Assuming all this be true, I fully expect to be autistic in eternity. Otherwise I would not be me. The difference will be other people's reactions, attitudes and reactions.
That’s how I feel about my bipolar disorder. Others will differ, as is natural.
It's all a bit... absurd, unreal, unapprehendable really isn't it. I think the Jews were on to something. There is no afterlife. It would require constant miracles, personal divine intervention, from the word go. What would it all look like? How can anything be more real, extra real, than the physical? It's nonsense isn't it? We come to in the Resurrection. Where? On what? Sideways Earth where inertia is cancelled if you stub your toe? What's the light made of? Our sense organs? What's for breakfast?
I think the Jews were on to something. There is no afterlife.
Jews—Second Temple-era Jews, that is—did believe in an afterlife. The Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife, but did believe in Sheol (and perhaps Paradise for the righteous, I’m not quite sure about that. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead. There are references in the OT to life and to judgment after death—not lots of references, but they’re there. The bosom of Abraham and all that. And there’s Jesus’s story about Dives and Lazarus.
The Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife, but did believe in Sheol (and perhaps Paradise for the righteous, I’m not quite sure about that.
Oops. That should have been:
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, but did believe in Sheol (and perhaps Paradise for the righteous, I’m not quite sure about that).
Aye Nick, I've always thought it's nonsense that the (pre-Second Temple) Jews didn't believe in an afterlife, but it's often said due to the absence of discussion of it in the OT, despite the Witch of Endor, the spirits of man and beast (Eccles. 3:21), and the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel. I was using it as a rhetorical device. How the Sadducees could not believe in an afterlife but believe in conscious existence in Sheol remains to be explained. They just lacked the concept of oblivion. Even the Greeks didn't have it. Mandatorily drinking the unquenching waters of Lethe make oblivion work backwards; you still exist, with no past.
Yes, and may be experienced by anyone who has a general anaesthetic prior to surgery.
I found this in May 2016, when I was put under for the best part of six hours. I had no recollection of that time, so, if I had died whilst on the operating table, I wouldn't have known anything about it.
I'd love there to be, but cannot in any way imagine it unless it's a WII holodeck with full feedback, a shared dreamscape, a nice Matrix. If we fall off El Capitan, what happens? Reboot? Goto backup? It can't actually be real can it? But we could still stub our toes? Will there be toilets? Soil? Bacteria? Plants? Midges? How granular is the game physics? What would physics experiments show?
I'd love there to be, but cannot in any way imagine it unless it's a WII holodeck with full feedback, a shared dreamscape, a nice Matrix. If we fall off El Capitan, what happens? Reboot? Goto backup? It can't actually be real can it? But we could still stub our toes? Will there be toilets? Soil? Bacteria? Plants? Midges? How granular is the game physics? What would physics experiments show?
Yes, well - good questions...
ISTM there's something in the idea of re-incarnation - that way, you get to experience a great deal more than you'd experience in just one life (or afterlife).
I'd love there to be, but cannot in any way imagine it unless it's a WII holodeck with full feedback, a shared dreamscape, a nice Matrix. If we fall off El Capitan, what happens? Reboot? Goto backup? It can't actually be real can it? But we could still stub our toes? Will there be toilets? Soil? Bacteria? Plants? Midges? How granular is the game physics? What would physics experiments show?
Yes, well - good questions...
ISTM there's something in the idea of re-incarnation - that way, you get to experience a great deal more than you'd experience in just one life (or afterlife).
Yes, but if there is reincarnation, 99.99% of us drank more than enough of the unquenching waters of Lethe as we don't remember who we were. Not that midges have much to remember.
Does it actually matter if we don't remember who we were in a previous life?
If we did recall the details, we might not make the same mistakes again, I suppose, but on the other hand, if it was all a blank, we wouldn't be made miserable by remembering them.
I suppose...
I'm afraid the whole concept of *eternal life* is a dark mystery to me, and I simply can't conceive what it might (or will) be like. That says more about my lack of imagination, perhaps, than about my lack of faith in the words of Jesus.
