Category: Death and Immortality
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Do You Really Believe in an Afterlife?
A correspondent poses this question: If you believe in an afterlife, one in which things are presumably a lot better than here, why not be eager to "move on"? I can understand the wicked fearing judgment, but why are the righteous not eager to shuffle off? To put the challenge in a sharper form: "You say…
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Souls and Murder
A guest post by Peter Lupu. Comments in blue by BV. If there are immortal souls, would murder be a grave moral breach? 1) Theists, like their atheist adversaries, consider murder a severe breach of morality. Unlike causing a minor physical injury to another or damaging or even completely destroying their home, car, or other belongings,…
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A Death Poem for Year’s End
As another year slips away, a year that saw the passing of John Updike, here is a fine poem of his to celebrate or mourn the waning days of ought-nine: Perfection Wasted And another regrettable thing about deathis the ceasing of your own brand of magic,which took a whole life to develop and market ——the…
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A More Profitable Question
Do not ask whether there is immortality unless you are prepared to ask whether you are worthy of it.
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Soul, Conceivability, and Possibility: An Aporetic Exercise
I am puzzling over the inferential move from X is conceivable to X is (metaphysically) possible. It would be very nice if this move were valid. But I am having trouble seeing how it could be valid. I exist, and I have a body. But it is conceivable that I exist without a body. 'Conceivable'…
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Fake Halloween Tombstones and the Brevity of Life
A neighbor's fake halloween tombstone bore the inscription: Ashes to ashesDust to dustLife is shortSo party we must. But why not: Ashes to ashesDust to dustLife is shortSo work out your salvation with diligence!
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John Gay’s Epitaph
Life is a jest; and all things show it.I thought so once; but now I know it. John Gay (1685-1732), "My Own Epitaph" from The Oxford Book of Death, ed. D. J. Enright, 1983, p. 322. Exercise for the reader: Explain the connection between John Gay and Bobby Darin. Answer below the fold.
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Hartshorne and Immortality Subjective and Objective
The following is excerpted from a letter from an uncommonly astute correspondent, Brodie Bortignon: . . . some time ago I read a series of your posts on immortality. You covered what are the orthodox views on immortality, including the various materialist denials. What you didn't address was one of the views of some process theologians,…
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Dunmovin and a Blogger’s Final Post
Dunmovin is a California ghost town, now little more than a wide spot in the road on U. S. 395, one of my favorite highways. I have driven past it many a time, but never stopped to explore, not that there is much there to explore. But I thought of it today, did a search…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Peter and Gordon
The Grim Reaper, the ultimate Repo Man, is certainly no slacker. In recent days he has paid a visit to Karl Malden, Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays (America's Pitchman), Walter Cronkite, and today I heard of the passing of Gordon Waller, 64, of Peter and Gordon fame. P & G were major players in…
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Meaning and Immortality
Some feel that if the fact of bodily death spells the extinction of the person, then this fact, if it is a fact, consigns human life to meaninglessness. This is a very strong intuition among those who have it, and I have it. But there are certain arguments from the naturalist camp that need to…
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Closer to the Grave, Further from Birth
With every passing day we are closer to becoming grave meat and worm fodder. Or dust and ashes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that, with every passing day, one more day has been taken up into the ersatz eternity of the Past & Unalterable. The medievals spoke of a modality they dubbed…
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Near-Death Experiences: Do They Prove Anything?
Richard Neuhaus, who recently died, reports a near-death experience in his essay Born Toward Dying: It was a couple of days after leaving intensive care, and it was night. I could hear patients in adjoining rooms moaning and mumbling and occasionally calling out; the surrounding medical machines were pumping and sucking and bleeping as usual.…