms, but relationships, and the personhood of people is found in their interactions and relationships. I think we are extraordinarily sensitive to the intentions of those around us, which is something I find hard to unpack, but which I believe has unexplored significance.

Cutting to the chase, people live in our heads (or at least, our little models of them do), they live in our histories and memory, and they inhabit the many overlapping networks within which we each have our own fullest being. So when they die, how much changes?

It turns out that not so much does. We may (I think it depends in part on us, so I say may) continue to feel their warmth, their nurturing, their understanding, their pride, their hopes, even their guidance, and certainly their comfort, closeness and presence.

But I think we need a better vocabulary to talk about this. Relationship, network, conversation, communion, Word, abiding, polyphony, Trinity are the ones I know best. They can help steer us away from looking at the thing, the individual (has there ever been an individual, but it's such a common synonym for person) the fascinating focus, and help us concentrate more on the spaces in between, which is where we have our being, where our dead flourish, and where God lives; the natural terrain of love, and the most real of all realities.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
That's a fine and thought-provoking piece of writing. I'm trying to work out how it fits with the blog in your sig., which I dip into from time to time. You appear to have a fascination with gravestones, and some of the more notable, um, individuals buried in their local cemetery - individuals with whom you had no relational connection that I can tell and after whom your blog appears to be named.

quote:
A hug in letters carved in stone
is, you seem to think,
quote:
still better than no hug.
Afterlife might be the wrong word, resurrection a better one - but what's going on here, d'you think?
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
Resurrection as a language understands absence even if it doesn't understand continued presence. And it is i think more communal. We face what is next together, it is not a journey taken alone.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The argument that cemetery owners and funeral directors make, when the family suggests scattering Grandma's ashes in the ocean or whatever, is that you cannot then visit the spot.

Having been involved in a few burials at sea/scatterings of ashes in my naval days I have to say it's not something I'd want myself - the nadir was the time we managed to scatter the ashes to windward; the last sighting of the poor chap's mortal remains were when they were hosed off the side of the superstructure with a high pressure jet wash back in the dockyard....*

OTOH, my mother didn't want to be buried so we spent much of the first year after her death trying to work out where to scatter her ashes. We eventually settled on the beach at Bamburgh in May this year precisely *because* it was somewhere we could go back to. They're most unlikely to build on it!

*he didn't have any surviving family, there was no one involved except the chaplain and the ship's company, and it was rationalised to the spirit of the deceased with the old saw, "if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined..."

[ 21. December 2015, 08:28: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
They are there in all our memories.

The myths help in a strange way.

There is a (complete and reasonably recent afaik) myth about pets which 'cross the rainbow bridge' to an afterlife full of fun and frolics. I have no sense whatever that any of it is true, of course. But I find it very comforting all the same. They are there in our memories.

Just this side of heaven.

I don't get this at all. How is this "Rainbow Bridge" thing comforting if you know it isn't actually true? If anything it makes things worse that the only form of comfort we can get is by making shit up.

[ 21. December 2015, 08:47: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
That's a fine and thought-provoking piece of writing. I'm trying to work out how it fits with the blog in your sig., which I dip into from time to time. You appear to have a fascination with gravestones, and some of the more notable, um, individuals buried in their local cemetery - individuals with whom you had no relational connection that I can tell and after whom your blog appears to be named.

quote:
A hug in letters carved in stone
is, you seem to think,
quote:
still better than no hug.
Afterlife might be the wrong word, resurrection a better one - but what's going on here, d'you think?

Maybe it is one of the big questions. Death is no part of life, but it and our fear of it lurk at the edge of everything.

I suppose I live a this-worldly interpretation of Christianity. I reject all talk of the miraculous and supernatural as incoherent. Other realms and worlds likewise. I think they are bad theology, influenced by immature science - often largely Nineteenth Century.

Death is a problem, though, because it undermines our response to life, all that this-worldly loving and redeeming and peace-making. It threatens relationships by breaking them.

I have a connection with Lucia Joyce in Kingsthorpe cemetery, because she was once a patient at the hospital where I am now a chaplain. I feel a connection and a pastoral responsibility towards her, to remember, honour and understand her. And a fulfilment in doing that, in accepting our connectedness. Our salvation is always intertwined.

I see a cemetery as a place of holding onto those relationships despite death. It's a workshop more than a repository.

Faith tries to say how the natural is super, how life is beautiful, the world good, and hope possible. How we handle death is very revealing. I want to say that death is the great enemy and bringer of despair, and at the same time that it is nothing at all.

I'm not sure I've addressed the question, but I'm not a man full of answers.
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
There are no cemeteries within walking distance of my home. There is a crematorium with an attached cemetery a moderate drive away. It feels very artificial. My grandparents ashes are there but I have never had a sense that they were. It is not a church cemetery, life and death bound together. It's a nice clean modern facility with pretty well kept gardens.
 
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
I'm also stating my own view that the funeral is primarilyfor the person who has died. It is certainly primarily about the person who has died. This idea that funerals are mainly for the bereaved is a fairly recent development - in the past the religious rituals for the dead were focused on the soul of the person who had died and transition of that soul into what lies beyond.

By "in the past" do you mean within Christianity, or are you talking of pre-Christian peoples? Can you point to any sources for that? In the Reformed tradition that view (the some sort of religious ritual is needed to help "transition" the soul to the next life) is explicitly repudiated.
Prayer for the dead in
Judaism

quote:
O G-d, full of compassion, Who dwells on high, grant true rest upon the wings of the Shechinah (Divine Presence), in the exalted spheres of the holy and pure, who shine as the resplendence of the firmament, to the soul of

(mention his Hebrew name and that of his father)

who has gone to his [supernal] world, for charity has been donated in remembrance of his soul; may his place of rest be in Gan Eden. Therefore, may the All-Merciful One shelter him with the cover of His wings forever, and bind his soul in the bond of life. The Lord is his heritage; may he rest in his resting-place in peace; and let us say: Amen.

Christian practice of praying for the dead, including praying to the saints, is well documented and continues in many traditions, including those within the Church of England. Prayers of Commendation which can be said for the dying can also be used at the funeral e.g.

quote:
, go forth upon your journey from this world,
in the name of God the Father almighty who created you;
in the name of Jesus Christ who suffered death for you;
in the name of the Holy Spirit who strengthens you;
in communion with the blessed saints,
and aided by angels and archangels,
and all the armies of the heavenly host.
May your portion this day be in peace,
and your dwelling the heavenly Jerusalem.

Catholic practice of praying for the dead is linked to belief in purgatory and souls in purgatory are understood as being within the 'Communion of Saints' as expressed in the creeds.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I want to say that death is the great enemy and bringer of despair, and at the same time that it is nothing at all.

I'd like to quote CS Lewis again, he says that death is
quote:
the eternal Surd in the universal mathematic
You say elsewhere on your blog that it's an "abomination". The Bible says it's the last enemy, and does so in 1 Corinthians 15 in the context of resurrection.

Nineteenth-century concepts of the afterlife may be unhelpful and this-worldly concepts of Christianity a useful corrective, but that surd isn't going to be resolved - and thus allow for concepts like "super", "beautiful", "good", and "hope" - Christianly at least, without something after death, is it?

