Category: Heaven and Hell
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Conceiving the Afterlife: Life 2.0 or Beatific Vision?
This weekend I had the pleasure of a visit from Dale Tuggy, noted philosopher of religion. We discussed a number of topics at table and on trail including imago dei, the nature of forgiveness, the role of Platonism in Christianity, and death and afterlife. His position on the latter topic I would characterize as 'Life…
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Would Heaven be Boring?
Maybe not. (HT: V. Vohanka) Related: Conceiving the Afterlife: Life 2.0 or Beatific Vision? My post concludes as follows: But if the afterlife is not Life 2.0 and is something like the visio beata of Thomas Aquinas, wouldn't it be boring 'as hell'? Well, it might well be hell for something who was looking forward to black-eyed…
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To Hell with Bergoglio
My title, not Buchanan's. I'll have to check, but I don't believe that Canon Law allows for the ecclesiastical equivalent of impeachment and removal from office for popes. Perhaps it ought to. As for hell, here is an amateur theological consideration. Suppose a rebellious nature such as Bertrand Russell or Jean-Paul Sartre or Christopher Hitchens…
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Mary Neal’s Out-of-Body Experiences: Do They Prove Anything?
A repost from 16 December 2012 with minor edits. ……………………………………….. The personable Dr. Neal recounts her experiences during this 13 and a half minute video clip. The following from an interview with her: The easy explanations—dreams or hallucinations—I could discount quickly, because my experience—and the experience described by anyone who's had a near death experience or other experiences that…
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Is a Thinking Person’s Afterlife Conceivable?
A repost from over five years ago. Reposts are the reruns of the blogosphere. You don't watch a Twilight Zone or Seinfeld episode only once, do you? No you don't. The savoring of the riches therein contained requires many viewings. Same with what follows, mutatis mutandis. Resurrected due to its relevance to a recent thread…
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A Hell of (a) Pleasure
If hell is separation from God, why wouldn't a body held in thrall by sensuous pleasure do as well as a body wracked with pain? Absorbed in sensuous pleasure, one is arguably farther from God than when in pain.
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Conceiving the Afterlife: Life 2.0 or Beatific Vision?
As far as I can tell, the popular Islamic conception of the afterlife is unbelievably crass, a form of what might be called 'spiritual materialism.' Muslims get to do there, in a quasi-physical hinterworld, what they are forbidden to do here, for example, disport with virgins, in quantity and at length. And presumably they are…
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If Everyone Goes Straight to Heaven . . .
. . . then heaven is a joke, and so is this life, and there is no ultimate justice, hence no God. Mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. has died in prison. Good riddance. I read the book by his son, Frank Jr. and came away impressed by him for courageously 'ratting out' his father: family loyalty…
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Eben Alexander: “We Are Conscious in Spite of Our Brains”
I am at the moment listening to Dennis Prager interview Dr. Eben Alexander. Prager asked him whether he now maintains, after his paranormal experiences, that consciousness is independent of the brain. Alexander made a striking reply: "We are conscious in spite of our brains." And then he made some remarks to the effect that the brain…
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Mary Neal’s Out-of-Body Experiences
The personable Dr. Neal recounts her experiences during this 13 and a half minute video clip. The following from an interview with her: The easy explanations—dreams or hallucinations—I could discount quickly, because my experience—and the experience described by anyone who's had a near death experience or other experiences that involve God directly—is different in quality and…
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Is Heaven Real? A Neurosurgeon’s Near-Death Experience
Excerpt: There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension…
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Afterlife Again
Yesterday I wrote: The epitaph on Frank Sinatra's tombstone reads, "The best is yet to come." That may well be, but it won't be booze and broads, glitz and glamour, and the satisfaction of worldly ambitions that were frustrated this side of the grave. So the believer must sincerely ask himself: would I really want…
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Hell for Philosophers
Jean-Paul Sartre put the following into the mouth of a character in the play, No Exit: "Hell is other people." What then would hell be for philosophers? To be locked in a room forever with a philosopher with whom one has little or no common ground. David Stove and Theodor Adorno, for example. Or Sartre and…
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Hell
Over at The Constructive Curmudgeon I happened upon this quotation which is relevant to recent concerns: The magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the sin. Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin—it is more criminal to strike a…
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How Could an Impassible God be Offended or Know Any Contingent Fact?
Earlier (here and here) I asked how an all-good God could sentence a human agent to sempiternal punishment, punishment that has a beginning but no end. If the punishment must fit the crime, and the crimes of finite agents are themselves finite, then it would seem that no one, no matter what his crimes, would…