It's Not All Fire and Brimstone

[bionarydata]

An interesting short essay concerning different views of the afterlife by one of my favorite contributors to the On Faith section of the Washington Post.  If you read the below linked article at all, please read all the way through the end.  Stopping only part of the way through misses the better part.

Edit: Having read Sasha's comment and realized

Comments

[djayha]

Meh... I found his discussion of views of the afterlife to be very one dimensional and he seemed to fail to grasp---let alone acknowledge---the complexity of the topic. Eastern religions alone can add several more options to that list... Heck, HINDUISM alone can add several more.

[bionarydata]

He's a Church of Christ minister answering a question from the perspective of his faith tradition within a very limited space. He didn't set out to write an exhaustive treatise on the subject; other authors spoke to the question from their traditions, including various religions (including non-Western) and secular humanism.

Within the context of the Christian tradition, I disagree that he fails to give the subject an adequate treatment for a brief article. If he were being asked to provide a broad overview of all major religious traditions opinions regarding the afterlife, that would be another matter.

[bionarydata]

It bears mentioning that I did a poor job of contextualizing the article (viz. noting that a host of authors responded from their respective traditions and that none of them attempted to provide an ecumenical overview of the subject). I shall upbraid my editor most sternly for the oversight! ;)

[bionarydata]

It also bears mentioning that my second reply to your comment constituted both an admission of error (viz. that I failed to provide an appropriate introduction to the essay by noting limited scope of the same) and a lame attempt to mitigate the obtuseness and rude tone in my first reply.

Ahem.

Please consider *this comment* an apology for my belligerent tone in my first comment. I'm sorry. =( Please forgive me for speaking in a high-handed way to you.

[forwrathandruin]

I wonder what use it is to have only a single perspective on the matter? Even from a Christian standpoint, he manages to narrow his field of vision still further by holding (in couched language) contempt for the brands of "after-whatever" that he seems to deem too wishy-washy, remarking about the "death of Hell" and the "promotion of dogs

[bionarydata]

I will respond to some of your assertions in turn

[bionarydata]

3. “a time when our species could not adequately evaluate morality