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Loading...What is my personal feeling toward death? That’s the first of two questions in this weeks’ Readers’ Mailbag!
QUESTION:
How do you feel about dying? Is that not in some part terrifying? And us losing our loved ones forever? How do you get over that?
RESPONSE:
Ah, how do I feel about dying? In general, I’m against it. 🙂
But do I find the prospect terrifying? I would say that over the years I have had different attitudes toward death. I suppose when I was very young, I hoped I was a good enough person to go to heaven. I was certainly terrified of going to hell. When I had a born again experience in high school, I became absolutely convinced I was going to heaven, as would anyone else who did what I did (accept Christ as their Lord and Savior) and believe what I did. Anyone else (i.e., most of the billions of people in the world): well, too bad for them. They are going to roast forever in hell.
When, over some years, I became a more liberal Christian, I was not sure really what to think of heaven and hell. But when I contemplated becoming an agnostic, that was one of the issues I was most obsessed about. What if I left the faith and it turns out I was *wrong* to do so? The fear of hell kept me wanting to believe.
But at one point, I simply couldn’t’ any more, and still feel true to myself and to what I really thought. Still, after I became an agnostic, it was a gnawing thought that I regularly had: What if I had blown it? Would I be punished forever?
The way I overcame my fears was simply by forcing myself to be rational about it, rather than irrational. I came to think that if there *is* a loving God in the world, he certainly is not intent on torturing most of the human race with horrible and unspeakable torments for trillions and trillions of years (and that would be just the beginning!). That would make him worse – infinitely worse – than the worst Nazi the world has ever seen. If there is a God, is he like that? I don’t think so.
Now my view is that death is the end of the story. We didn’t exist with consciousness before we were born. And we won’t exist with consciousness after we die. We can’t have consciousness without a (physical, functioning) brain. And we can’t feel physical pain without a nervous system. We will have neither after we die.
That thought does not greatly bother me anymore. It’s the reality of life. It doesn’t last long. What the thought does do is make me more inclined to live life to the fullest, now, in the present. This is not a dress rehearsal for something that’s going to come later. It is the one and only Act of a One-Act Play. We should enjoy life every bit as much as we can now, and see that others can do the same, by helping those who are having a hard (or completely awful) time. Doing so is part of what it means to be fully human, in my view.
On a slightly related note, I’m *thinking* about making my next book for a general audience about where the Christian idea of the afterlife (heaven and hell) came from. I’ve gotten very interested in that question!
QUESTION:
Hi Bart, do you think the story about Barabbas is historical? He is mentioned in all the gospels, but why would the authorities have been willing to set Jesus free if he was perceived to be a political threat to Rome? Was this story added to convince people that it was the Jews who were ultimately responsible for the death of their Messiah?
RESPONSE
I deal with this question in my recent book Jesus Before the Gospels. Here is what I say there:
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Mark’s Gospel indicates that it was Pilate’s custom to release a prisoner guilty of a capital crime to the Jewish crowd in honor of the Passover festival. He asks if they would like him to release Jesus, but they urge him to release for them Barabbas instead, a man in prison for committing murder during an insurrection. Pilate appears to feel that his hand is forced, and so he sets Barabbas free but orders Jesus to be crucified (Mark 15:6-15).
This Barabbas episode was firmly set in the early Christian memory of Jesus’ trial – it is found, with variations, in all four of the Gospels (Matthew 27:15-23; Luke 23:17-23; John 18:39-40). I do not see how it can be historically right, however; it appears to be a distorted memory.
For starters, what evidence is there that Pilate ever released a prisoner to the Jewish crowd because they wanted him to do so, or because he wanted to behave kindly toward them during their festival? Apart from the Gospels, there is none at all. In part that is because we do not have a huge number of sources for the governorship of Pilate over Judea, just some highly negative remarks in the writings of a Jewish intellectual of his day, Philo of Alexandria, and a couple of stories in the writings of the Jewish historian, Josephus. These are enough, though, to show us the basic character of Pilate, his attitude to the Jews that he ruled, and his basic approach to Jewish sensitivities. The short story is that he was a brutal, ruthless ruler with no concerns at all for what the people he governed thought about him or his policies. He was violent, mean-spirited, and hard-headed. He used his soldiers as thugs to beat the people into submission, and he ruled Judea with an iron fist.
Is Pilate the sort of person who would kindly accede to the requests of his Jewish subjects in light of their religious sensitivities? In fact he was just the opposite kind of person. Not only do we have no record of him releasing prisoners to them once a year, or ever. Knowing what we know about him, it seems completely implausible. I should point out that we don’t have any evidence of any Roman governor, anywhere, in any of the provinces, having any such policy.
And thinking about the alleged facts of the case for a second, how could there be such a policy? Barabbas in this account is not just a murderer, he is an insurrectionist. If he was involved with an insurrection, that means he engaged in an armed attempt to overthrow Roman rule. If he murdered during the insurrection, he almost certainly would have murdered a Roman soldier or someone who collaborated with the Romans. Are we supposed to believe that the ruthless, iron-fisted Pilate would release a dangerous enemy of the state because the Jewish crowd would have liked him to do so? What did Romans do with insurrectionists? Did they set them free so they could engage in more armed guerilla warfare? Would any ruling authority do this? Of course not. Would the Romans? Actually we know what they did with insurrectionists. They crucified them.
I don’t think the Barabbas episode can be a historical recollection of what really happened. It’s a distorted memory. But where did such an incredible story come from?
We need to remember what I stressed earlier, that these accounts of Jesus’ trial repeatedly emphasize that Pilate was the innocent party. It was those awful Jews who were responsible for Jesus’ death. For the Christian storytellers, in killing Jesus, the Jews killed their own messiah. That’s how wicked and foolish they were. They preferred to kill rather than revere the one God had sent to them. That is one key to understanding the Barabbas episode. The Jews preferred a violent, murdering, insurrectionist to the Son of God.
There is even more to it than that. We have no evidence outside these Gospel accounts that any such person as Barabbas existed. It is interesting to think about the name of this apparently non-existent person. In Aramaic, the language of Palestine, the name Bar-abbas literally means “son of the father.” And so, in a very poignant way, the story of the release of Barabbas is a story about which kind of “son of the father” the Jewish people preferred. Do they prefer the one who is a political insurgent, who believed that the solution to Israel’s problems was a violent overthrow of the ruling authorities? Or do they prefer the loving “Son of the Father” who was willing to give his life for others? In these Christian recollections, the Jewish people preferred the murdering insurrectionist to the self-sacrificing savior.
