Thanks for the post and link. I often think about the promise of life after death. I used to believe in the hereafter, not only for myself but for others as well. Someone once told me that I seemed to know a lot that was in the Bible but asked how much I knew about the Bible. There were many things that lead to dramatic shift in my beliefs and learning about the Bible was one of them. For me it was like a spell had been lifted. It was a troublesome time at first. The promise of eternal life had been broken. The thought of my loved ones existence being finite was disturbing. I learned about the Bible and its authority vanished.
The hope of an eternal life in some capacity has been the driving force behind most religions probably since we could first conceive the reality of death. The terror of simply ‘not being’. We all will face the dying of the light. It has been many years since I have learned my own truth about life and death. My loved ones that have passed are gone as I will be gone to those that love me. I too dream of things that bring joy in remembrance. Those that I remember live on in me, in the way they affected my life.
That was and still is the promise of Christianity. Two thousand years ago we were not all that different. The promise of eternal life, not for some but for all, became possible for those that would believe. It is the same dream shared by those of faith before that and since then regardless of its name. There is a peace in that knowledge. There is passion in raging against the dying of the light. We all have a right to be here, no less than the stars and the trees.
As time slips by there are those that are now gone, but not from me. They live on in the fabric of what makes me…..ME. The journey of learning about the Bible has set me free.
The issue of life after death is, of course, fundamental to the Christian faith. Many believers, however, are unaware that the afterlife is almost non-existent in the old testament. “Hell” is also virtually non-existent in the OT. The afterlife, biblically speaking, appears to be a New Testament concept. I also gradually lost my faith and came to the realization that the Bible was man-made and certainly not the word of God. Nevertheless, I still maintain a belief in an afterlife, but bearing little resemblance to the traditional concepts of Heaven and hell. This is based on personal experience as opposed to some religious text. Most of you are probably somewhat familiar with what is known as the “out-of-body” experience. Well, I’ve had about 30 of them in the course of my life. I still remember my first, at the age of 12. I am 58 today, and yet I remember that experience as clearly as if it happened yesterday. Some may say it was a dream, but how many can remember in exquisite detail a dream they had over 40 years ago? And I can assure you, this was not a dream. I was fully conscious, fully aware, yet separate from my physical body. I cannot prove the experience was real, but I gotta tell you, it seemed almost super real. And like I said, I’ve had several more over the years. Additionally, I know 2 people personally who have had profound Near-Death-Experiences that altered their lives forever. There is absolutely no doubt in their minds that we are something more than biological lumps of matter. Is this proof? No, I suppose not, but given that literally millions have had these experiences, that’s an awful lot of smoke for there to be no fire.
In Dale Martin’s Yale Open Course on the New Testament he makes an interesting point about 1 Thessalonians, which is that it seems like the Thessalonians were unaware of the resurrection of the dead — they were concerned that the people in the community who had died were going to miss out on the coming kingdom of God. So, he suggested, it seems like the prominence of the afterlife in Christianity might not have been a characteristic of the very earliest stages of Christianity.
like God we are three in one: Body, Soul and Spirit, in other words; Body, Soul and Conscience. The body we can see and touch, it’s flesh, it selfishly seeks the pleasures of this world, it comes from the Earth and it will return to the Earth. The soul has to be educated and been thought to reason, it is who we are, its foundation is laid in the first ten years of life, it gives us a voice in whatever language we have learned and enriches us of emotions, hour conscience was, or is a late comer, because we got, or get a conscience when we gained, or gain the knowledge of good and evil: Hence the knowledge of sin and death. Also our conscience is independent from our mind, therefore we are unable to control its thoughts, it is as it belongs to another realm.
If there is no after life as some of us think, let us drink, eat and be marry for tomorrow we die. In reality no one can do that, because tomorrow is our future and we are hard wired to think and plan our future on this earth. A faith in God (not in a religion) enhances your life on Earth, because it adds unselfishness and love for the less fortunate. As Romans 2:14-15 says “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these not having the Law, are a Law to themselves, in that they show the works of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” I like to know if an animal has regrets as all of us have, because all of us have sinned.
Many years ago, my mom told me the following story.
When she was 14, her step-mother died of cancer. One night, when my mom was sleeping, she woke up in the middle of the night and saw her step-mother standing at the foot of her bed. This image surprised and frightened my mom greatly; her step-mother had not been ambulatory for some time due to cancer. My mom said that she thought perhaps that her step-mother was trying to tell her something but she couldn’t tell because she was scared and hid under her bed covers.
When my mom woke up the next morning, she had learned that her step-mother had died, during the night.
My Mom was absolutely convinced that this was not a dream. She said that she had been sleeping but then woke up and saw this image of her step-mother at the foot of her bed.
