Afterlife Ideas.

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Jack D Ripper
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Re: Afterlife Ideas.

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Ecurb wrote: October 10th, 2020, 9:37 am...

The student of religion can't possibly know what other people "believe". We can only know people from their actions: what they say and what they do. For Fundamentalists (who probably don't believe Acquinas was a saint at all) "belief" in the Bible is the foundational tenet of their sects. However, since they can't tell WHAT their co-religionists believe, they must constantly recount their "born again" moment; their faith in the infallibility of the bible; their position about abortion (although I'm not sure what that has to do with the Bible).

The reason why you are unsure what being against abortion has to do with the Bible is because that position is not Biblical. In fact, the reverse is Biblical. In Exodus, we are told that if people accidentally kill a fetus (note it does not matter if it is the day before she is due to give birth), the penalty is only a fine, if the husband requires it, as approved by judges. Since murder is to be punished with death, this means killing a fetus is not murder according to the Bible. The fetus is treated just like property of the husband, not like it is a real life.

Exodus 21 (KJV):

22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.


Not only is there that bit in Exodus, there is what is stated in Numbers, in which a man make take his pregnant wife to the priests, when he suspects that she has committed adultery, and the priests mix a magic potion that will cause an abortion if she is guilty of adultery. Thus the Bible is in favor fo abortion, at least in the case of adultery.


Numbers 5 (KJV):
11 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
12 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,
13 And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner;
14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:
15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord:
17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:
18 And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:
19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:
20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:
21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.
23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:
24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter.
25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the offering before the Lord, and offer it upon the altar:
26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.
27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
29 This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled;
30 Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.
31 Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.


So, the Christians who are against abortion, claiming that the unborn is to be regarded as human life and pretend to get their ideas about abortion from the Bible are just wrong. They are going directly against what the Bible explicitly states.

So, you are absolutely right to question the idea that being anti-abortion is connected to the Bible.

This is also instructive in that people often pretend to get their ideas from places where they did not. Whether one takes the Bible literally or metaphorically makes no difference on this. Much of what people believe is what they want to believe rather than being derived from a book.

Ecurb wrote: October 10th, 2020, 9:37 am...
My experience with evangelical Christianity is slim. But in my anthroplogy days, I once attended a church in which people spoke in tongues (glossolalia). Now, this is supposed to involve an altered state of consciousness, in which the inspired person speaks in strange languages. When I saw it, as a mere observer, the state of consciousness appeared no more "altered" than it did for any other part of the service: singing a hymn or saying a prayer. It appeared to be a church ritual like any other.

Well, yes, doing such things regularly isn't going to be with an altered state of consciousness. It is pretend, like so much in religion, though sometimes people believe their own BS.

The idea that they can switch it on and switch it off at will, with it being a real altered state of consciousness, is just ridiculous.

Ecurb wrote: October 10th, 2020, 9:37 am...

Roman Catholics (like Acquinas) have other methods of ascribing membership in the group: baptism, communion, and the rest of the sacraments. So "belief" is less important.

Yes, for some religions, ritual is what matters. That is particularly true of many ancient religions, like the ancient Greek religion.

Ecurb wrote: October 10th, 2020, 9:37 am Good stories have many meanings. Only Fundamentalists think that there is only one meaning to a story,...

Stories can have more than one meaning. And some stories can be taken either literally or metaphorically, as in many instances in the Bible (to keep with the present example).

Of course, it is an open question what the original author or authors intended to mean with their stories. Sometimes, authors willfully include ambiguity and leave things open to many interpretations. I am not so sure that I would always regard that as a feature of "good" stories, as it could also be the result of sloppy and careless writing. Sometimes, having one exact meaning is a virtue, to help avoid confusion.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
Ecurb
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Re: Afterlife Ideas.

Post by Ecurb »

Jack D Ripper wrote: October 10th, 2020, 3:39 pm


Let us consider a verse from the Bible:


Exodus 22:18 (KJV):

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.


