I've been reflecting on many things lately, especially concerning my mortality. We are likely the only species on our planet —and perhaps in the universe —that can ponder the great question of what happens when we die. Once the spark that animates our body leaves, we are left with a mere husk, a meat disposal problem. Religious folk of all types have considered this eventuality and have come up with various solutions that are generally mutually incompatible. For Christians, the good go to heaven, a place of internal bliss and the home of Jesus and God. I've always wondered whether Jesus and God remain separate in heaven, or whether they conjoin to become the One God they ultimately are (Wot no Holy Ghost!). Other supernatural entities exist in heaven, such as Angels, which appear to be ranked in a hierarchy. Are other gods present, as hinted at in the Old Testament? Also, it gets a bit blurry on who can enter. Are the good and bad deeds we have performed in life weighed, and if the good outweighs the bad, do we enter? Or is it based on accepting Jesus Christ as our Saviour? A belief that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross atones for our sins.
The Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) believe they are the only ones who will enter eternal life. Most JWs will be resurrected into perfect organic bodies and live forever on a perfect Earth —Garden of Eden 2.0. However, 144,000 will go to heaven to exist spiritually with Jehovah/Yahweh. The folk who run the organisation are part of this select group and receive divine guidance that they pass on to other JWs as 'New Light'. It seems the members of the governing body are not short of money- interesting. My mother was a JW and tried to convert me when I was young, to no avail. Even when I was eight, I could see that their doctrine was a pile of ferrets' poo. A simple message for simple folk.
As stated, many times on this blog, I can't envisage any form of consciousness following the death of the organic brain. That said, like the true empiricist I am, and if intellectually honest and fair, the answer to the question: 'What happens to our consciousness after death?' It's an earnest, I don't know. There is zero data, as no one has returned from true death to relate what happens. Don't be beguiled by so-called near-death experiences. These folk are not dead, just resting. Empiricism can only take us so far; in this case, it is found wanting. We have to rely on our intellect to develop plausible solutions. On that basis, the most highly likely scenario, by a vast margin of probability, is eternal oblivion. This only holds true if we live in a finite universe. If the universe is infinite, then all bets are off.
Christians no doubt find solace and comfort in believing in a blissful and eternal life after death. Interestingly, very few think deeply about the details and the consequences of an eternal existence. Bliss is wonderful in small doses; otherwise, it becomes mundane and the norm. The teachings from the church are a meld of Jewish and Greek thought and doctrine; they make an uneasy alliance. The Sadducees, an orthodox Jewish sect of old, thought that there was no life after death. Concepts of a joyful afterlife emerged after the Babylonian exile in 586 BC. The destruction of the temple and the exile of the ruling elite profoundly affected Jewish thought. They asked the obvious question: "Why, as god's chosen people, does he allow such misery in life? Surely if god is absolutely righteous, there should be some redress, if not in this life then in an afterlife." Many Jews took up this train of thought. The Jews had no concept of a soul that leaves the body for a separate existence after death. God had animated Adam by breathing into him, and all humans were blessed with God's gift of breath, which left the body upon death. If there is to be a resurrection after death, it would involve the reanimation of the physical body. This is what Jesus believed, and a close reading of the New Testament illustrates this teaching. There is no spirit, or what we call the soul. There is a very odd passage in Mathew 27, 51-53, that I think most Christians would want to go away, especially those with a literal understanding of the bible. It concerns events in Jerusalem, just after Jesus' death on the cross. I'll quote it in part, here: "...and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many." What a curious snippet indeed. Surely, Mathew is not to be taken literally here? Is he playing with metaphor, bandering words for poetical licence? Mathew leaves it there, and enlightenment concerning this passage is best left to the very stupid or very bright. And with that said, I will say no more.
With all that said, most Christians are taught that upon death, an ethereal soul leaves the body and ascends/descends according to whatever they believe- take your pick. The soul is endowed with the identity and consciousness of the physical body it departed from. There is no resurrection of the physical body. If Jesus did not teach this doctrine, from whence did it come?
The doctrine of the soul is derived from Greek thought. Many of the early converts to early Christianity were Gentiles. In contrast, Jesus' brother, James, and the Apostles remained in Jerusalem and Judea, focusing on converting fellow Jews to Christianity. *Saul/Paul, who had converted to Christianity a few years after Jesus' death, admittedly under mysterious circumstances, went forth to the Greek-speaking cities such as Corinth and travelled throughout the Eastern territories of the Roman Empire, converting Gentiles to the new religion. As history would show, early on, most of the converts were Greek-speaking gentiles. The Christian church in Jerusalem, led by Jesus' brother, would fizzle out or be reabsorbed into conventional Judaism. As centuries passed, the Christian Church became a religion of converted Gentiles. The Greeks thought of life in dualistic terms and believed in a soul that left the body after death to have a separate existence independent of the body. They did not think in terms of bodily reanimation. These ideas were to be imposed on Christianity. In fact, this was not the only Greek idea absorbed into Christianity, with the concomitant loss of many Jewish religious concepts. For instance, the confused and muddled doctrine of the Trinity (three gods in one) is not an early Christian teaching and is not explicit in the NT. However, Christian fundamentalists are quick to twist and bend NT teachings to fit whatever suits their needs. The consensus among scholars is that the 'Trinity', as observed by the Catholic Church today, developed within Greek philosophical thought and did not become church doctrine until the later part of the fourth century AD (Council of Constantinople 381 AD); murky waters indeed.
Enough, for now. My ramblings must desist for now. To be continued at a later date, mayhap?
* Paul is a fascinating character worthy of a few posts- I'll see.
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