Nobody has the imagination to make it work. Nobody tried in the NT, starting with Jesus. There are oddments, but nothing coherent. There's no sex. But we'll have bodies that have a fully natural manifestation. Plus other capabilities, presumably. Not an extra space-time dimension, but glory. What will be beneath our feet? What are the energetics? What would happen if we didn't eat? What makes up for all that nature lacks? Glory. It explains nothing at all, of course, like the excellent cover-all expression 'by the spirit'. Glory will prevent us injuring, hurting ourselves and others by accident. Or prevent us having them in the first place? Stumbling? Stubbing our toes? That feels like it goes far too far doesn't it? There is nothing harmful at all in Paradise? We'll all look ripped and beautiful but have no desire and won't have to work out?
Nothing works does it?
How can anything be more real than nature? Better? How?
And I don't see any sense at all in metempsychosis; transmigration of souls. Just nonsense we make up.
So what do we do while we're waiting for the impossible? The meaningless? The absurd? The more real than reality? If we can't begin to make transcendence credible in any way? Yet some of us know that many are damned there, can't be fixed there, or don't know that all will be, tho' toe stubbing is.
We take what we know, and live by that. Resurrection brings healing, so we work for healing of body, mind and relationships in any way we can. Resurrection brings freedom, so we work to break chains of oppression and addiction in any way we can. Resurrection makes us all one in Christ, so we work against inequality and injustice in any way we can.
We pray "they kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven", so we work to bring the Kingdom, we do the will of God.
OK, what we know we've been taught (I know I've been taught that we will be raised to new life, even if I don't know the mechanics of that), what we have faith in. If we believe in resurrection then we live by that belief. Which means we do all we can to bring new life to as many now as we can.
There's a short story by H G Wells, which pictures the General Resurrection and the Last Judgement.
Each judged soul - whatever they've done, good, bad, or indifferent - disappears into God's sleeve. Judgement over, God shakes everyone out onto a new planet (orbiting Sirius, but presumably Earth II), and says *Now that we know each other better, let's have another try* (or words to that effect).
Wells' vision may not amount to a New Heaven, but it certainly amounts to a New Earth...
The story is A Vision of Judgement, and God's words at the end are:
*Now that you understand me and each other a little better...try again.*
The final sentence reads:
All about me was a beautiful land, more beautiful than any I had ever seen before - waste, austere, and wonderful - and all about me were the enlightened souls of men in new, clean bodies.
I bet a dime. Nice yearning, dated, patronizing - as if we need to or can try at all - Victorian paternalist metaphor. That explains nothing and asks more questions. How do we get from real, solid meaninglessness born of absurd volumes of energy pouring through a quantum rent in the fabric of nothingness to Heaven in a world where it's virtually impossible to help anyone in our blink of helpless privilege? Carry on decorating before the wife gets back I s'pose. Edges, I ask you. On Sirius II paint is banned.
Edges bleed. I keep aiming for smaller and smaller stretches of hi-tech masking tape, but that is self-defeating too. They start to randomly crenellate. So, before I give up and resort to beading in the intersection of moulding and wall, I'm going to paint thin strips of masking tape BEFORE I lay it down.
Herbert George can do no wrong, but was of his time. It's not our fault. I am starting to get angry with God, in my all but flatlined faith. It ain't right. We even have to make so much effort to make Jesus work beyond the damnationism of the text and our weird cultural limitations: justifying God's inadequacy with our free willyism.
How do we get to an imaginable transcendence from here?
OK, what we know we've been taught (I know I've been taught that we will be raised to new life, even if I don't know the mechanics of that), what we have faith in. If we believe in resurrection then we live by that belief. Which means we do all we can to bring new life to as many now as we can.
I think I see what Alan means - we don't know, but we believe (or sort of) because Jesus. Where I am, you will be also, he said IIRC.
(Don't bother with edges. Paint everything white - no edges needed!)
And yeah, I want Jesus to be the real deal. God. Otherwise they're isn't one. I have no idea any more. But I agree, He's inspirational even if He's a myth or was as writ and magnificently deluded; He believed it all, but there is no God. Still, nobody else comes close. And if He's the real deal, wow. The story's got that. But there is no story! The gospels... the two gospels, 40 years on, agendas (Matthew... pious fraud), the very best vignette centuries later; the Pericope Adulterate. But the Church thriving throughout on word of mouth. I am so tired of it all.
But yeah, live as if the best case is true regardless. Come Lord Jesus. In me. In my aging helpless privilege.