Aside from it being difficult to understand that as anything but literally (if it were a metaphor, what would it mean? I mean that question seriously, as I don’t think it makes any sense whatsoever if not taken literally), if we look at the Salem witch trials, and the other historical killing of “witches,” it is perfectly obvious that the Christians who killed the “witches” took the verse seriously and literally; they did not “metaphorically” kill the “witches’: they literally killed them.

Now, you might say, that is all well and good, but it is a long time ago and therefore does not tell us about Christianity today. (I could mention the fact that they no longer can get away with doing this, and therefore do not do it, but we can just move on to the next example, as I don’t think you will like the implications of this fact.)

It is true that Christians executed both convicted witches and convicted heretics. In fact. Hugh Trevor-Roper (the Oxford historian) wrote a book entitled "The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Centuries". In it, he claimed that half a million people were executed as witches between about 1520 and 1660. Other historians put the death toll lower, but it was 100,000 at least. Exactly what fueled the witch hunting craze is a matter of dispute, although a Catholic treatise "The Hammer of the Witches" (written in maybe 1490, I'm going from memory here) helped it along. The death toll was highest in areas in which the Reformation was disputed in religious wars, and Protestants and Roman Catholics were responsible for about the same number of deaths. IN most cases, however, Witch trials were held in secular courts; ecclesiastic courts tried and convicted heretics, as in the Inquisition, but far, far fewer people were tried and executed for heresy than for witchcraft.

Torture doubtless augmented the witch craze. Accused witches named co-conpirators on the rack, thumb screw, and iron boot. So the craze mushroomed out of control. Outside of the 16th and 17th centuries, witch trials were rare. Salem executed witches in 1690, by which point the witch hunting craze had practically disappeared (which is one reason those trials are so famous).

From a modern perspective, witches were tried and executed for imaginary crimes (like sacrificing children, which would have been horrible if they had actually taken place); heretics were tried and executed for real "crimes" (which we no longer think are horrible or even crimes).

One point: witchcraft beliefs and executions were common throughout the world. Non-Christians in India, Southeast Asia, and (especially) Africa all executed witches. "Witchcraft among the Azande" is the classic anthropological text about witchcraft beliefs in Africa, wirtten by Oxford man E.E. Evans-Pritchard. Except for the baffling craze that exploded in the 1500s, Christians were no worse in this respect than most other religions. The Azande regularly executed witches.
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Jack D Ripper
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Re: Afterlife Ideas.

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Ecurb wrote: October 10th, 2020, 4:48 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 10th, 2020, 3:39 pm


Let us consider a verse from the Bible:


Exodus 22:18 (KJV):

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.


Aside from it being difficult to understand that as anything but literally (if it were a metaphor, what would it mean? I mean that question seriously, as I don’t think it makes any sense whatsoever if not taken literally), if we look at the Salem witch trials, and the other historical killing of “witches,” it is perfectly obvious that the Christians who killed the “witches” took the verse seriously and literally; they did not “metaphorically” kill the “witches’: they literally killed them.

Now, you might say, that is all well and good, but it is a long time ago and therefore does not tell us about Christianity today. (I could mention the fact that they no longer can get away with doing this, and therefore do not do it, but we can just move on to the next example, as I don’t think you will like the implications of this fact.)

It is true that Christians executed both convicted witches and convicted heretics. In fact. Hugh Trevor-Roper (the Oxford historian) wrote a book entitled "The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Centuries". In it, he claimed that half a million people were executed as witches between about 1520 and 1660. Other historians put the death toll lower, but it was 100,000 at least. Exactly what fueled the witch hunting craze is a matter of dispute, although a Catholic treatise "The Hammer of the Witches" (written in maybe 1490, I'm going from memory here) helped it along. The death toll was highest in areas in which the Reformation was disputed in religious wars, and Protestants and Roman Catholics were responsible for about the same number of deaths. IN most cases, however, Witch trials were held in secular courts; ecclesiastic courts tried and convicted heretics, as in the Inquisition, but far, far fewer people were tried and executed for heresy than for witchcraft.

