Life after death reality or fantasy?

LIFE AFTER DEATH

• REALITY OR FANTASY?

The Fayoum Portraits Egypt, 2C AD

The Fayoum Portraits

• The portraits were attached to burial mummies at the face, from which almost all have now been detached.

• It is thought that they were painted in life and displayed in the home until needed in death.

• Most of the portraits depict the deceased at a relatively young age, and many show children. According to Walker (2000), "CAT scans of all the complete mummies represented reveal a correspondence of age and, in suitable cases, sex between mummy and image."

• Walker concludes that the age distribution reflects the low life expectancy at the time.

Death was a daily occurrence

• “Irene to Taonnophris and Philon, greeting. I was as much grieved and shed as many tears over Eumoiros as I shed for Didymus. I did everything that was fitting and so did my whole family. But still there is nothing one can do in the face of such trouble. So I leave you to comfort yourselves. Farewell.”

• 2nd Century papyrus

The Example of Victorian Britain

• Early death was the norm in society

• In Wales in the 1870’s 14 out of every 100 newborn babies did not survive their first year

• In Manchester in the 1850’s life expectancy at birth was only 32 years

• In London in the 1840’s one third of all children died before their fifth birthday

• It was not unusual for children to lose one or both parents through death, and many Victorian children grew up in single-parent families, or were looked after by relatives.

• This contributed to strong beliefs in an afterlife.

Ancient Materialists

• “Suns may set and rise again; but we, when once our brief light goes down, there is one unending night to be slept through” (Catullus, a Roman poet).

• “No-one awakes and arises who has once been overtaken by the chilling end of life”

• (Lucretius, a Roman poet).

• “Hopes are among the living; the dead are without hope” (Theocritus, a Greek poet).

• “Alas! Alas!... these (plants in the garden) live and spring again in another year; but we…when we die, deaf to all sound in the hollow earth, sleep a long, long, endless sleep that knows no waking.”

• (Moschus, a Greek poet).

Contrasting World Views

• I WAS NOT; I BECAME; I AM NOT; I CARE NOT.

• (pagan Roman tomb inscription, 2C AD)

• I will both lie down in peace and sleep; for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

• (Psalm 4:8 – common early Christian funerary inscription)

Christianity

• Spirit – invisible part of man

• Soul – breath, natural life

• Body – the organism

• Death

• separation of soul from body
• separation of soul from God

• Death is never extinguishment of being

• Therefore, the soul is not ‘immortal’

• Plato & Rene Descartes

Christianity

• What happens after death?

• The body is buried
• The spirit returns to God
• The soul goes to the intermediate state

• For Christians

• The soul goes to be with Christ
• The body sleeps in the earth to await the resurrection

• For non Christians

• The soul goes to Hades
• The body sleeps in the earth to await the resurrection

Christianity

• The Resurrection

• This is a once for all event for all humanity
• Some will be resurrected to eternal life; some to eternal punishment
• Christ’s resurrection guarantees the Christian’s resurrection
• Therefore, resurrection is based on the truth of the resurrection of Christ – he appeared to various reliable witnesses
• The soul will be reunited with a transformed body that is eternal in character

Christianity

• Hell

• The day of judgement
• Sheol – (Heb) - the intermediate state
• Hades – (Gk) - the intermediate state
• In Jewish theology Hades was two tier (Luke 16)
• The righteous went to Paradise
• The unrighteous went to a place of torments
• Tartarus - (Gk) the place for the very wicked
• Gehenna – (Heb) - Hell proper
• The biblical “lake of fire”
• Named after the valley of Hinnom

Christianity

• Can a God of love send people to an eternal Hell?

• The traditional concept of Hell is questioned for

• Its crude imagery

• Its literal existence (“hell is other people” – Jean Paul Sartre)

• Its deficient justice

• How can a God of Love justify torturing men & women?
• How can God justify an eternal punishment for finite sins?
• How can God consign those who have never heard the gospel to an eternity of suffering?
• How can God disregard the many good things Non-Christian people have done?

Christianity

• Various solutions

• Hell is a metaphor – for separation from God

• Hell is mythical – hell is what we make of our lives in the here & now

• All bad people are annihilated at death -Annihilationism

• The unrepentant are destroyed at the final judgement - Conditional Immortality

• All bad people are given a second chance -- once they see what hell is like, they will repent

• All bad people pay a limited price and then are promoted to heaven - Purgatory

• Everyone will be saved – NT says that Jesus is the saviour of all (1 Tim 4:10) – Universalism

Christianity

• A gentler, kinder damnation – God will somehow find a way to save everyone

• Idea is based on the love of God, but
• What about God’s justice?
• Separation of God’s attributes
• Makes light of God’s wrath
• Devalues heinousness of sin
• What value in the death of Christ?

Hinduism

• Circular concept of time

• Reincarnation – ‘in flesh again’ - sansara

• Resurrection

• New Birth

• Release from sansara by moksha – enlightenment

• Karma – balance of good and evil acts

• Dharma – what is right

Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism

• Differences between Hinduism and Christianity

• No personal God – Brahman is ultimate reality
• No concept of sin and punishment – what about karma?
• No redemption, no immediate hope of betterment
• No heaven, no hell
• Aim is nihilism rather than communion with deity

Hinduism

• Hinduism’s resonance with post modern society

• Many ways to ultimate reality
• No absolute standards of behaviour – dharma differs between individuals

• But, Hinduism’s less appealing side

• The caste system
• Fatalism
• Callousness to the poor

Is it possible to know?

• Does believing something make it true (postmodernism), or is the truth worth believing in (modernism)?

• Are there personal ‘truths’ which can’t be proven, or substantiated?

• If there are, is David Icke right when he declares that a reptile conspiracy rules the world?

• If there aren’t, what would constitute proof?

Evidences for the afterlife

• Atheism – no possibility of proof

• Christianity – the resurrection of Jesus

• Hinduism – the nature of the cosmos

• Ghosts

• Past life remembrances

• Near Death Experiences

• Spiritualism – mediums