It is interesting to note that in some manuscripts of Matthew’s account of the Barabbas episode there is an important addition. In these manuscripts – which may well represent what the Gospel writer originally wrote – Barabbas is actually named “Jesus Barabbas.” Now the contrast is even more explicit: which kind of Jesus do the Jews want? Which Jesus, the son of the Father, is to be preferred? In this account, of course, the Jews are remembered as preferring the wrong one. But for the Gospel writers that’s because the Jews are always doing the wrong thing and always opposing the true ways of God.
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I hope you write the book on the the beginnings of the idea of the afterlife. I have also been interested in this.Chalk me up for a couple of preorders on that one.
I agree with Randal. I’d like to know the beginnings of the idea of the afterlife in addition to the origin of the Christian idea of the afterlife. Although, I still think you should write a book about both the Old and New Testament prophecies, as in, the misunderstandings associated with them. You could write both books at the same time! ?
Is it possible the Barabbas story was intended as a Markan commentary of some sort on the First Jewish Revolt?
thanks
I’m not sure how that would work. But it does (in case this is what you mean) seem to function to show that “the Jews” prefer a violent solution to their problems rather than God’s solution (so that it is an anti-jewish text)
Dr. Ehrman, it seems you were seduced by Pascal’s Wager for a time. I’ve noticed that Pascal’s Wager is very persuasive to those who don’t actually give it a serious thought. I mean, if it’s true that believing can lead to paradise if it’s true and to nothing if it’s false, but lack of belief can lead to an eternity of torment if it’s true and to nothing if it’s false, then that should settle the issue that believing is preferable. But, alas, the problem is in that word “believe”. What, exactly, is it that one must believe in order to assure salvation? What if the Catholics have it right? Or what if the Methodists have it right? Or the Greek Orthodox? Or, heck, what if the Muslims have it right?!? The problem is that there are as many ways to NOT believe as there are ways to believe! Everytime you put all your eggs in one basket, there are an inifinite number of other baskets that you are ignoring. This is the innate flaw in a wager that can only pay out AFTER you learn the actual rules of the game (i.e. after death). It’s like if I were to ask you to bet on either red or black, and you (rightly) asked me the odds of red or black, and I replied that you’ll find out the odds when they pay out. Of course, you wouldn’t take that bet.
Yes, I think “the wager” is irretrievably problematic, once you realize that there are more than just two religious options….
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalom is a very good on the topic of coping with anxiety about death and allowing it enrich our lives from the point of view of a non-believer. I am coming onto my 60th birthday in a few months and with far more time behind me than ahead of me I think of my death more often.
About life after death (or life after life):
1. I would like to read a book by you concerning this issue as to how belief in an afterlife became so dominant in Christianity whereas no significant belief in such existed during Jesus time except for the resurrection of the dead.
2. My opinion: I am agnostic on that. I think it is arrogant to proclaim that there is either a life after death or that there is no life after death in any absolute way. How do we Know? What do we mean by “life?” Is life after death consciousness separate from a physical brain or is such an entity or energy or a cosmic mind within us that survives, in heaven, elsewhere in the universe, or is reborn in some form back here, millions of times. It is all speculation, but I contend that our brains are so finite that we have no ways of knowing anything so beyond our intellectual ability.
So, make happiness for ourselves here, be compassionate to others, and accept that we don’t know all things.
3. I have a question for you to consider as a possible “reader’s question” in a future posting here:
I assume that a first century view of the universe would be earth centric. The earth is all there is in the three storied concept of the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. Nothing else. God rules over all.
As western science advanced, we know there is a vast universe with billions upon billions of potential earth’s and intelligent life living upon those earths. Such a view of the universe places an earth centric concept as expressed in ancient western writings and in biblical scripture as absurd. **QUESTION: HOW DOES CHRISTIANITY (OR ANY RELIGION) ADAPT TO WHAT CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE PRESENTS REGARDING THE UNIVERSE AS VAST AND NOT EARTH-CENTRIC IN ORDER TO REMAIN A VIABLE FAITH AS SCIENCE ADVANCES?**
note … is there any stream of thought in Christian scripture that would even hint that God is a God of a much larger universe than the earth centric view the Bible presents (“For God so loved the world” … Greek: kazman or cosmos, meaning earth or world, not the vaster cosmos, as I understand it)
Ah, right. It’s a good question. But really only one a Christian could (and needs to!) answer!
It’s interesting to me that people who understand the philosophical problems with resurrection, disembodied consciousness, and continuity of identity from one body to another (reincarnation), but who cannot be at peace with the notion of personal extinction, will resort to agnosticism on afterlife. What is it they claim not to know? The “real” definitions of life and consciousness? Obviously we live in a universe that allows for both life in general and self conscious life in particular, so both are in some sense inherent in the laws of nature. But to claim that either, as we would understand them, could exist apart from a corporeal entity, has no basis in our collective experience. For myself, no insight has ever proved more liberating than that my death would be the end of all existence for anything that I can call “me.” Has it been so for you, Bart?
Yup, pretty much. Very sad, but not terrifying.
Todd wrote:
As western science advanced, we know there is a vast universe with billions upon billions of potential earth’s and intelligent life living upon those earths. Such a view of the universe places an earth centric concept as expressed in ancient western writings and in biblical scripture as absurd. **QUESTION: HOW DOES CHRISTIANITY (OR ANY RELIGION) ADAPT TO WHAT CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE PRESENTS REGARDING THE UNIVERSE AS VAST AND NOT EARTH-CENTRIC IN ORDER TO REMAIN A VIABLE FAITH AS SCIENCE ADVANCES?**
note … is there any stream of thought in Christian scripture that would even hint that God is a God of a much larger universe than the earth centric view the Bible presents (“For God so loved the world” … Greek: kazman or cosmos, meaning earth or world, not the vaster cosmos, as I understand it)
You replied:
Ah, right. It’s a good question. But really only one a Christian could (and needs to!) answer!
That’s surely true of scripture. But both the present Pope and Pope Benedict, who preceded him, have acknowledged the reality of the Big Bang (taking it as God’s act of creation). I think they would be willing to acknowledge the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.
2. It sounds like you’re asking…
When we die do we haunt the sky?