Nobody has the imagination to make it work. Nobody tried in the NT, starting with Jesus. There are oddments, but nothing coherent. There's no sex. But we'll have bodies that have a fully natural manifestation.
Maybe no sex for us, but Isaiah 6:2 talks about Seraphim covering their "feet" with wings, so they may have sex.
Nobody has the imagination to make it work. Nobody tried in the NT, starting with Jesus. There are oddments, but nothing coherent. There's no sex. But we'll have bodies that have a fully natural manifestation.
Maybe no sex for us, but Isaiah 6:2 talks about Seraphim covering their "feet" with wings, so they may have sex.
Jesus says no marriage. I'm not sure that he mentioned sex specifically. It would be surprising... but then there is the resurrected Jesus and the broiled fish! That suggests eating ? Which is slightly suprising too...
Comments
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, but did believe in Sheol (and perhaps Paradise for the righteous, I’m not quite sure about that).
Oblivion is rational.
Yes, and may be experienced by anyone who has a general anaesthetic prior to surgery.
I found this in May 2016, when I was put under for the best part of six hours. I had no recollection of that time, so, if I had died whilst on the operating table, I wouldn't have known anything about it.
Unless there is an afterlife...
Yes, well - good questions...
ISTM there's something in the idea of re-incarnation - that way, you get to experience a great deal more than you'd experience in just one life (or afterlife).
Yes, but if there is reincarnation, 99.99% of us drank more than enough of the unquenching waters of Lethe as we don't remember who we were. Not that midges have much to remember.
I hadn't thought of that...
Does it actually matter if we don't remember who we were in a previous life?
If we did recall the details, we might not make the same mistakes again, I suppose, but on the other hand, if it was all a blank, we wouldn't be made miserable by remembering them.
I suppose...
I'm afraid the whole concept of *eternal life* is a dark mystery to me, and I simply can't conceive what it might (or will) be like. That says more about my lack of imagination, perhaps, than about my lack of faith in the words of Jesus.
Nothing works does it?
How can anything be more real than nature? Better? How?
And I don't see any sense at all in metempsychosis; transmigration of souls. Just nonsense we make up.
Or not see...
We pray "they kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven", so we work to bring the Kingdom, we do the will of God.
We know nothing in this area.
Or perhaps we won't, if there is no afterlife.
Each judged soul - whatever they've done, good, bad, or indifferent - disappears into God's sleeve. Judgement over, God shakes everyone out onto a new planet (orbiting Sirius, but presumably Earth II), and says *Now that we know each other better, let's have another try* (or words to that effect).
Wells' vision may not amount to a New Heaven, but it certainly amounts to a New Earth...
*Now that you understand me and each other a little better...try again.*
The final sentence reads:
All about me was a beautiful land, more beautiful than any I had ever seen before - waste, austere, and wonderful - and all about me were the enlightened souls of men in new, clean bodies.
Happy painting!
Herbert George can do no wrong, but was of his time. It's not our fault. I am starting to get angry with God, in my all but flatlined faith. It ain't right. We even have to make so much effort to make Jesus work beyond the damnationism of the text and our weird cultural limitations: justifying God's inadequacy with our free willyism.
How do we get to an imaginable transcendence from here?
I think I see what Alan means - we don't know, but we believe (or sort of) because Jesus. Where I am, you will be also, he said IIRC.
(Don't bother with edges. Paint everything white - no edges needed!)
And yeah, I want Jesus to be the real deal. God. Otherwise they're isn't one. I have no idea any more. But I agree, He's inspirational even if He's a myth or was as writ and magnificently deluded; He believed it all, but there is no God. Still, nobody else comes close. And if He's the real deal, wow. The story's got that. But there is no story! The gospels... the two gospels, 40 years on, agendas (Matthew... pious fraud), the very best vignette centuries later; the Pericope Adulterate. But the Church thriving throughout on word of mouth. I am so tired of it all.
But yeah, live as if the best case is true regardless. Come Lord Jesus. In me. In my aging helpless privilege.
Amen!
Jesus says no marriage. I'm not sure that he mentioned sex specifically. It would be surprising... but then there is the resurrected Jesus and the broiled fish! That suggests eating ? Which is slightly suprising too...
No CHEESE in Heaven? Would be Outrage!
(If anyone asks me if I'm married, I reply *Sometimes*).