Torture doubtless augmented the witch craze. Accused witches named co-conpirators on the rack, thumb screw, and iron boot. So the craze mushroomed out of control. Outside of the 16th and 17th centuries, witch trials were rare. Salem executed witches in 1690, by which point the witch hunting craze had practically disappeared (which is one reason those trials are so famous).

From a modern perspective, witches were tried and executed for imaginary crimes (like sacrificing children, which would have been horrible if they had actually taken place); heretics were tried and executed for real "crimes" (which we no longer think are horrible or even crimes).

One point: witchcraft beliefs and executions were common throughout the world. Non-Christians in India, Southeast Asia, and (especially) Africa all executed witches. "Witchcraft among the Azande" is the classic anthropological text about witchcraft beliefs in Africa, wirtten by Oxford man E.E. Evans-Pritchard. Except for the baffling craze that exploded in the 1500s, Christians were no worse in this respect than most other religions. The Azande regularly executed witches.

I think that pretty much sums up the beauty and value of religion.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
Ecurb
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Re: Afterlife Ideas.

Post by Ecurb »

Witchcrafft is essentially religious (since witches supposedly have supernatural powers), but heresy is not. The atheist communists made the Spanish Inquisitors look feeble, in terms of the number of people killed as heretics.

The reality is that people will always excuse horrible behavior by appealing to the most fundamental values of their culture: religion in the distant
European past; the good of the state in the more recent past.

Why do people fear and execute witches? I have some ideas, but I don't know the answer. The simple answer (blame it on Christianity, or religion in general) seems insufficient, given how widespread the custom is. A more nuanced understanding might be beyond you or me, but seeking it is the intellectually sound approach. Trevor-Roper offers some explanations and theories, but I don't remember them very well.
Ecurb
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Re: Afterlife Ideas.

Post by Ecurb »

One story I remember from Trevor-Roper's book: An intelligent, educated man from (I think) the Netherlands confessed, spontaneously, to being a witch. He was executed (almost half the executed witches were men, by the way). Trevor-Roper (if memory serves, I read the book 35 or 40 years ago) has no explanation, and is astonished. He quotes some of this person's written works, and the writer is a modern, erudite, skillful writer. What's going on?

I don't know (and my memory is dim). But explanations for witchcraft beliefs have to account for a wide variety of case histories. As in the philosophy of science thread, we need data, not theories.
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Papus79
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Re: Afterlife Ideas.

Post by Papus79 »

To the OP:

I'd say yes - if consciousness exists at all after death than they're all correct for the given individual experiencing them, they're far more than likely not 'true' in any absolute macro sense though.

If staring long enough into the occult and esoteric traditions and their feedback, or looking critically at some of the more credited 'channelings', and especially sloughing my way through NDE's and then trying to hold all of that up against more formal non-materialist views of consciousness ranging from panpsychism to various forms of restrictive idealism that could give us something that feels like reductive materialism at a local level without actually being that - we're not in a truth-based landscape, we're in a fitness-based landscape, and whatever dynamo might be behind organizing our consciousness or even driving our purpose in life (assuming something like a lower genius or 'Holy Guardian Angel' type of thing) it has its own objectives and they as well, in some sense, are going to be fitness oriented.

I think many of us would like to know more of what's true (although truth orientation tends to be outright harmful - inverse proportional to your popularity, work success, likelihood of passing on your genes, etc. it's still a magnetic stumbling block for many of us that we can't break free of) but unfortunately it seems like the whole substrate is in some way fitness-oriented.

In terms of actually trying to figure out what a provisional map of an afterlife would be - you'd retreat to the last node that propagated your 'I' experience. In some sense Iamblicus 'Theurgy of the Egyptians' toys with that concept. That would mean no unified 'afterlife' but rather people rediscovering - at least to some degree - what place they inhabit in the broader conscious network even if it's just a local understanding that quite likely tells them nothing about ultimate realities.
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