Do we lurk in the murk of the seas?
And what then? Are we born again?
Just to sit asking questions like these?
3. Firstly, denial. It was as recent as the 17th century that the good catholic Galileo was imprisoned for daring to suggest the earth moves around the sun, not the other way round.
> As western science advanced
As it advanced, at least through today, it left what is somewhat inaccurately called “Materialistic Reductionism” as the last paradigm standing for understanding reality. Democritus seems to have been, as far as we can tell at this point, right. There’s atoms and the void (quarks and leptons and the quantum vacuum etc) and nothing else discernible. No supernatural realm, no gods, demons, heaven, hell, etc. Pretty bleak, but, in a sense, liberating.
Hi Todd
I asked a fundamentalist hard core christian about your question once. The answer she gave was: there’s like some kind of a conspiracy theory within the governments all over the world for telling all people about this vast universe, evolution and other sciences. And that she feels really sad about the children and younger generations to come having had to learn about this theories at schools at a very young age instead of the greatness of our one true GOD.
I was looking at her in disbelief of what I just heard her say. Maybe if she’s like 90 yrs old, I would consider because she grew up in that conservative era and so that idea just got stuck in her. But no, she’s in her late 30s and still believe this so good luck to our world if we have lots of people like her.
Thank you for your great question
I think it is the same mentality behind religious belief and readiness to believe conspiracy theories. In both cases, they trust the picture their imaginations paint (without recognizing it as their imaginations) beings who are either themselves invisible or flesh and blood ones operating invisibly behind the scenes.
Having left Christianity I went through the “progression” of first believing I was going to heaven, then that there probably was no heaven but what if I was wrong and maybe I wind up in hell, to where I am now, that we are probably alone in the universe, and that there is no supernatural being or at least not one that cares about us one way or another. What now makes me sad about death is the permanent nature of it. In a cold, impersonal, mechanical universe, I will never return, never know how everything with the human race works out, never know the reason for it all. And the universe will continue on as if I never existed, until it runs down, maybe to collapse and then perhaps begin again with another big bang for billions of years with no real purpose. After I’m gone, I won’t know or care about any of this, but while I’m alive it’s the concept of it that makes death a cold dark void for me. When it’s 3am and I can’t sleep, the thought of all this is sheer despair for me. Many atheists say they find lots of meaning in the world, and that’s great for them. I have yet to get to that stage. I certainly hope I get there soon.
We spend a lifetime accumulating knowledge, skills, abilities, to say nothing of meaningful interpersonal relationships, and all those memories, both emotional (sweet, bitter, happy, sad) and physical (pleasure as well as pain) – and IN AN INSTANT they are completely obliterated by death. The very earliest homo sapiens seemed to have some concept of life after death, as evidenced by the apparent funeral rituals and artifacts found among even the earliest “cave people”. Why? The human ego, collectively as well as individually (at least for most of us), simply will not accept the finality of death. Our ego looks to our life experiences and tells us that humans are the epitome of creation (divine or natural) and so there must be more than death — there HAS to be. So we make it so. Joseph Campbell constantly reminded us that behind each myth is some fundamental human “truth” that transcends the particular legend, epic, or other metaphor that conveys the meaning of the message. Life after death surely is the biggest “meaning” in all of the different “messages” by which humans have delivered that most fundamental belief.
I think the reason neandertal “buried” the dead was for more practical reason, such as keeping animals away, and keeping the smell away. It most likely only became a “ritual” after having been the norm for a long time.
I don’t like the thought of death either, but I do believe there’s hope that we will live again. Here’s a study that’s being conducted right now: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/05/03/dead-could-be-brought-back-to-life-in-groundbreaking-project/
There’s 20 brain dead subjects involved in the project right now.
Scientists are also working on bringing back extinct animals; certain types of dinosaurs actually. How is that possible? It’s complicated, but it all comes down to our dna codes and mathematics that I’ll never understand.
Another study–dead mice and fish were found to have genes that “turn on” up to 4 days after death. These genes were the type that create embryos, and they only activate when you’re dead. You can google any of this stuff. I really think it’s our evolutionary process that pushes us to manifest these things.
Personally I have no fear of dying … and I’m tested. I’ve come to realize too that it is impossible to convince others that there is a continuum unless they have their own let’s say even mystical experiences as personal validation .. something reincarnates. Others far more accomplished are better at describing the mechanics. Consciousness although it goes by other names migrates and migrates intact (a composite) after the physical brain et al dies. How does this knowledge (not belief or theory) affect one? It broadens the perspective on time and space. Does it alter behavior? Yes, I think so … impassions and intensifies actions including compassion.
I appreciate your blogs Dr. Ehrman also for honing my own thoughts .. grist for the mill. Thank you.
Are there other parts of the crucifixion narratives that are questionable historically as well? If so, do the questionable facts cast doubt on the whole story–not that Jesus was crucified, but given the fiction making, can we start asking questions about whether this really happened under Pilate, whether there really was the horrible scourging, whether Jesus died rather quickly, etc?
Yes, I deal with a number of the problematic passages of the passion narrative in my book Jesus Before the Gospels.
“I’m *thinking* about making my next book for a general audience about where the Christian idea of the afterlife (heaven and hell) came from. I’ve gotten very interested in that question!”
Great idea! I think that would be a terrific topic for a book. I keep reading things that may or not be true – for example, that various ancient Jewish writers said different things about Sheol, with one claiming the virtuous and the wicked deceased were “separated” there (no indication, where I read it, of whether they then had different *experiences*).
And I’ve read that different cultures came to think of “shades” dwelling in the underworld because they buried their dead. Maybe, if you’re researching the topic, you’ll learn whether other ideas were held by cultures that *didn’t* bury their dead? (Cremated them, perhaps, but didn’t bury the ashes? Would they have imagined souls rising with the smoke?)
Of course, there’s also the concept of reincarnation. Which isn’t irreconcilable with “heaven and hell”! I’ve read that there have been Christian and Muslim sects that believed people would go to their final reward or punishment after a *cycle* of lives.
Religious people would say that w/o a belief in a higher being, life is just chemical reactions , just a random collision of molecules without meaning. I think Every human tries to find meaning for their life, some in scholarship, some in family, some in their religion, some lose all hope and turn to drugs , sex and alcohol to cover the pain.
If they say that, I hope they don’t mean it to be an *argument*!!