[ 21. December 2015, 09:59: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I reject all talk of the miraculous and supernatural as incoherent. Other realms and worlds likewise. I think they are bad theology, influenced by immature science - often largely Nineteenth Century.

Yet the idea of multiverses is very much up-to-date science.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
'After' death I have problems with. Beyond or even through death seem better. You have to die to be resurrected, and I think the death of Christ has to be a catastrophe.

Much talk of the afterlife seems to be a denial of death. They have just slipped away, passed on, to awaken at once amid flowers and smiles. I think the agony in the garden is required.

I also have problems with the idea of continuity and consciousness after death. I've just been writing Christmas cards for my mum, who has dementia. She is in some senses already leaving us. She is less alive than she was. So probably am I. Mum is, though, being held in a net of relationships. Friends she can no longer name doggedly remember her. There is a life beyond her brain, somewhere she has always lived.

When we love we entrust ourselves quite literally to the keeping of others, and if we grow old and forgetful, that aspect of our being becomes more important than the so-called autonomous self. That's a resurrection.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I reject all talk of the miraculous and supernatural as incoherent. Other realms and worlds likewise. I think they are bad theology, influenced by immature science - often largely Nineteenth Century.

Yet the idea of multiverses is very much up-to-date science.
Yes. I can't begin to understand it though. Is it just a game for mathematicians?

I think I'm more interested in quantum ideas about infinitely extended particles and entanglement. They suggest richer ideas of relationship.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
The multiverse is the only possible, next level, 'linear', continuous explanation, context of our universe. Whether God 'is' or not. If God 'is' and there is only 1 universe, God is even stranger than He is if there's an eternal, infinite multiverse He encompasses.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Yes, how ironic that an infinite multiverse presumably predicts my near-resurrection, in the sense that infinite copies of me, with slight differences maybe, are expected to arise. How appalling, but there we are, we are servants of gravity!

On the other hand, some ravishing discovery in mathematics or physics may reduce this to something more parochial. But still, the fact that we don't know is highly pleasurable. Live, and live again (maybe).
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
When we love we entrust ourselves quite literally to the keeping of others, and if we grow old and forgetful, that aspect of our being becomes more important than the so-called autonomous self. That's a resurrection.

Yes, I'm struck by the idea that we die twice, once when we die and once when the last person who remembers us dies.

But are you saying Christians are doing nothing more than "doggedly remembering" Jesus? If so, what happens to "till he comes"?
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
How is this "Rainbow Bridge" thing comforting if you know it isn't actually true? If anything it makes things worse that the only form of comfort we can get is by making shit up.

There are many who would level the "made-up comfort" accusation at Christianity.

Who knows? Give this "Rainbow Bridge" stuff a few centuries and it may be as viable a religion with as many true believers as any we currently know.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
When we love we entrust ourselves quite literally to the keeping of others, and if we grow old and forgetful, that aspect of our being becomes more important than the so-called autonomous self. That's a resurrection.

Yes, I'm struck by the idea that we die twice, once when we die and once when the last person who remembers us dies.

But are you saying Christians are doing nothing more than "doggedly remembering" Jesus? If so, what happens to "till he comes"?

Yes, why not? All those Eucharists are faithful rememberings. All those sermons (some of them), prayers, hymns we sing. And remembered, Jesus guides us, inspires and strengthens us.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
"till he comes"?
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
How is this "Rainbow Bridge" thing comforting if you know it isn't actually true? If anything it makes things worse that the only form of comfort we can get is by making shit up.

There are many who would level the "made-up comfort" accusation at Christianity.

Who knows? Give this "Rainbow Bridge" stuff a few centuries and it may be as viable a religion with as many true believers as any we currently know.

Yeah, but the difference is that Boogie has said she knows that the Rainbow Bridge guff is made up. I can't understand how a story you know is made up can give you comfort.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but the difference is that Boogie has said she knows that the Rainbow Bridge guff is made up. I can't understand how a story you know is made up can give you comfort.

I can't either. But it does, it really does.

Clearly my subconscious mind/imagination is more gullible than I am!
 
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but the difference is that Boogie has said she knows that the Rainbow Bridge guff is made up. I can't understand how a story you know is made up can give you comfort.

I can't either. But it does, it really does.

Clearly my subconscious mind/imagination is more gullible than I am!

The Rainbow Bridge thing makes me yak, but it does serve a useful purposes as it always comes back with the pet's ashes and induces such a fit of towering ire at the shit-awful whimsy of it that most of my grief is consumed in railing against the sub-Hallmark lackwit who wrote it, and the cringing arsehole who thinks it's a good idea to send it out to people [Smile]
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but the difference is that Boogie has said she knows that the Rainbow Bridge guff is made up. I can't understand how a story you know is made up can give you comfort.

I can't either. But it does, it really does.

Clearly my subconscious mind/imagination is more gullible than I am!

I thought that the function of many stories is to give people comfort. Children like their bedtime story every night, and I don't think adults are all that different, although the stories are a bit more sophisticated. In fact, maybe they're not very different, if you believe in archetypal themes.

For example, Cinderella is a comforting story, because the rejected misunderstood person finally comes good - but many Hollywood films have this theme. 'While You Were Sleeping' being one wondrous example.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
... shit-awful whimsy of it that most of my grief is consumed in railing against the sub-Hallmark lackwit who wrote it ...

It is, it is indeed. Badly written crap.

But the story is a gentle, kind one - and there lies the comfort.

(of course, anger is a part of the grieving process)
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but the difference is that Boogie has said she knows that the Rainbow Bridge guff is made up. I can't understand how a story you know is made up can give you comfort.

I can't either. But it does, it really does.

Clearly my subconscious mind/imagination is more gullible than I am!

I thought that the function of many stories is to give people comfort. Children like their bedtime story every night, and I don't think adults are all that different, although the stories are a bit more sophisticated. In fact, maybe they're not very different, if you believe in archetypal themes.

For example, Cinderella is a comforting story, because the rejected misunderstood person finally comes good - but many Hollywood films have this theme. 'While You Were Sleeping' being one wondrous example.

Yeah, but you're not comforted directly by the thought that Cinderella lived happily ever after; rather by the more abstract concept that things work our alright and the bad people get their comeuppance (whether that's actually true or not is not the point here, to the child it is).

This is a different kind of thing. This is "This is crap but I'll tell a story of the shit that smelt of roses and somehow that makes this shit smell less bad". To put it another way, what's the archetypal theme that the fiction is referencing? I don't get it.

[ 21. December 2015, 15:44: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but the difference is that Boogie has said she knows that the Rainbow Bridge guff is made up. I can't understand how a story you know is made up can give you comfort.

I can't either. But it does, it really does.

Clearly my subconscious mind/imagination is more gullible than I am!

The Rainbow Bridge thing makes me yak, but it does serve a useful purposes as it always comes back with the pet's ashes and induces such a fit of towering ire at the shit-awful whimsy of it that most of my grief is consumed in railing against the sub-Hallmark lackwit who wrote it, and the cringing arsehole who thinks it's a good idea to send it out to people [Smile]
Ah, at least someone understands.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Resurrection as a language understands absence even if it doesn't understand continued presence. And it is i think more communal. We face what is next together, it is not a journey taken alone.