Whenever I think about this, it makes me wonder about the Jesus resurrection stories, and Paul’s vision of Jesus. I wonder if these events were something similar to what happened to my mother years ago.
simonelli said
like God we are three in one: Body, Soul and Spirit, in other words; Body, Soul and Conscience. The body we can see and touch, it’s flesh, it selfishly seeks the pleasures of this world, it comes from the Earth and it will return to the Earth. The soul has to be educated and been thought to reason, it is who we are, its foundation is laid in the first ten years of life, it gives us a voice in whatever language we have learned and enriches us of emotions, hour conscience was, or is a late comer, because we got, or get a conscience when we gained, or gain the knowledge of good and evil: Hence the knowledge of sin and death. Also our conscience is independent from our mind, therefore we are unable to control its thoughts, it is as it belongs to another realm.If there is no after life as some of us think, let us drink, eat and be marry for tomorrow we die. In reality no one can do that, because tomorrow is our future and we are hard wired to think and plan our future on this earth. A faith in God (not in a religion) enhances your life on Earth, because it adds unselfishness and love for the less fortunate. As Romans 2:14-15 says “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these not having the Law, are a Law to themselves, in that they show the works of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” I like to know if an animal has regrets as all of us have, because all of us have sinned.
I am willing to bet that some people do drink, eat and be merry, until they die suddenly and accidentally. I guess in some sense that’s the best way to go, as long as you go very near the end of your natural life.
JBSeth1 said
Many years ago, my mom told me the following story.When she was 14, her step-mother died of cancer. One night, when my mom was sleeping, she woke up in the middle of the night and saw her step-mother standing at the foot of her bed. This image surprised and frightened my mom greatly; her step-mother had not been ambulatory for some time due to cancer. My mom said that she thought perhaps that her step-mother was trying to tell her something but she couldn’t tell because she was scared and hid under her bed covers.
When my mom woke up the next morning, she had learned that her step-mother had died, during the night.
My Mom was absolutely convinced that this was not a dream. She said that she had been sleeping but then woke up and saw this image of her step-mother at the foot of her bed.
Whenever I think about this, it makes me wonder about the Jesus resurrection stories, and Paul’s vision of Jesus. I wonder if these events were something similar to what happened to my mother years ago.
This is one of those experiences that unless it happens to yourself or to someone who is very close to you, it’s hard to believe. But it would not surprise me that many of the visions have really happened.
It is ALL anecdotal. At least that is the way many view such experiences as NDE (near death experience) or reincarnation. Personally, I believe that more exist to the world than meets the eye. Before pressing onward I will share a brief tale from my life. Back in the early 1990’s my son of five years was killed in a fire. A year or so later I asked my daughter, who was then five at the time, if she missed her brother. She with a sense of delight said, “Oh no Daddy, I talk with Martin every day.” I will not bore you with my own NDE’s or other mystical experiences. The world of YouTube is filled with an abundant supply of testimonials concerning NDE and/or solicitations for some new book about the pathway to enlightenment.
It is ALL anecdotal. A few years ago I did a series for my Sunday school class on near death experience and reincarnation. Yea, I know I live in Alabama, however most of the class members have advanced degrees and most are either agnostic or atheist. The standard was set pretty high. For a reputable source I used much of the research that is currently being conducted at the University of Virginia Medical School’s Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), formerly the Division of Personality Studies. It is a unit of the Department of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, VA. Here is a link to their site:
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Whichever side of the coin you are on, this is provocative research and should not be ignored by either the laity, the clergy, or the world of academia. JMHO. Take a spin through the site and let me know your thoughts.
The other interesting tidbits that came out of my research for the class is that scientist are now discovering that the brain is not just a repository of experience and data. Some researchers are now seeing the brain as a filtering or screening system that taps into, for the lack of a better word, a universal stream of thought or consciousness. A good analogy would be that the brain is like a personal computer which is tapping into the cloud.
A good read on this subject is Brain Wars: The Scientific Battle Over the Existence of the Mind and the Proof that Will Change the Way We Live Our Lives by Mario Beauregard.
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Some people love him while others look askew at his work. How though can we ever grow if all we ever read continues to support our own belief system?
Now, getting back to the point of whether the friends and family of Jesus saw him resurrected. I wasn’t there so I cannot testify one way or the other. Your guess is as good as mine or the good doctor, although his guess will be quite a bit more eloquent and scholarly than mine.
To support my final position I will quote from The Word by the holy prophets:
Between the eyes and ears there lie, The sounds of color and the light of a sigh. And to hear the sun, what a thing to believe, But it’s all around if we could but perceive. The Moody Blues Lyrics: The Word (Graeme Edge) Album: In Search of the Lost Chord [1968]Lee
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