Wow! I really appreciate the honesty and thoughtfulness of your answer about death and I think the book idea about the afterlife is a terrific idea.
DR Ehrman:
Your comment:
Still, after I became an agnostic, it was a gnawing thought that I regularly had: What if I had blown it? Would I be punished forever?
My comment:
When you meet The Lord Jesus face to face you’ll get your chance to believe and repent. If you humble yourself God will forgive you. Salvation is a gift.
As for heaven and hell, that has to do with righteousness and wickedness. If a person is wicked and takes pleasure in sin then separation from God and being ousted from God’s kingdom is justified.
Isn’t it true that as a married couple, Paul says we are as one in the eyes of God? Therefore, my husband was not concerned about hell as I’m a believer. Your Sarah is a Christian. If it turns out you’re wrong, you still should be alright, Dr. Ehrman..
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
Mark Twain
You have to write that book on the afterlife!
1. Also, is the Barrabas story also a play on Yom Kippur where Jews sacrifice one goat and let another go free?
I think the point of the story has to do with which goat they prefer…. (But note: on the Day of Atonement, it is not the one who is killed who carries the sins but the one who goes into the wilderness)
I don’t know why anyone would be scared of dying. I can understand being scared of going through a slow painful death. I can understand being scared of going to hell. I can understand not wanting your children to become orphans. And I can understand wanting to accomplish certain things first. But not being scared of death itself. Personally I’m looking forward to this finally being over. Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo.
I think different people can have different reactions to the thought of dying. I don’t know why you would think otherwise. Depending on various circumstances (your health, whether you lost all your loved ones etc.), you can be either scared, relieved or hopeful — or all of them.
I’d like to pre-order that book on the afterlife.
Bart, I hope there are many others out there that would also be interested in a book of yours on the transitions of thought regarding the afterlife, from early Judaism at least through the first century CE (perhaps beyond?). I think it may be a broad subject matter, but its understanding is certainly something that most modern (American) Christians take for granted, and most never really investigate the origins. Then, Dante’s Divine Comedy came along and made a mess of things…
“We can’t have consciousness without a (physical, functioning) brain. And we can’t feel physical pain without a nervous system. We will have neither after we die.”
I assume you realize this in itself doesn’t rule out the possibility of an agonizing “hell”? If “God” exists – and is, as advertised, *omnipotent* – *of course* He could make someone experience eternal consciousness, and agony, without their having a brain or nervous system.
The only good argument against “hell,” as I see it, is that there’s *absolutely* no good reason for believing *any* of the things we’ve been taught about this “God”!
Why would god have made humans with brains the first time around then if they are t needed?
To me, the question of an afterlife isn’t really the same thing as the question of whether there’s a God, or whether religion is a good thing or not. As you know, many very religious people have not believed in an afterlife, or not believed that a specific type of religious faith will get you a better position in it, whatever that would constitute, it’s never really that clear.
Karen Armstrong has gone on at length about this. In this article, she comments on the Bishop of Durham stating that belief in heaven and hell isn’t essential to being a Christian.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/18/religion.uk
There are dangers to not believing in it, though–well, there’s danger in almost any type of belief. Many atheist revolutionaries have committed horrible acts, in an attempt to change the world in such a way that they would create a legacy that would outlive them, keep their memories alive–the human desire for immortality can take many forms, and is not in any way dependent on a belief in God or the supernatural or any survival of the soul after death. Yes, live life to the fullest–people have different ideas about what that means.
There’s no solution. We’re all different. But one thing almost all of us have in common is that we don’t want to die. My father had a DNR order–when he was in a crisis situation recently, he rescinded it. He’s almost 86 years old. He’s not ready to go. Many never are. He’s been a believing Catholic all his life. But that doesn’t seem to make him any more eager to depart this mortal plane.
One thing I agree very strongly with–that I find in many of the ancients, pagan, Christian, Jewish, Muslim–how you meet death is the defining moment of your life. Montaigne (not really an ancient) wrote much about this.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/12/montaigne-on-death-and-the-art-of-living/
Montaigne was a devout Catholic, but in his own very individualistic idiosyncratic way.
May we all learn how to die well. Like Klingons. I had to get that in there. 😉
William Cullen Bryant (Thanatopsis) tells us how.: “…Like on who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”
And Dylan Thomas said, “Do not go gently into that good night–rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”
I don’t know who’s right, but I know who the better poet was, and it wasn’t Bryant. “Wraps the drapery of his own couch around him”? Blech. 😉
Ah shoot, misremembered the phrase slightly–gentle, not gently.
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night
My father’s getting close to that good night himself, and reading it again brought tears to my eyes. Again, there are different ways to react to the end, and we all have to find our own, but it needn’t be greeted as some sleepy anesthetic experience.
Believe me, “wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.” can be longed for when illness makes getting through another day unbearably torturous. Glad you don’t know about that, godspell. .
People say “there are no atheists in fox holes”, but there are no “believers” in fox holes either since christians seem to respond negatively to learning they are dying to some illness, instead of saying “yay heaven!”, and by their disgust of abortion
clinics that would be “heaven terminals”.
“This is not a dress rehearsal for something that’s going to come later. It is the one and only Act of a One-Act Play.”
I find this interesting. I, of course, “incline strongly” to belief in reincarnation. I actually think an interest I had for many decades in this life was an easily reawakened interest from my previous life. I think I fulfilled my previous incarnation’s dream of traveling somewhere she wasn’t able to go. I went not once, but three times!
And now, I hope i’ll be able to carry over into my *next* life what I see as the most important *progress* I’ve made in this one: rejecting theism.
Here’s what I’m getting at. I think I’m anticipating something a bit scary…but still, much more understandable and *desirable* than an eternity of doing…*what?* Enjoying “eternal bliss”? What does that actually *mean*? Eternally admiring and praising this “God”? Or just hanging around doing nothing? With no suspense, no surprises – like knowing your baseball team is going to win every game?
For that “eternal bliss” to be meaningful and appreciated, “God” would have to provide something different for every thinking being who’s ever existed, or ever will exist, anywhere in the Universe. I suppose an omnipotent Deity could do that..but *why* would He choose to do something so ridiculous?
Regarding Barabbas–possible, of course, that someone accused of a much less serious offense than violent insurrection was released, and obviously his name could have been Yeshua, since it was a common name–no more remarkable or significant than John the disciple having the same name as Jesus’ baptizer (who Jesus was most likely a disciple of himself). The son of the father thing is odd, but maybe it was a nickname of some kind. Many of our terms for each other will strike future generations as odd also.