Yes. I find "resurrection" to better explain the grief we feel at death, and even the innate drive to fight death, often even when suffering. It corresponds well to our experience of loss, even as it offers hope.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
This is "This is crap but I'll tell a story of the shit that smelt of roses and somehow that makes this shit smell less bad". To put it another way, what's the archetypal theme that the fiction is referencing? I don't get it.

Well, firstly it isn't shit. It's death and death is perfectly natural and necessary. But when the one you have lost dies you are filled with grief, even with pets. To imagine that they 'carry on' somehow and you will one day somehow see them again is a comforting imagining. To picture them running free from pain etc is too. It helps bring back the memories of times when they did.

How is this any different from the Christian hope of life eternal?
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Well, yes, I don't get the objection to the ideas of animals surviving. Well, one might object that it's a naff story, or sentimental, but then some people think that Christian stories are also naff. Just personal taste.

I was just commenting on the idea that something being made up made it unsympathetic. That seems odd to me, since large chunks of art, music, and literature are made up, yet comfort people deeply, or superficially, or whatever.

I recall that some atheists say accusingly that religion is designed to comfort people. And?
 
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
I was listening to R4s 'In Business' last night, where the point was made in a program about Japan that one would do better reading business fiction than newspapers, if one wanted to learn the truth about the way companies operate there.


Meanwhile, I dropped in to opine that I accept the afterlife as Jesus mentions it, but I find its potential non-existence rather more motivating. What if my mortal life is my one shot at participating in goodness, love, justice and truth - 'eternal life' perhaps - and when I die I am dust, and forgotten? Then the pressure is on to waste no time in not participating...
 
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:


Meanwhile, I dropped in to opine that I accept the afterlife as Jesus mentions it, but I find its potential non-existence rather more motivating. What if my mortal life is my one shot at participating in goodness, love, justice and truth - 'eternal life' perhaps - and when I die I am dust, and forgotten? Then the pressure is on to waste no time in not participating...

I can see this argument against the idea of reincarnation - I had a friend who thought that she would be sure to be able to return for another go at life so she gave up on doing anything constructive in this one - but I see this as the one and only chance we have to serve God now, day by day, regardless of whether or not there is an afterlife.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
Meanwhile, I dropped in to opine that I accept the afterlife as Jesus mentions it, but I find its potential non-existence rather more motivating. What if my mortal life is my one shot at participating in goodness, love, justice and truth - 'eternal life' perhaps - and when I die I am dust, and forgotten? Then the pressure is on to waste no time in not participating...

Nicely put. The focus is on the now.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Aye, that's all we'll ever have. Isn't that enough?
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
It's easy to say that one life is enough when it is your life but much harder when you are taking about people you love who didn't die in their sleep at age 80 after a long and interesting life surrounded by their grandchildren....
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
It is the untimely deaths for no discernable reason that have suggested to me that this life is The One We Must Focus On. The first when he was 16, the next 27, then the babies, the others after. I would give almost anything for a haunting. And a time machine, and a bat lined up for a head. Magical thinking takes my head sometimes, but am better in the morning after putting childish things away under the pillow.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
I believe absolutely this this life is the one we are to focus on. But I don't find that at all inconsistent with the belief that there is more than this life.

One of the great distractions of too much of Christianity is obsession with where we'll spend eternity and who is (or isn't) going to heaven, as if that's all that matters. Meanwhile, the kingdom breaking into the world now is ignored.

For me, it is enough comfort that in life and in death, I belong to God, and nothing, not even death, can separate me from the love of God made known in Jesus—which means that there must be a "me" after death that remains in the hands of God. What exactly that will be like I don't know. I think we're given glimpses and hints, but I don't spend too much time trying to sort it all out. My task now is to focus on the gift of this life, and the needs of the world now. I can leave the rest to our loving and faithful God.

[ 22. December 2015, 01:59: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
One of the great distractions of too much of Christianity is obsession with where we'll spend eternity and who is (or isn't) going to heaven, as if that's all that matters.

If I believed in hell then I think I would be forced to conclude that that was indeed all that matters!
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
This is "This is crap but I'll tell a story of the shit that smelt of roses and somehow that makes this shit smell less bad". To put it another way, what's the archetypal theme that the fiction is referencing? I don't get it.

Well, firstly it isn't shit. It's death and death is perfectly natural and necessary. But when the one you have lost dies you are filled with grief, even with pets. To imagine that they 'carry on' somehow and you will one day somehow see them again is a comforting imagining. To picture them running free from pain etc is too. It helps bring back the memories of times when they did.

How is this any different from the Christian hope of life eternal?

That people actually believe it may be true, whereas everyone knows that the Rainbow Bridge guff is just made up. If I thought that the Christian hope of resurrection was just made up to comfort us but was definitely not true, I wouldn't give it the time of day. It's precisely because I hope it might be true that it has power as a story. By contrast, the Rainbow Bridge I know is made up glurge and therefore it has no power at all.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Only stories offer comfort. Apart from stories there is just sensation, pleasant or unpleasant. You might as well be in the Matrix or on drugs. But stories give meaning and tell us that we're not just warm, but held, home, valued, etc.

Stories have to fit. You can't make up just anything. Reality will falsify wishful thinking that overreaches itself, but all stories are to an extent made up, are interpretations laid on the otherwise brute and uninteresting facts.

The Rainbow Bridge is probably wishful thinking grown pale and leggy, vulnerable to the slightest common sense, but give it a chance. If your pet rat goes over the bridge (our rats actually had a rainbow bridge in their cage), you are imagining that it is happy, eats lots of cooked pasta, is tumour free for ever, and has its giant cage cleaned out twice a day, and plays happily with generations of its short-lived kind.

In writing that I have had to think about ratty pleasures, have remembered that once we had rats and cared a bit for them, gave them names, knew their little ways, and took pleasure in their pleasure. I have remembered my care for two pet rats, which is something that gave their lives meaning.

Obviously there is no rat paradise in space and time, but there is kindness even for rats, and that is something. And probably quite enough for rats to be gong on with.

And it's really all about us humans, who can forget our selfish being at times - animals help us - and in forgetting the being, the me, the focus, and remembering instead the involvement, the relatedness, the space between and the imperfect communion of humans in love, we find something much more than the threatened atomic me.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I have remembered my care for two pet rats, which is something that gave their lives meaning.

Um, do you mean to say their worth was derived from those around them and not themselves? That sounds worryingly like Hell, which as Sartre reminds us, "is other people" (in Les jeux sont faits, there are no mirrors in Hell, you have to rely on what others say about you).

OK, no man (or rat) is an island, but we have a self too.

And I know we've been here before, but I still wonder what meaning there can be to the Incarnation if there wasn't an Ascension and with it the promise of an eschaton, followed by a new heaven and a new earth.

I put it to you again that remembrance is nothing if there is no "till he comes".

I can't draw any encouragement from the Gospel - especially not in the face of death - if it's just a story.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

I can't draw any encouragement from the Gospel - especially not in the face of death - if it's just a story.

Is any story just a story?

Stories tap into the place that music and art tap into - an unconscious place of need. Need for a gentler place and time for. Need for resolutions, beginnings, endings, meaning.

Biblical stories of creation give us a sense of this - as do stories of heaven.

Are these places and happenings 'real'?

