I mean, okay, I do get that. Just to set expectations, I am a gnostic atheist, meaning i actively and positively disbelieve in any and all gods. I’m not saying that we can’t know that no gods exist, I’m taking the position that it’s intellectually honest to stake the claim that no gods exist. I was raised a conservative Catholic with a full Catholic education and family members who entered the clergy, and I also did an in depth study of Theravada Buddhism including a two year sabbatical where I studied and meditated six to eight hours a day.
I’m contrasting this approach with the “hell is other people” afterlife story of Sartre where we spend eternity surrounded by other people who are as miserable as we are, and the reason we find them miserable is because we are ourselves so miserable. Obviously, he takes a few more words to get there, but that’s the basic point. The horror he portrays is core to the existential threat of The Other - the person who we define ourselves through their definitions of us, but whom we can never know just as they can never really know us. That’s one that can take a lot of time to get through.
Someone else mentioned the story The Egg. I can’t remember the author of that one, but I randomly ran across it years ago from a random internet mention, and it struck me as one of the most kind and human afterlife stories I’ve ever read.
I read this story as being very much in line with very many of the well established religions in the old world. I could see it as a Buddhist story (which is how I interpreted The Egg), but I see it as being entirely compatible, at least as metaphor, with most eastern religions and philosophies. I think you might be over-generalizing from a particularly American approach to fundamentalist sects of Protestant Christianity to how people throughout history and around the world have approached religion.
I have to tell you that Jews will generally refrain from using the term “Judeo-Christian.” It basically comes off as if someone were referring to “Christo-Islamism.” Where Christians see continuity, Jews see at best a retcon that’s appropriating the literal god of the Jews. Of course, the religion of historical Israel lead to what we call Judaism today, but was polytheistic and generally the same as other local regional religions. I’d still argue that the Abrahamic religions (which I think is a better catch-all term) are not in general monotheistic, except for some sects like some types of Unitarians.
In any case, I think this is an interesting core, but I see the message as redemptive. I see it as far more redemptive than the one shot and then eternal and infinite torture that some Abrahamic religions hypothesize.
Again, I’m a hardcore atheist and materialist. I think that when I do breathe my last breath - which could happen tonight or in 20 years - what will survive of me is the “me” that I’ve left in other people. It might be because I helped them, or I’ve hurt them. It might be because I’ve saved their lives or because I’ve indirectly caused the death of their friends and family. It might be students and colleagues I’ve inspired or ones who would burn me in effigy if they cared that much. That, plus the money and crap, is what I will be when my consciousness ceases.
Another (I believe again that this is French) existentialist koan (if you will) is that a spirit appears to you on your deathbed and tells to that you will relive your entire life exactly the same as your last one, and does that make the spirit an angel or a devil.
In any case, what I’m saying is that it’s a good idea that would probably benefit from being expanded (but read The Egg first so you don’t just accidentally repeat it). I just don’t see it as disturbing, as the people to whom it finds resonance will feel comforted and to those who have more fundamentalist positions would take the dismissive point of view that I have when I read a Chick Tract.
I mean, okay, I do get that. Just to set expectations, I am a gnostic atheist, meaning i actively and positively disbelieve in any and all gods. I’m not saying that we can’t know that no gods exist, I’m taking the position that it’s intellectually honest to stake the claim that no gods exist. I was raised a conservative Catholic with a full Catholic education and family members who entered the clergy, and I also did an in depth study of Theravada Buddhism including a two year sabbatical where I studied and meditated six to eight hours a day.
I’m contrasting this approach with the “hell is other people” afterlife story of Sartre where we spend eternity surrounded by other people who are as miserable as we are, and the reason we find them miserable is because we are ourselves so miserable. Obviously, he takes a few more words to get there, but that’s the basic point. The horror he portrays is core to the existential threat of The Other - the person who we define ourselves through their definitions of us, but whom we can never know just as they can never really know us. That’s one that can take a lot of time to get through.
Someone else mentioned the story The Egg. I can’t remember the author of that one, but I randomly ran across it years ago from a random internet mention, and it struck me as one of the most kind and human afterlife stories I’ve ever read.
I read this story as being very much in line with very many of the well established religions in the old world. I could see it as a Buddhist story (which is how I interpreted The Egg), but I see it as being entirely compatible, at least as metaphor, with most eastern religions and philosophies. I think you might be over-generalizing from a particularly American approach to fundamentalist sects of Protestant Christianity to how people throughout history and around the world have approached religion.
I have to tell you that Jews will generally refrain from using the term “Judeo-Christian.” It basically comes off as if someone were referring to “Christo-Islamism.” Where Christians see continuity, Jews see at best a retcon that’s appropriating the literal god of the Jews. Of course, the religion of historical Israel lead to what we call Judaism today, but was polytheistic and generally the same as other local regional religions. I’d still argue that the Abrahamic religions (which I think is a better catch-all term) are not in general monotheistic, except for some sects like some types of Unitarians.
In any case, I think this is an interesting core, but I see the message as redemptive. I see it as far more redemptive than the one shot and then eternal and infinite torture that some Abrahamic religions hypothesize.
Again, I’m a hardcore atheist and materialist. I think that when I do breathe my last breath - which could happen tonight or in 20 years - what will survive of me is the “me” that I’ve left in other people. It might be because I helped them, or I’ve hurt them. It might be because I’ve saved their lives or because I’ve indirectly caused the death of their friends and family. It might be students and colleagues I’ve inspired or ones who would burn me in effigy if they cared that much. That, plus the money and crap, is what I will be when my consciousness ceases.
Another (I believe again that this is French) existentialist koan (if you will) is that a spirit appears to you on your deathbed and tells to that you will relive your entire life exactly the same as your last one, and does that make the spirit an angel or a devil.
In any case, what I’m saying is that it’s a good idea that would probably benefit from being expanded (but read The Egg first so you don’t just accidentally repeat it). I just don’t see it as disturbing, as the people to whom it finds resonance will feel comforted and to those who have more fundamentalist positions would take the dismissive point of view that I have when I read a Chick Tract.