So as you say, could just be a distorted memory, people remembering some perceived injustice–Jesus, after all, was probably guilty of nothing more than irritating the Temple authorities, and possibly overturning a few tables. His rhetoric could be interpreted as seditious, but it could just as easily have been interpreted as the harmless rantings of a minor religious crank. If it had been interpreted thusly, unlikely we’d be discussing him now.
His followers talked about how unfair it was that this other Jesus was released, and the story grew over time, turned into this nonexistent tradition of Pilate offering the crowd the chance to get Jesus released, and them choosing Barabbas instead. It was important, during the very dangerous days of the Jewish insurrection in Palestine, to draw as clear a dividing line between Christians and Jews as possible.
That being said, I do like the Anthony Quinn movie based on that Par Lagerkvist novel, which I really ought to read sometime. I read The Dwarf, and that story obviously did not happen, and the novel still has truths to convey.
You have read, I trust, the Anatole France story, The Procurator of Judea, where Pilate has retired comfortably, is reminiscing about his career, and when asked about Jesus, says he cannot recall the name?
That I believe.
Speaking of anti-Judaism, I don’t recall if you’ve addressed this on the blog or in print, but your thoughts on 1 Thess 2:14b-16. Do you think that’s Pauline, or maybe part or all of it is an interpolation? Also, on a more techincal matter (but related), your thoughts on conjectural emendation. I know Metzger allowed its possibility but downplayed its necessity. Is that somewhat your position, or do you think there are places the Greek NT text should include conjectures not evidenced in manuscripts? Just curious. Thanks.
I think it’s original. My sense is that there may indeed be interpolations in places. But the fact that there is a verse or two that we have trouble interpreting is not in and of itself evidence that it is not original. There needs to be a better argument than that. I’m not too far from Metzger on that.
Your earlier formulation, “Still, after I became an agnostic, it was a gnawing thought that I regularly had: What if I had blown it? Would I be punished forever?”, is an echo of Pascal’s Wager. Doubt if you must, but pray, worship, etc. anyway. What have you got to lose? A cheap (well, not to some of us) insurance policy against eternal torment.
Pascal is an exemplar primo of a polymath, a genius on par with his near-contemporaries Newton and Spinoza. His religious conversion to a Catholic sect led ultimately, among other theological speculations, to his famous wager.
One of your other readers suffers headaches when contemplating smart people who can’t reconcile obvious Scriptural contradictions and absurdities with their own religious faith. Pascal–WAY beyond smart–for him might induce a stroke.
Not for me, Kirktrumb59. The probability that Hell exists is, in my view, not worth worrying about. I don’t even expend energy doubting its existence. It’s not hardly even worth doubting. That so many humans have believed in it is not evidence of its reality. If I don’t “pray, worship, etc. anyway,” what have I got to lose? Nothing. To “pray, worship, etc. anyway” is not an option for me and many others: Why would someone with no belief in God, Heaven or Hell, the Fall or a need for salvation pray or worship?
No reason at all. I’m with you.
Add my voice to the history of heaven and hell book chorus. Ever read Eco’s volumes on the subject? Lots of great art referenced in those as well.
I haven’t. Which Eco? Which books?
Bart Ehrman: Now my view is that death is the end of the story. We didn’t exist with consciousness before we were born. And we won’t exist with consciousness after we die.
Steefen:
Journey of Souls by Michael Newton and Infinite Mind by Valerie V. Hunt (both earned doctorate degrees) have done commendable work in this field, have had clients in this field, and have come to reliable conclusions different from yours.
What are you missing by asserting no human being has a spirit that has had a past incarnation?
And no, I’m not just putting forth two people with doctorate degrees.
I’d like to add the Medical Doctor, Brian Weiss, MD, author of Many Lives, Many Masters.
I’d also like to add religions and philosophers.
It is a central tenet of all major Indian religions, namely Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth was held by such historic figures as Pythagoras, Plato, and Socrates.
Google search on “Religions that recognize reincarnation”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation
As I was reading the early portion of your post where you recount how you experienced residual fear that you might be wrong and end up in ‘eternal punishment’, I was thinking, “well, one reason that a former Christian shouldn’t fear ‘eternal punishment’ is that such a concept isn’t really even in the Bible”.
Then, low-and-behold, you close with a note that you are thinking of exploring how the notion of an afterlife evolved over time. I would love to read such a book, so please write it!
As far as death, one thing I’ve noticed is that it SEEMS to me (in other words, I concede that I may be completely wrong) that the more religious a person is, the more afraid they are of dying. That is certainly true in my circle of friends and acquaintances. This always struck me as highly counter-intuitive. This observation led me to two conclusions: 1) people who fear cessation of existence (they want to believe that they will, in some sense, endure) seek belief systems that help them cope with the reality of mortality, and 2) most (not all) religious people aren’t as certain about their ultimate fate as they would like others to believe. If Heaven is all it’s purported to be, true believers should literally be ‘dying to get in there’; and yet most seem to fear that moment more than non-believers.
That has not been true from my observations. Most sincere Christians are not as afraid of death because they view that as a part of God’s greater plan and look forward to “living” in a better surroundings with God in eternity. It’s not a bad way to approach one’s death.
David Bercot, who has written and taught on the Ante Nicene Church for almost 30 years I think has a CD where he speaks in what the Early Church believed about the afterlife. It would shock most “orthodox” Evangelicals. Of course Bescot believes the answer is in returning to wonderful Ante Nicene pure and pristine form of the faith. I fell into this idea for a few years in my growing desperation to find that ever elusive solid rock of Biblical faith. Some irreducible, non-contradictory, irrefutable, pure and original Christianity.
That the Jews chose to release Jesus Barabbas instead of Jesus Christ is believed to be key dogma in Christianity – I think. The Jews would rather have a murderer released than Jesus. Or should we say that the Jews would rather have the Antichrist than Christ?
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies”. -John 8:44
This was this Barabbas the Jews had chosen. This was – I think – Salomon.
“Now my view is that death is the end of the story. We didn’t exist with consciousness before we were born. And we won’t exist with consciousness after we die. We can’t have consciousness without a (physical, functioning) brain. And we can’t feel physical pain without a nervous system. We will have neither after we die.”