We don't know. But we need them all the same. Look at Hindu stories - fantastic all of them, but they tap into human need in just the same way. We weave our rituals round them.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
I, like many others, find The Lord of the Rings a great and inspiring story, all the more so because of the intricate work of "subcreation" engaged in by Tolkien. But it relies on suspension of disbelief.

How literally true various Bible "stories" are is probably a Dead Horse, but unlike LOTR they certainly make a claim to be pointing to a truth outside the narrative structure.

Specifically, Jesus claimed to be sent from God, to be returning to his Father, and to be preparing a place for his followers. He refers to the patriarchs as though they are still alive somewhere. He makes much of coming to suffer, die, and rise again. The prospect of death being overcome is a central part of his teaching.

In the Acts, Paul repeatedly emphasises the resurrection in his preaching, at the risk of ridicule. In the epistles, he says that if the resurrection of the dead is not for real, then Christians are to be pitied amongst all men.

The Scriptures culminate with the prospect of a new heaven and a new earth. The idea of time and history having a linear progression and an ultimate resolution is, as far as I can see, an intrinsic part of the Christian message.

If there's nothing real beyond death, try as I might, and much as it pains my rational self, I can't find any consistency in the Christian narrative; it comes apart at the seams.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I have remembered my care for two pet rats, which is something that gave their lives meaning.

Um, do you mean to say their worth was derived from those around them and not themselves? That sounds worryingly like Hell, which as Sartre reminds us, "is other people" (in Les jeux sont faits, there are no mirrors in Hell, you have to rely on what others say about you).

OK, no man (or rat) is an island, but we have a self too.

And I know we've been here before, but I still wonder what meaning there can be to the Incarnation if there wasn't an Ascension and with it the promise of an eschaton, followed by a new heaven and a new earth.

I put it to you again that remembrance is nothing if there is no "till he comes".

I can't draw any encouragement from the Gospel - especially not in the face of death - if it's just a story.

I don't think Sartre reminds us that hell is other people. He claims that, and I disagree. A God of love and a gospel that includes loving my neighbour suggests the other people are more to do with heaven than the other place.

We have a self, you say, but where is it? Not inside your head, I suggest. It's a dynamic thing, more a phenomenon than a thing, and it has its being in the relational space between us and others.

I struggle to make much of the ascension, although I have a lot of time for Luke generally. I'm happy with one rising for Jesus.

And I think we're wrong to understand eschatology as being about the end of history or the world. It's about the renewal or redemption of the world, this world. We can't literally postpone redemption. It has to be about now, even if our stories talk about the future and the past.

And no story is just a story.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

How literally true various Bible "stories" are is probably a Dead Horse, but unlike LOTR they certainly make a claim to be pointing to a truth outside the narrative structure.

What do you mean by 'a truth outside the narrative structure?' that is separate from that in other stories/myths? Hindu stories/myths as an example?
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
As oft-posted before, I mean that I personally can't find a way to make sense of Christianity unless Jesus actually rose physically from the dead. It's rooted in a claim that something objectively happened at a point in history.

I realise others may differ, but as far as I'm concerned the moral teachings of Christianity make no sense unless the resurrection actually happened.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
As oft-posted before, I mean that I personally can't find a way to make sense of Christianity unless Jesus actually rose physically from the dead. It's rooted in a claim that something objectively happened at a point in history.

I realise others may differ, but as far as I'm concerned the moral teachings of Christianity make no sense unless the resurrection actually happened.

Hear hear. The moral teachings of Christianity aren't radically different from the moral teachings of second-temple Judaism, or indeed the fairly universal moral teachings of all humankind, as documented by Saint Clive in The Abolition of Man.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
I can't make out whether you are agreeing with me, or happy that I allow others to differ.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I can't make out whether you are agreeing with me, or happy that I allow others to differ.

Both. But mostly I meant the former.

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
As you say, I'm probably asking for too much. This is my problem with church in general; wanting what it can't give. The problem then is that church begins to seem a bit optional. If vagueness is what the church does best, why do we need the church?

The prayers of the faithful. Not just the family but the whole congregation, which we make on the 100 day and one year anniversary of the death. I suppose you could call that "the social side."

Of course in the Orthodox world the funeral service is a pretty elaborate service, with tons of prayers for the forgiveness of sins of the departed one (and our own, and our attendant soberness as to the seriousness of our manner of living) and the ceremonial "last kiss" where people queue up and kiss the loved one on the hand or the forehead (they're COLD!). If a traditional wooden coffin is used, the lid is nailed on at the funeral, which is pretty moving! So you can't say we don't face death square on, but we don't speculate a whole lot about the afterlife. Here are the parts of the prayers that specifically reference the hereafter:

quote:
[G]ive, we beseech You, eternal rest to the soul of Your departed servant, in a place of brightness, in a place of verdure, in a place of repose, from whence all pain, sorrow, and sighing, have fled away....

May our gracious and merciful Lord ... establish the soul of His departed servant in the mansions of the righteous; give rest in the bosom of Abraham, and number his soul among the just, and have mercy upon us and save us.

Not much to go on. Except that it's peaceful, painless, and green. I love the green.

quote:
In response to the OP, I think people just have to grieve in their own way. I often 'talk' to my mother, who died this year. Maybe it doesn't make much sense, but what does?
Death is a pretty strange thing. Earlier this Autumn I found myself weeping uncontrollably and over and over telling my grandfather, dead these 15 years, "I miss you so much."

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I have thought that I may be too jaded (or damaged/deformed in spirit) to feel presence, whether God, JC, HS or any one else. Just hold to the path and operate 'as if' seems best. Honour the memory and the afterlife, whatever it is/isn't will be just fine at the appropriate time.

This is how I feel, minus the "jaded" part. I hold on to our Lord's words to St. Thomas, "blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe." And allow "seen" to include "felt."

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
So when they die, how much changes?

It turns out that not so much does. We may (I think it depends in part on us, so I say may) continue to feel their warmth, their nurturing, their understanding, their pride, their hopes, even their guidance, and certainly their comfort, closeness and presence.

You may. I don't, and presumably many others as well.

[ 22. December 2015, 13:37: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Absolutely no apologies for double-posting, as that's kinda stupid. But I wanted to break things up into smaller chunks. I have a reputation to maintain.

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The argument that cemetery owners and funeral directors make, when the family suggests scattering Grandma's ashes in the ocean or whatever, is that you cannot then visit the spot. This is also the argument against burying Gran in the back yard -- suppose your neighborhood is redeveloped in 15 years and the entire district becomes a shopping mall? Whereas cemeteries are usually protected, and (in the US) cannot be built over and turned into a hotel.

I think there is something powerful about visiting a spot. Witness the rise of the Roadside Shrine, where people keep coming back to the place where their loved one was killed on the highway, leaving flowers and balloons and teddy bears and what-not. They have a felt need, even if they wouldn't necessarily put it into words thusly, to have a place to commemorate their dead loved one. With the popularity of scattering ashes, the grave has waned in popularity (although of course remains popular).

In Orthodox lands, it was customary for people to go on the anniversary of their loved ones' deaths to their graves and have a little picnic. Bring the kids, eat a nice lunch, and enjoy one another's company. Not meant to be ghoulish any more than Dios de los Muertos, but rather a celebration both of the loved one, and of the living.

