afterlife

• judgement at the end of time

  classic idea in the west until the modern era was at the end of time, the dead who were sleeping in their graves would be awoken by the sound of a trumpet which would herald the end of all things and christ would come again in glory and judge each individual according to their deeds in the book of life

  • those holy would gain immediate entrance to heaven
  • those (mortally) sinful would be sent to suffer in hell
  • if venial (forgiveable) they would undergo pain and suffering to purge them of evil in purgatory and would be admitted to heaven after
• purgatory is a state that the soul undergoes in preparation for the final universal judgement
• orthodox on judgement

  forty days after death there will be a judgement of each individual christian, where god decides where the soul will wait until the second coming of christ

  there is then a general judgement, where dead bodies rise and christ will grant salvation

  likely judged with mercy, but not clearly defined

  this is similar to the catholic church's view today
• afterlife - physical

  throughout christian history, people have understood judgement, heaven, hell and purgatory as physical realities

  death was more overwhelmingly present during the time these doctrines were developed, eg many children didnt survive childhood and pain was more intense without anaesthetic or medication

  additionally, they lived in a time where crime led to brutal punishment

  it is no surprise that hell is therefore a physical place

  acts as a deterrent in both cases
• afterlife - physical cont

  the church taught that the plague was punishment from god for human sin

  heaven is also a reflection of reality at the time - wealth lives. often shown as a walled city, like in real life in market towns and cities where wealthy people resided

  doom paintings in churches remind people that they are under judgement

  people began to fear death so much they went to great lengths to avoid going to hell, eg teachings on indulgences (visiting relics, pilgrimages and donating to the church)
• afterlife - spiritual

  in modern thought, the afterlife isn't usually a physical place. (physical resurrections being counter intuitive takes part in this)

  this changes how people view heaven and hell. heaven could be joy, peace, love and gods presence and hell can be absence of god, no source of goodness, eternal seperation and sorrow

  conflated for some christians - time has no meaning for god, therefore there is only one spiritual judgement at the time of death. purgatory is obsolete here, as purgatory involves suffering for some time before heaven
• afterlife - psychological

  no empirical evidence for existence after death

  heaven on earth if christian teachings are followed

  john - and this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true god, and jesus christ whom thou has sent

  book 1 of paradise lost - the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven

  freud - human psyche, conscious and unconscious urges. jung suggested religious or spiritual experience was essential for development
• objective immortality in process thought

  reality is both mental and physical

  all individual entities remain forever as objects in the mind of god. our actions, thoughts and ideas continue to exist in every minute detail as objects in gods memory. since god is eternal, we are eternal too (objectively)

  subjective immortality is the view humans can exist forever as irreducibly subjective units of experience - nobody else experiences our thoughts and memories etc (mainstream view)
• subjective/objective immortality evaluation

  subjective - anthropocentric in catholicism, animals dont have souls. in gods eyes, only humans can be granted immortality

  all entities in objective immortality are valued forever or their own sakes

  • meaningless combination of words. after death there isnt consciousness, so why would it matter if i was in gods memory
  • if the next life is just an objective form of immortality, you wont exist subjectively to know your suffering has been redeemed, so as far as you know it was never redeemed