That’s what I think. In my case the trigger was the realization that there is no such thing as an immaterial, immortal human soul. So I reject the Platonic body-soul duality. The idea of such a soul is a legacy of primitive animistic thinking that confuses agency with process. Example: wind is a process that a mass of gas, i.e. the atmosphere, can perform in the presence of the Earth’s rotation and uneven solar heating. Primitive humans assigned agency to the wind process in the form of a wind god.
The human mind is a process that is performed by the human brain. And at death that process ceases as the brain begins to disintegrate. No brain, no mind. Ancient animistic thinking assigned an agent, the mythical human soul, to explain the brain process, i.e. the mind.
As Sean Carroll, Caltech physicist points out, our brains are built from atoms and, after nearly a century of experimental research, we know all the naturally-occurring forces (electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force) that act on atoms and have any effect at all on our everyday life. An immaterial soul would need some type of force to animate (i.e. move) the atoms in our body. If that force existed, we would have already detected it in particle accelerator collisions. And we haven’t. Ergo, we have no evidence of an immaterial human soul at the smallest detectable level. Other forces undoubtedly exist in the natural world. But these forces are either too weak, too short range, and/or too short lived to affect the atoms in our body as we go through our everyday lives.
It’s very difficult for all of us to shake the belief in an immaterial, immortal human soul. That’s because all of us are ruled by our most primitive motivators–fear and greed. The great human fear is fear of non-existence after death. Human greed lusts for an everlasting afterlife of pleasurable rewards. That’s why religious belief has such a powerful hold over us. To the detriment of human society.
When you write your book, it might be useful to address the question of justification. I’m about 10 years younger than you, and I was a 5th generation Episcopalian in Kansas (not far from Lawrence actually). When I was a teenager, I went to a Youth for Christ summer camp in Kansas City and was exposed for the first time to the terminology of “saved” and “born again” – along with the heaven and hell fears. That was a dreadful two weeks for me of praying to be “saved” and feeling that it didn’t work and then worrying that I was going to hell. Those fears lingered in the back of my mind even after I lost my faith in college. I really didn’t overcome those fears until a few years ago.
The “born again” idea along with the “end times” is probably the scariest feature of fundamentalism/evangelicalism, and these ideas even worry some people who are non-fundamentalist Christians or irreligious. So I think that would be a great book.
It’s not death I fear as much as the process of dying. I think of death as a blessed relief from the ceaseless pain associated with a terminal illness.
For me the fear of death is simply that I will never find out how things go for people on Earth. I’d love to know what the place is like in, say, a hundred or a thousand years. Hell, I’d want to know how my grandchildren turn out.
Christians who imagine that souls in heaven are aware of things happening on Earth (else why bother praying to saints?), surely cannot think that being in heaven is all that happy an experience. If, that is, they think things through.
I’m 70 now. There have been a few times in which I was afraid of death. What I now anticipate is that that my overwhelming feeling would be sadness. Sadness that my chance to live life with my wonderful life would be over as well as the chance to see how my children and grandchildren’s lives turned out. And so many more things. It’s just too simple, for me, to say, “Oh, I’m so thankful that I had the chance to BE!” I would be thankful but it would be bittersweet–the chance to love, yes, but also the necessity of letting go of it.
Man, I feel what you are saying. Depending on the kind of circumstances I will be in at the time of my death, I may feel sad, wistful, fearful, relieved and hopeful — or combination of all. It is kinda sad to think that everything I know and learned will be wiped away in one stroke. And to think that I have to leave behind my loved ones, especially my kid(s) — that is in some way heartbreaking. Viewed from this perspective, I readily understand why some religious people feel that there is a heaven and they want their loved ones to believe in the same religion so they can all be in this “Heaven”.
Now, logically, if God is a loving God, I have a hard time grasping a possibility that the loving God would forever banish his “children” to this Hell because there is no way I would do that to my children, no matter what they did. Now, depending on what they did, I may never see them etc., but there is absolutely no way I would banish my children to Hell to forever roast in the great sea of fire and feel the pain. Therefore, I can only logically conclude that there may be God, but he is not “loving” in the way we think he is.
Thanks for commenting, Webattorney. I meant to say “Sadness that my chance to live life with my wonderful wife would be over….”, not my wonderful life. My daughter is Mormon. Comedian Julia Sweeney once spoke of how Mormon missionaries visited to her and she found some of what they had to say interesting until they said enthusiastically, “And you can spend eternity with your family!” “Oh, God, please, no” was her basic reaction. Ha!
For myself, I am more interested in what we can know of what’s real and what, on the other hand, begs for healthy skepticism. The latter includes, for me, the Devil, Hell, Heaven, and eternal life. I could never bring myself to adopt a belief just to feel more comfortable about dying.
I’ve long felt the same about denying my children a place at my table. What is doubly ludicrous about the notion as it is part of Christianity, is that non-Christians would not go to Hell for murder, raping and pillaging or some other horrible moral crime but for lack of belief. I don’t care how important people feel the content of the belief in Christ is, it’s still a belief, not a moral action. Makes no sense to me.
Yes! Please write a book about the belief/creation of the biblical – or otherwise – afterlife. NDE experiences are becoming more and more prevalent and actually quite interesting to read. I’d buy a copy for myself and many of my Evang/Fundy friends! 😀
Hey Bart,
Do you have any views on reincarnation? I have never studied the topic, but I do know there are those who consider it a possibility and a few who consider it a probability. I was just wondering if you have any thoughts on the topic. Thanks.
Reincarnation has never made any sense to me. Did it start before there were humans? Will it end when the universe disappears? In my view it’s a way of prolonging our existence, but we have to face up to the fact that our existence will indeed end at some point. But even bigger for me: if I don’t remember my successes and failures from a previous existence, what’s the point of my having an earlier existence??
Thanks for the reply. I heard my dad tell a story several times during my life before he died about an event occurring when he was int he Navy. I’ll make it as short as possible. His boat docked in the Philippines and he and a friend of his had liberty for a day so they went on a search for a good cup of coffee since what they had on the boat was not good coffee! He said they were walking down a street and he told his friend that there was a place to get coffee right around the corner. Low and behold when they rounded the corner there was a place selling coffee and he and his friend stopped and looked at one another with his friend asking, “How did you know this place was here”? Having never been there before he always wondered how he knew. He was not a believer in reincarnation, but he thought this experience to be very strange. I’ll admit it has made me wonder also. I myself have had experiences as you probably have too all of a sudden thinking I had been in a certain situation before. That also peaks my curiosity when it happens. Probably just coincidence I suppose because I too share your view that you gave in your answer, but I still wonder. Thanks again.