I have read that death is our bugaboo the way sex was the Victorians' bugaboo. We don't like to talk about it in polite company, and we try to keep it at arm's length. Witness the closed-coffin funeral or the memorial service.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
[I]n the past the religious rituals for the dead were focused on the soul of the person who had died and transition of that soul into what lies beyond.

By "in the past" do you mean within Christianity, or are you talking of pre-Christian peoples? Can you point to any sources for that? In the Reformed tradition that view (the some sort of religious ritual is needed to help "transition" the soul to the next life) is explicitly repudiated.
In the past my ass. That's what it's still like in Orthodoxy. The funeral is for the departed, and only incidentally for the living. The "once you're dead you're dead" thing is an innovation.

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Yes, I'm struck by the idea that we die twice, once when we die and once when the last person who remembers us dies.

That's a chilling yet beautiful thought.

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but you're not comforted directly by the thought that Cinderella lived happily ever after; rather by the more abstract concept that things work our alright and the bad people get their comeuppance (whether that's actually true or not is not the point here, to the child it is).

I'm not sure even that is correct. The story is cathartic, regardless of whether we believe it captures reality. We feel with the protagonist, and feel her relief when she overcomes her enemies. We might then immediately be wistful about the fact that WE personally will never feel that in our own lives. But for the moment we are enwrapped (or is it enrapt?) in the story, we feel the other's feelings.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
We have a self, you say, but where is it? Not inside your head, I suggest. It's a dynamic thing, more a phenomenon than a thing, and it has its being in the relational space between us and others.

That's rather circular. Self is between our self and others. What's the "us" on one side of self, if not our self? You have to have a self in order for self to be between yourself and someone else.

Either that or it's an infinite regress. Turtles all the way down. But as you state it, this makes no sense at all.

[ 22. December 2015, 13:43: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
We have a self, you say, but where is it? Not inside your head, I suggest. It's a dynamic thing, more a phenomenon than a thing, and it has its being in the relational space between us and others.

This is perhaps another topic, but I too think that while the relational space is important, it requires selves to relate.

quote:
I struggle to make much of the ascension, although I have a lot of time for Luke generally. I'm happy with one rising for Jesus.
One Bible scholar I know puts it this way: "Luke resurrected Jesus so thoroughly, he had to ascend him" [Biased]

quote:
And I think we're wrong to understand eschatology as being about the end of history or the world. It's about the renewal or redemption of the world, this world. We can't literally postpone redemption. It has to be about now, even if our stories talk about the future and the past.
So why (again) is there the idea of "until he comes" and "come, Lord Jesus"? Why does Jesus talk about the coming of the Kingdom in an eschatalogical future?

Don't get me wrong, the idea of here-and-now outworking of Christianity has plenty of appeal to me, but I just can't jettison the thereafter parts. You have to unpick so much Jesus and the writers of the epistles say that it falls apart in your hands.

Surely it's "now" and "not yet"?

quote:
And no story is just a story.
Something marketing agencies have discovered in a big way. That really is the spirit of Bablyon. But some stories are truer than others. Iron-Bru is not made in Scotland from girders, however compelling the idea.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't think Sartre reminds us that hell is other people. He claims that, and I disagree.

When I studied existentialism at A-level, it was the first ever serious intellectual challenge to my faith that I encountered.

I remember being struck by the fact that Sartre, as fervent an unbeliever in the hereafter as one could hope for, could not avoid having recourse to it to investigate his own ideas.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I must admit, I like the Orthodox 'take' ... we don't like to confront death in the West.

I steeled myself to go and look at both my Dad's and my Gran's open coffins ... I'm glad I did. I kissed my Dad's forehead. Cold ... so cold ...

It can cause problems, though, there are issues in Greece, particularly in Athens and Thessaloniki, where they're running out of space for graves. It costs money to keep them there and there are time-share style arrangements - and when space is running out and people can't afford the payments they exhume people and put the bones in ossuaries ... eventually most Athenians seem to end up in some kind of giant bone-yard.

There was a pretty ghoulish and quite sad programme about it on BBC Radio 4 recently - on Crossing Continents.

The Orthodox Church didn't come out of it very well, but that could be fiendish Western media-bias coming into play ...
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It can cause problems, though, there are issues in Greece, particularly in Athens and Thessaloniki, where they're running out of space for graves. It costs money to keep them there and there are time-share style arrangements - and when space is running out and people can't afford the payments they exhume people and put the bones in ossuaries ... eventually most Athenians seem to end up in some kind of giant bone-yard.

This is a feature not a bug. The ossuaries of Athos are pretty well-known and hardly derided, or a matter of poverty or shame. And there are whole underground cities in some places built of dead men's bones. Again it's western squeamishness that makes this ghoulish.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I'm influenced by dialogical views of the self, in particular Buber and Bakhtin.

Descartes gives us the monological view, sitting there thinking, existing, like a flame in the wind. It's very relevant to the terror of death this thread refers to. A dialogical view says that the self is formed in the act of relating to others. We are somebody, because we relate to others.

Bakhtin writes: A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary .. I cannot become myself without another; I must find myself in another by finding another in myself.

Pretty good for a Soviet philosopher?

Going back to the 'till he comes' thing, Bonhoeffer talked about who Jesus Christ is for us . The existence of Jesus Christ today depends on him being in relationship with us. We have to be open to him as someone with intentions and purpose for us. So it makes sense, indeed is necessary, to talk about Jesus as someone with a future that is involved with our future. Not us passively waiting for his return, but us understanding him as someone who continues to be passionate about us and our neighbours.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Bakhtin writes: A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary .. I cannot become myself without another; I must find myself in another by finding another in myself.

Pretty good for a Soviet philosopher?

Well the second part sounds nicely Trinitarian, but I don't agree with the first part. It does indeed sound like the recipe for dehumanisation that I would expect of a Soviet-style system. It also sounds like a recipe for the worst kinds of abuse and co-dependency.

And perhaps nowhere is the lie given to it more than at the time of our death, which each of us faces alone.

quote:
Going back to the 'till he comes' thing, Bonhoeffer talked about who Jesus Christ is for us . The existence of Jesus Christ today depends on him being in relationship with us.
Orthodox Christianity has God as entirely self-sufficient.

Admittedly the quote above might lead to some interesting discussion about that - did God feel the need to create us to affirm his own existence?

But as I understand it, the concept of grace it depends on God's self-sufficiency. He doesn't need anything in return, and that's why he can give freely.

quote:
[emphasis mine]
We have to be open to him as someone with intentions and purpose for us. So it makes sense, indeed is necessary, to talk about Jesus as someone with a future that is involved with our future. Not us passively waiting for his return, but us understanding him as someone who continues to be passionate about us and our neighbours.

I can sort of agree with all this, including the bit I've bolded, but it seems to me that none of that "now" goes against the "not yet" part of eschatology, and if it disregards the "not yet" part, has to throw away quite a lot of what Jesus had to say about his return, let alone how the epistles enlarge on it.

[ 22. December 2015, 14:48: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A dialogical view says that the self is formed in the act of relating to others. We are somebody, because we relate to others.

Bakhtin writes: A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary .. I cannot become myself without another; I must find myself in another by finding another in myself.

Pretty good for a Soviet philosopher?