That is a fascinating story. One of my high school teachers told my class that when she was a teenager, she went to a friend’s house to spend the night. When she stepped inside the house, she knew every single detail about the house but had never been there before that night.
Here’s a passage from an essay of mine that I have posted online:
Some might think it makes no difference, in practice, whether the eternally existing Being is the Cosmos itself or a separate entity who “created” it. But for me, it would make a tremendous difference. I much prefer to think I may be an actual *part* of the eternal One – that the One may be my, and every living thing’s, true identity. That possibility strengthens my hope that my consciousness will never end, but pass from life to life, and then – perhaps many times, in many cycles – be reabsorbed into a larger consciousness, where multiple lives are remembered and their purpose becomes clear.
Wouldn’t it be funny if you were reincarnated and became interested in your own work?
I guess not.
Since someone else mentioned an “event” that might have hinted at reincarnation…
When I was a small child, my mother and I had this little ritual: She’d say, “You’re my pettyskin” (which sounds like routine, made-up “baby talk” on her part). And I’d say, “You’re my heart of gold.” *That* seems strange; one might say someone else *has* a “heart of gold,” but we don’t use it as a term of endearment. My mother later said she had no idea where I could have picked up such a phrase. I was in my thirties when I heard all the lyrics of the old English song “Greensleeves.” And that includes the line “Greensleeves [a woman’s name] was my heart of gold” – using it exactly as I had! I don’t think that usage is still current even in England.
More…but this is an “experience” spread out over, perhaps, a dozen years.
During a trip to England, I was in Westminster Abbey. I looked at an inscription on some kind of tomb, and misread it as saying “He that, being within me, though he be dead yet shall live.” I blinked – and then saw it was just the conventional Bible quote that goes something like this: “He that believeth in Me, though he be dead, yet shall live.”
No, I’ve never imagined I’m the reincarnation of anyone buried in the Abbey! But misreading *a line that long, in a way that “made sense,”* gave me goosebumps. (Maybe I was standing where a former, male incarnation had stood?) It was odd enough that I never forgot it.
Several years later, I had a very strange dream. It had a surreal quality. But I was fighting in a medieval battle! (So I was presumably male.) Someone came to me to bring me news – as if, maybe, I was an “officer” – of something terrible that had happened elsewhere on the battlefield. The leader I idolized had been struck by an arrow – in the eye! He was surely dead or dying, I was distraught…and then i woke up.
I never forgot that, either. And several years later, I happened to learn that there *was* a famous battle in which such a thing happened: the Battle of Hastings, in 1066. The English King Harold did indeed die from having been struck in the eye by an arrow.
And…he’d been crowned, a few months before, in an older Westminster Abbey on the site of the present one. If “I” was a minor noble who attended his coronation, I may indeed have been standing in the same spot I’d stood before (albeit in a “newer” building), when I “misread” that inscription!
Regarding the belief in the afterlife, I found the books “Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization” by Stephen Cave and “The Soul Fallacy: What Science Shows We Can Gain from Letting Go of Our Soul Beliefs” by Julien Musolino enlightening.
After seeing that I’m not alone here in mentioning reincarnation…
I understand, Bart, that you have too busy a life to read many books that are totally outside your field. But if you ever *do* have time to just *think about* reincarnation, I’d recommend two books by Jim B. Tucker: “Life Before Life,” and the more recent “Return to Life.” Hard *evidence* of children’s memories of past lives checking out – matching up with people who actually had lived and died, with no other plausible way the children or their parents could have learned about them. Way too many cases for all of them to be coincidences or frauds!
And no, it wasn’t these books that convinced me of reincarnation. I’d “inclined strongly” to the belief long before I ever heard of Tucker. But I’d never before read reports, in one place, of so *many* separate, convincing cases.
I’ve tried to look at an afterlife as the “icing on the cake.” It would be wonderful if there’s icing but the cake can still be delicious without icing.
However, lately, I’ve been wondering if any significant hope for icing takes the edge off my enjoyment of the cake. (Maybe I’ve been trying to have my cake and eat it too.) Giving up hope of an afterlife can help one to see the world more clearly. It can be refreshing and liberating. One feels like one is in touch with reality.
But it’s hard to give up on the possibility of icing.
The afterlife is too big of a topic to limit myself to one comment.
One of the really odd things about Christianity is the emphasis on believing in order to gain admission to heaven. Why is that so critical? It would make a certain amount of sense for admission to be based on how good of a life one had led. It’s not so much that believing doesn’t seem like enough to gain admission. It’s more that how could simply believing be so important to an all-powerful and supremely good being who, presumably, is already maximally happy?
I could see believing as a way of realizing that one is saved. But if salvation is God’s free gift, why is believing necessary for admission? It seems like believing has become a kind of “work” that’s necessary in order to “earn” admission.
Anyway, Bart, I hope you will address how simple belief became so important in relation to the afterlife.
Yes, it became important in Christianity — but interestingly (as I stress in today’s post) it was not all that important in other religions in teh world in which Christianity emerged. YEs, I should address why it became important in Xty!
Re the importance of “belief”: I have to say that in the Catholicism in which I was raised – possibly at the high-school level – we *were* taught that non-believers who led good lives would surely wind up in heaven. There was much more emphasis on leading a morally good life than on “belief.”
*But*…what constituted a “morally good life”? Things like having sex out of wedlock, not attending Mass on Sunday (if you were a Catholic), and eating meat on Friday (ditto), were “mortal sins”! And I was never sure whether the doctrine meant a non-believer would be saved if he’d actively *rejected* Catholicism, or only if he’d never heard much about it.
My response to, “It’s not so much that believing doesn’t seem like enough to gain admission” is that it doesn’t seem at all like enough to me. As a (liberal) Jew, I grew up with the notion that it was our good behavior, the way we treat our fellow humans, that would make one right with God. The notion that sheer belief could be a ticket to Heaven is totally weird and absurd to me….to me. Belief is cheap and, when it comes to what about the invisible realm is real and true, anyone can and does believe anything and everything. This has always been mostly theoretical to me since, even as a child, I never really believed. But, given the Jewish influence I was exposed to, those are my views–if there were a God, a heaven, Hell, a Fall, a need for salvation, etc.