Bakhtin was I believe at very least influenced by Russian Orthodox theology. (He was accused of participating in the underground Russian Orthodox Church, though he denied it.)

The problem though is that in order to have a dialogical relationship with the Other, the Other must be more than just one's own construction of them. It's not clear to me to what extent a non-realist view of relationship to the dead can provide something that isn't a construction. (I believe a problem that often strikes the grieving.)
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
One of the great distractions of too much of Christianity is obsession with where we'll spend eternity and who is (or isn't) going to heaven, as if that's all that matters.

If I believed in hell then I think I would be forced to conclude that that was indeed all that matters!
Perhaps, though Jesus had a few things to say about hell, yet kept the focus on how we live this life.

Maybe it's not just a matter of whether one believes in hell at all, but the kind of hell one does or doesn't believe in.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A dialogical view says that the self is formed in the act of relating to others. We are somebody, because we relate to others.

Bakhtin writes: A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary .. I cannot become myself without another; I must find myself in another by finding another in myself.

Pretty good for a Soviet philosopher?

Bakhtin was I believe at very least influenced by Russian Orthodox theology. (He was accused of participating in the underground Russian Orthodox Church, though he denied it.)

The problem though is that in order to have a dialogical relationship with the Other, the Other must be more than just one's own construction of them. It's not clear to me to what extent a non-realist view of relationship to the dead can provide something that isn't a construction. (I believe a problem that often strikes the grieving.)

The dead aren't our private property, though. If we talk about our auntie Brenda we will learn from each other. Much more so if we share our thoughts about Jesus.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
At any rate, I would certainly say the exact opposite. I don't think funerals are "for" the person who died. The person who has died is dead. Either they are in a better place, or they are worm food. Either way, whatever we do or don't do here on earth can't be of much consequence to them one way or the other. Their soul is with God, and God will sort that out with or without anything that happens at the funeral.

The funeral is precisely for those left behind. That is it's primary-- it's only-- purpose. To provide comfort, pastoral care, and hope for the ones left behind. To stand with them in their grieving.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
By "in the past" do you mean within Christianity, or are you talking of pre-Christian peoples? Can you point to any sources for that? In the Reformed tradition that view (the some sort of religious ritual is needed to help "transition" the soul to the next life) is explicitly repudiated.

Hmmm. I don't know that I'd quite say that. Yes, the Reformed did indeed repudiate prayers for the dead, largely because they/we rejected the idea of purgatory. But I'm not sure that the Reformed tradition insists that the primary purpose of the funeral is to provide comfort to the bereaved. (And doesn't it provide some comfort to continue to pray for loved ones?)

From the Reformed perspective, the primary purpose of the funeral, as with all services of worship, is to praise God and proclaim the Gospel. In the funeral context, this serves numerous purposes—to mark and give thanks for the life of the one who has died and to "claim" (best word I can think of right now) the promises of the Gospel for him or her, to comfort the bereaved, to encourage the church, etc. But as with any service, from a Reformed understanding the primary purposes is to praise God for what God has done.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Athos is one thing, Mousethief, Athens and Thessaloniki another ...

As far as I understand it, there isn't that much of an issue in rural Greece because they have space to accommodate the bones - but in Athens and Thessaloniki - which is where most Greek people live - there are pressures on space - and, with the current state of things in Greece, pressures on the purse.

I accept the point about Western squeamishness, but there are stories coming out of Greece of unmarked pauper's graves on scrubland, and even of bodies dumped because people can't afford the cemetery fees.

I don't say this as some kind of 'attack' on Orthodoxy and its general opposition to cremation ... but there is an issue for many Greek people in terms of both space and finance.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
From the Reformed perspective, the primary purpose of the funeral, as with all services of worship, is to praise God and proclaim the Gospel. In the funeral context, this serves numerous purposes—to mark and give thanks for the life of the one who has died and to "claim" (best word I can think of right now) the promises of the Gospel for him or her, to comfort the bereaved, to encourage the church, etc.

"Gathering for Worship", the most recent British Baptist "prayer book", says this about funerals, which seems very balanced (I hope I'm not quoting too much, but I can't post a link):

"In the funeral service we begin with the one who has died. We confront death itself, and we rejoice in the resurrection promised and known in Christ. In our pastoral care (of which the funeral service is a part) we confront the reality of death with the hope of the resurrection. For the deceased, death is the gateway to judgement and to life. For the bereaved, the journey through grief will not lead back to ‘normal’, to a past that cannot be recaptured. In our funeral services we point to a new experience of God beyond death. For the deceased there is the hope of deliverance and of glory; for the bereaved there is opportunity for the past to be remembered with forgiveness and for the future to be embraced with freedom".

The editors were Chris Ellis and Myra Blyth. I don't know their theological stance but I suspect it might be at the more Reformed - and definitely the more liturgical! - end of the Baptist spectrum.
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
The form of the service for burial in Knox's Book of Common Order is (in it's entirety):

quote:
Of Buryall

The corps is reverently brought to the grave, accompanied with the Congregation, without any further ceremonies; which being buryed, the Minister, if he be present, and required, goeth to the Church, if it be not farre of, and maketh some comfortable exhortation to the people, touching death and resurrection.

Which seems to cover most bases...

Though it is hard to talk about resurrection without talking about death, which is maybe why often we don't.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Athos is one thing, Mousethief, Athens and Thessaloniki another ...

As far as I understand it, there isn't that much of an issue in rural Greece because they have space to accommodate the bones - but in Athens and Thessaloniki - which is where most Greek people live - there are pressures on space - and, with the current state of things in Greece, pressures on the purse.

I accept the point about Western squeamishness, but there are stories coming out of Greece of unmarked pauper's graves on scrubland, and even of bodies dumped because people can't afford the cemetery fees.

I don't say this as some kind of 'attack' on Orthodoxy and its general opposition to cremation ... but there is an issue for many Greek people in terms of both space and finance.

But none of this has aught to do with whether burying people until the flesh drops from their bones, then digging up their bones and putting them in an ossuary, is a good or bad thing. You claimed a documentary portrayed it as a bad thing per se. I was countering the documentary.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
If the grave is important only to keep the person's memory alive by way of having "something to visit", wouldn't a memorial plaque serve the same purpose? Placed on a stained glass window in a church-- or a bookshelf in a library-- or a swing set in a children's playground. Whatever is meaningful and seems to resonate with the person who has died.

When a young boy in our congregation tragically died at age 10, his parents had him cremated and the remains packed into fireworks, which would surely have delighted this kid. Then they had a plaque put on a tree (for a suitable donation) at a campgrounds where he loved to go each summer (and in fact was all packed and ready to go there the night when he died).

It seemed appropriate to that particular person.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If the grave is important only to keep the person's memory alive by way of having "something to visit", wouldn't a memorial plaque serve the same purpose? Placed on a stained glass window in a church-- or a bookshelf in a library-- or a swing set in a children's playground. Whatever is meaningful and seems to resonate with the person who has died.

For some, perhaps yes. But for many, I think no. There is something different for me at least about where a loved one's remains—buried or cremated—are. There is a physical closeness that isn't found with a memorial plaque. A plaque is a reminder of the person. But when I visit the section of the cemetery where my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles are buried, I feel in some sense that I am in their presence. The only other place I sense that as strongly is at the Communion Table.

Perhaps in a way it's related to resurrection, to the idea that the body matters.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Demas, I have watched obscene death. And life. I'm watching one now. Not my own, but that's coming. It's just a phase. We have eternal life now and must use it accordingly, paradoxically: not idly, sybaritically; as if we only had today. Until we can't. Now. I will have to give account for every idle moment. To those I didn't lift a finger for, or overcome my impatience of.

The place of the afterlife is to live in its most positive, best case, glorious light for everyone. An impossibly tall order given our weakness and ignorance as to how.

Apart from kindness.

Which we shouldn't need a carrot or a stick for. Being its own reward.
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
Well sure, but I thought you were saying above that death was the end? Your post makes no sense if you believe that death is the end.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I make no sense at the best of times Demas. There is no end. The afterlife - how we can, will all be in transcendent existence - is utterly unbelievable, impossible, unreal, absurd and assured in Christ; Jesus' resurrection.

So let's me strongly benevolent. To IS.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Hmmm. I don't know that I'd quite say that. Yes, the Reformed did indeed repudiate prayers for the dead, largely because they/we rejected the idea of purgatory. But I'm not sure that the Reformed tradition insists that the primary purpose of the funeral is to provide comfort to the bereaved. (And doesn't it provide some comfort to continue to pray for loved ones?)

From the Reformed perspective, the primary purpose of the funeral, as with all services of worship, is to praise God and proclaim the Gospel. In the funeral context, this serves numerous purposes—to mark and give thanks for the life of the one who has died and to "claim" (best word I can think of right now) the promises of the Gospel for him or her, to comfort the bereaved, to encourage the church, etc. But as with any service, from a Reformed understanding the primary purposes is to praise God for what God has done.

[Hot and Hormonal] you are so right. I'm retreating now to do my penance: 2 hours of remedial reading from Calvin's Institutes.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
... be ...
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm retreating now to do my penance: 2 hours of remedial reading from Calvin's Institutes.

Surely no sin short of murder would be so heinous as to require such a penance?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm retreating now to do my penance: 2 hours of remedial reading from Calvin's Institutes.

Surely no sin short of murder would be so heinous as to require such a penance?
When I was first dating my dear husband, he was doing his daily devotions (voluntarily!) out of the Institutes-- in Latin. [Ultra confused]

To this day, I consider it a marvel that I continued to date him after learning that.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
[Killing me]
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm retreating now to do my penance: 2 hours of remedial reading from Calvin's Institutes.

Surely no sin short of murder would be so heinous as to require such a penance?
When I was first dating my dear husband, he was doing his daily devotions (voluntarily!) out of the Institutes-- in Latin. [Ultra confused]

To this day, I consider it a marvel that I continued to date him after learning that.

Surely that absolved you from any need to turn to the Institutes as penance ever again! He's clearly banked ample penance for the both of you.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm retreating now to do my penance: 2 hours of remedial reading from Calvin's Institutes.

Surely no sin short of murder would be so heinous as to require such a penance?
When I was first dating my dear husband, he was doing his daily devotions (voluntarily!) out of the Institutes-- in Latin. [Ultra confused]

To this day, I consider it a marvel that I continued to date him after learning that.

Surely that absolved you from any need to turn to the Institutes as penance ever again! He's clearly banked ample penance for the both of you.
hmmmm... our anniversary is next week, perhaps as an act of devotion, he can be persuaded to lend me some of his get-out-of-Calvin-free credits? God knows I need them far more than he does.
 
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :
 
This thread reminds me of a passage in a novel called "Inferno" by Niven and Pournelle. It is a science-fiction writer's tour of Hell, a la Dante.

At one point, the protagonist finds a cemetery in the outskirts of Hell and taps on the end of a casket. The woman inside tells him to go away. He asks if she knows where she is, and she replies that she is in Forest Lawn, exactly where she always expected to be.

I found that to be one of the saddest moments in the novel.
 
Posted by HarryLime (# 18525) on :
 
A couple of years ago there was a column in the Spectator (I can't remember who wrote it) where the author said that his habit in prayer was to have conversations with dead family and friends, as well as praying directly to God. I suspect that his habit is unorthodox, but I can see the appeal. I say this as someone who hasn't prayed for decades.

It seems to me that Christianity has to have something to say about the afterlife if it wants to be relevant. The moral code of Christianity is widely accepted. It's uncontroversial that we should love our neighbour as ourselves. It's our beginning and our end that Christianity can uniquely speak about, it seems to me.

When my mother died ten years ago I thought a lot about how to make sense of her life as a timespan. This will sound odd, but if she had simply expired, and no longer existed in any way, then her 20-year-old self was as proximate as her 70-year-old dying self, it seemed to me. I thought like this partly because I didn't want to always remember her in sickness, as she was at the end. I try to remember the whole life. She was only ill for a tiny bit of it, at the end. My father disagrees on this. He will always see my mother as that sick person, as if that was her final and permanent state of being.

Best of all, of course, would be to believe that she would be resurrected and enjoy eternal life.
 
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HarryLime:
A couple of years ago there was a column in the Spectator (I can't remember who wrote it) where the author said that his habit in prayer was to have conversations with dead family and friends, as well as praying directly to God. I suspect that his habit is unorthodox, but I can see the appeal. I say this as someone who hasn't prayed for decades.

It seems to me that Christianity has to have something to say about the afterlife if it wants to be relevant. The moral code of Christianity is widely accepted. It's uncontroversial that we should love our neighbour as ourselves. It's our beginning and our end that Christianity can uniquely speak about, it seems to me.

When my mother died ten years ago I thought a lot about how to make sense of her life as a timespan. This will sound odd, but if she had simply expired, and no longer existed in any way, then her 20-year-old self was as proximate as her 70-year-old dying self, it seemed to me. I thought like this partly because I didn't want to always remember her in sickness, as she was at the end. I try to remember the whole life. She was only ill for a tiny bit of it, at the end. My father disagrees on this. He will always see my mother as that sick person, as if that was her final and permanent state of being.

Best of all, of course, would be to believe that she would be resurrected and enjoy eternal life.

I agree with you that it is better to see the whole perspective of someone's life when thinking about them, to be able to smile and laugh as we remember, as well as shedding a tear.

I think it good, too, to think of our loved ones in heaven. After all, if those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them, and love is eternal, who can say any different?
 
Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't know what to think, except that our mainstream churches probably have too little to say about the afterlife.

I don't think this is true of the Catholics and the Orthodox. Historically speaking, those are the mainstream of Christianity.

In those traditions, funerals are indeed for the good of the souls of the deceased.
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
...I have read that death is our bugaboo the way sex was the Victorians' bugaboo. We don't like to talk about it in polite company, and we try to keep it at arm's length. Witness the closed-coffin funeral or the memorial service. ...

The closed-coffin funeral has a long and honorable history. (So have shrouds and palls.) I don't think it has anything at all to do with skittishness about death.

Having never attended an Orthodox funeral, the only time I've ever seen a coffin open during a service was at an undertaker's establishment. I experienced it as putting the emphasis on the body, rather than where the soul had gone.

My own instructions call for cremation, followed by a Requiem mass with the ashes present in an urn under a teeny-tiny pall. If anyone puts my corpse on display at any time during the proceedings, I promise to haunt them.