One more comment (well, actually, 3).
I like Epicurus’s comment to the effect that “death is nothing to us; when we are present, death is not present to us; and when death is present, we are not present to experience it.” Epicurus also thought it more conducive to tranquility and enjoyment of life to accept that death is the end than to have to worry about what might happen after death, eg, the possibility of everlasting torture.
I’ve also wondered if the Buddhist emphasis on the present moment could cure the fear of death, ie, only the present moment is real.
Finally, I wonder if identification with the well-being of others who will continue to live on after one’s death could be a cure. One loses one’s own ego. One’s own self just isn’t that important. Identification could even extend to all living things or the entire universe to which, after death, one will return as raw material for new realities.
Where did belief in an afterlife come from? That presupposes a separation of spirit and body doesn’t it? Overlapping dualisms: good vs evil played out on earth with a resurrection that is purely physical; heaven and hell (the good/evil other worlds); heaven and earth; the mind (soul) / body separation. An aferlife book could point to some very interesting questions about Christianity’s influence on Western philosophy (and vice versa). I’d buy that one in a heartbeat.
Actually, in some forms of religion, life is lived completely in the body, which is resurrected, since there is no such thing as life with out both body and spirit together in unity.
Bart, on page 108 of “How Jesus Became God” you say:
“The early Christian church taught that a person is rewarded with salvation by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Apostle Paul, for example, …” You use this claim to explain why the “sheep and goats” story is likely to be authentic. Of course the “new perspective on Paul” argues that Paul defined “works” to be sacrifices, eating kosher food, etc. – as opposed to giving somebody a glass of water. My impression is that early Christians believed a person needed to be baptized and then lead a nearly sinless life.
My sense is that different early Christians taught different things. But Paul certainly thought that salvation came by believing in jesus’ death and resurrection, and that is not what the author of Matthew 25 argues.
I would be interested in reading your book on the Afterlife. As you are an agnostic, it probably will be a very short book! As a committed Christian, I believe in heaven and divine judgement. I think it is very important to think about and study this subject while you are still alive. What you do with this information may have eternal consequences.
I certainly won’t be writing a book explaining what heaven and hell are *really* like! I have no more access to the afterlife than anyone else. But I can talk about how the Christian views of the afterlife emerged and developed — and that is a fascinating story in itself.
Hey Dr. Ehrman,
I just signed up for your blog, and I’m thankful that it exists! I also just finished reading my fifth “layman’s” book by you and will begin your newest book, “Jesus Before The Gospels,” later today. Suffice it to say, I’m a fan. In response to your comment about what you *think* your next book will cover, I would be thrilled if the topic covers the origin(s) of the Christian idea of the afterlife.
On another note, I was wondering what your thoughts are concerning our purpose in life and what gives meaning to our existence if you believe that death is the end of the story. If we really do die, and that’s it, then what should motivate us to care about anything anymore? I love my family and friends, I have a great job, and I’m relatively fulfilled in life. But I am struggling with this thought on a daily basis not because I’m having irrational or unhealthy thoughts, but rather because I just don’t know for myself what’s “next,” and I value the perspective and insight from people like you whom I feel have a better grasp on such issues (read: smarter than me). I don’t mean to say that you know anymore than I do about the afterlife since, presumably, neither of us has been there (yet, or ever). I mean to say that your answer on what gives your life meaning in light of your beliefs about the end will help to shape my thoughts as I grapple with what I feel is one of life’s biggest questions.
Thanks in advance!!
~Tyler
Ah — the purpose of life is probably too complex for a short comment in a response! You can see my views about it in my book God’s Problem (I deal with directly the issue you are addressing), especially in the final chapter.
Thanks for the reply!!
It’s a good thing that I have that book in the stack I bought from Amazon. It’s next on my list to read.
~Tyler
Dr Ehrman about afterlife
1) Some people had undergone a past life hypnotic regression procedure and described what happened to them in previous life from subconscious mind. Do you believe this? Would you be willing to try this and find out who and what you did before?
2) My wife said when she was young she’s able to separate her spirit from her body for a short period of time, but she did not practice this talent and lost it over time. (I can’t tell her this is not true, if I don’t want to sleep on the couch! Haha). However, I’ve heard other people said that has done this before accidentally or occasionally. I think Bishop Spong said when he had a stroke he saw himself and what’s happening. What do think this phenomenon is about if we don’t have a spirit or soul like what you said in the interviews that we just stop breathing when we die? Same goes with the above question, what comes back to earth and currently living again from past life in a different body (if true)?
Thank you Dr. Ehrman
No, I don’t believe it. And there are very fine physiological explanations for out of body experiences; the literature is filled with them.
Oh okay, would you please suggest a good book regarding this so we can be informed as well?
Please and thank you????
You’ll need to explain what topic you’re asking about for others on the blog to understand what book you’re looking for (and to benefit from my answer)
Oh sorry, I meant if you have a good book or any type of literature in mind that would educate me and my wife about her out of body experiences when she was a child?
So we know that this was not really about her soul/spirit traveling because that’s just creepy.
Oh before I forget (again), she also said to ask you about her some types of deja vu experiences and sometimes she sees in her dreams some future circumstances. If you know something about this conditions? or any reliable literature about studies on this types of cases?
Otherwise, we’ll have to believe she’s got some psychic ability because if I tell her to go to a psychiatrist for a check-up, I’ll never hear the end of this haha
You might start with the article by Oliver Sacks in the Atlantic, a very negative review of Eben Alexander’s book Proof of Heaven, or even better Sacks’s book on Hallucinations.
Dr Ehrman I told my wife about the Hallucination book by Sacks.. she gave me an annoying respond:
Here:
“That’s 1 book, if you read a different book it’ll say a different explanation depends on how they conducted the studies, who did, what’s their purpose and why.”
and “same goes with the bible, different authors gives conflicting narration. All were written by men or women only. Not GOD”
“Now if you don’t believe the authors of the bible why should you believe this author?”
I just said “so why again did you want me to ask Dr. Ehrman about this in the first place?” ????????
Yes, one has to read lots of books and then make a decision based on an evaluation of the evidence. Just as one has to do with, say, evolution vs. creation, or democracy vs. marxism, or …. take your pick. But you gotta start somewhere, and I think that ‘s a good place to start.