That's not because death is a "bugaboo" for me - I was once close to death, and experienced assurance that it's not the end - it's because I believe that once the soul has left the body, it's just clay. The last thing I want is the whole pink-lighted pancake-makeup-covered face and the body in the box, while people murmur stupidisms about how "natural" I look.

That's my opinion, of course, but I don't think it's fair to say that people who don't go with Orthodox tradition are running away from something. I'm certainly not.
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm retreating now to do my penance: 2 hours of remedial reading from Calvin's Institutes.

Surely no sin short of murder would be so heinous as to require such a penance?
Ahh-men. I can't believe in so cruel a God.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
God the Murderer? Most (99%+) People of the Book have and do.

[ 09. January 2016, 21:02: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
Martin60, that was a wee joke.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Rossweisse. You presented a target of opportunity. It had to be taken.
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
Not necessarily, Martin. [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Ah come on Rossweisse, I'm a one-track bore, what else am I going to do?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
I know several people who like to think of those loved ones who have died as if they are still around. Some connect their presence with the ashes or place of burial, others with the places they lived or enjoyed. Is this harmful or unhealthy?

It seems to me that if we think of loved ones as having moved on to be with God, no longer in the world, or even if we think that death is the end, this releases us to grieve and to move on.

A friend says that it would be cruel to wish a lingering on their loved ones rather than allowing them to go to God, as if we can somehow hold them.

What are your thoughts?

Returning to the OP, I think that the common idea that most people have takes it both ways.

The popular idea of the afterlife, as presented in books, films and cartoons, envisions a person remaining just as they were in this life and continuing life in a new world that is variously described. Sometimes it is ethereal and cloudlike. Other times it is pretty much like this world.

At the same time, popular thought consistently expresses the idea that some kind of continuing connection persists between people on earth and those in heaven. Mother and father and Aunt Jane somehow look down on us from above, and somehow help us find our way.

I think that both of these ideas have it right. All that is needed is to sharpen and explain these vague ideas and expectations. [Angel]

I don't think that most people connect the departed with the place of their burial - except as a reminder of them when we visit the place. I don't think of Aunt Marge as being eternally at Sunnyside Cemetery. I think of her as happily doing whatever people do in heaven. I think that this is what most people think.

Nor do I think that it is cruel to imagine our beloved departed as "lingering" with their loved ones. I think that people vaguely imagine Mom and Dad "looking down from above" in a way that in no way contradicts or confuses their happy participation in whatever goes on in heaven.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
If they are living parallel meta-lives, they have NO influence on us whatsoever. None. Obviously. At all. Ever. Are we their East Enders? Don't they have lives?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
If they are living parallel meta-lives, they have NO influence on us whatsoever. None. Obviously. At all. Ever. Are we their East Enders? Don't they have lives?

I'm just talking about the popular conception found in books, films, etc.

My understanding is that people do think that the departed touch us and influence our lives in some sort of way. And people also conceive of them also somehow going forward with a life in the spiritual realm. The two are not necessarily exclusive, which is not to say that popular views have any particular rationale.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
But you did say, 'I think that both of these ideas have it right.', Freddy. That life continues in some [non-entropic] way (which it must) and that those living it influence us (which they don't).

So what did you mean?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
But you did say, 'I think that both of these ideas have it right.', Freddy. That life continues in some [non-entropic] way (which it must) and that those living it influence us (which they don't).

So what did you mean?

I meant that I agree with what I perceive to be the popular sentiment that life continues in some [non-entropic] way (which it must) and that those living it influence us.

Of course that might not be an accurate reading of popular sentiment.
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Ah come on Rossweisse, I'm a one-track bore, what else am I going to do?

[Roll Eyes] [Disappointed] [Roll Eyes] [Disappointed] [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
I believe that once the soul has left the body, it's just clay.

And we do not; here is perhaps where the difference lies. But if you don't mind my asking, would it offend you if the coroner had sex with your mother's corpse?
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And we do not; here is perhaps where the difference lies. But if you don't mind my asking, would it offend you if the coroner had sex with your mother's corpse?

Of course it would, although I think that's fairly irrelevant to the greater point. If your theory of death-as-recent-bugaboo is true, and if that's why we close coffins, what are we to make of the long centuries in which coffins have been closed and covered with palls in (Western, at least) churches?
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
All the post-death stuff -- funerals, palls, hymns, coffins -- are not for the dead. They are for the living. Which is why the dead body is respected.
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
They are for both.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What do the dead get out of it?
 
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What do the dead get out of it?

It makes no difference whatsoever to them. That's not the issue.

It's a little bit like a victim of murder. The one who is murdered simply passes into the next life. No harm done, as it were. It is the murderer who suffers, if not in this life then in the next.
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
If you believe in an afterlife, the prayers certainly make a difference. I do believe in the survival of the soul, and that the dead know what is undertaken in their behalf.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What difference can they possibly make?
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
I think that discussion has already taken place, Martin.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I missed out. Or forget. Is it anadromous?

If I'd just died and my consciousness and perception continued immediately in some transcendent way, would I have to go to my own funeral?
 
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 
Oh, YOU wouldn't want to. I would.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And we do not; here is perhaps where the difference lies. But if you don't mind my asking, would it offend you if the coroner had sex with your mother's corpse?

Of course it would, although I think that's fairly irrelevant to the greater point.
Perhaps not to the lesser point, to wit: it shows you do NOT believe it's just clay.

quote:
If your theory of death-as-recent-bugaboo is true, and if that's why we close coffins, what are we to make of the long centuries in which coffins have been closed and covered with palls in (Western, at least) churches?
Probably negates my theory. You westerners are all messed up anyway, though. [Two face]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
To experience the helpless agony of separation from those I love in front of me AFTER death? No I wouldn't. Why would any one? Does the pain never end? Or is it magicked away in the transcendent?
 
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Of course at the bull's eye is God in the flesh. The assurance of eternal life. That all will be well. The ONLY comfort.

No Martin, it's not the only comfort - but it may be the only comfort for your need.

From where I am the sadness is your need.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
I believe that once the soul has left the body, it's just clay.

And we do not; here is perhaps where the difference lies. But if you don't mind my asking, would it offend you if the coroner had sex with your mother's corpse?
That is a depraved and despicable question, rather unnecessary to make your point. You might have better asked something else, such as if it is okay if organs are taken without consent for transplantation, something which is being considered in some jurisdictions. The sick question combines sexual depravity inappropriately with the issue.

We have psychological associations and connections with the bodies of others, and project much on to their physicality because this is a major way that we know others. We also know their voices, and various things about their thoughts and feelings, which we may consider resident in their spirit, but the physical presence of others is the first consideration. This is a usual human trait. So please don't suggest rape of dead bodies because it is a desecration as well as a very sick sick idea, but please do take organs from the deceased for the benefit of others who need transplantation. While neither makes the point that the body is significant after death, one is horridly disgusting and the other a gift of life.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Of course at the bull's eye is God in the flesh. The assurance of eternal life. That all will be well. The ONLY comfort.

No Martin, it's not the only comfort - but it may be the only comfort for your need.

From where I am the sadness is your need.

'strewth HWR. That last comment stops me in my tracks.

You refute my hyperbole prior to that, and yes I have many comforts, but nothing compares, surely, to the comfort of God becoming one with His creation?
 


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