Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to They've got a better deal.

re: They've got a better deal.
ER — (archived)

Meeting your dead relatives is always painted as one of the attractions of life after death, but I've never had this question based on that concept properly answered. Suppose a person's beloved spouse dies, and after the survivor mourns for a time, he or she remarries, and their second marriage is also a very good one filled with mutual love and happiness. After all three are dead, they meet in paradise. Then what? Which marriage is reinstated? Do we do a menage a trois thing? Take turns? Or is the question irrelevant; are the treasures of married life denied to the dead and they spend eternity in philosophical contemplation and hand holding, and, of course, praising God?

Of course its a trick question. That's my whole point. The whole concept of the afterlife is a trick answer to the Great Question.

Scripture tells us very little about paradise, so it is no criticism of religion to point out that we've been given very little to go on about what the religious expect to be the ultimate reward. The best fictional treatment, Dante, seems to spend much more effort describing the scene in hell, which comes across as a lot more interesting, if not more appealing, place.

The traditional descriptions of heaven as expressed in Christian iconography and popular legend show us a pretty dull and insipid place, where not much is going on. As David Byrne and Talking Heads tell us,
"Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens." Although to be fair, he was referring to a New York night club of the same name. But the blame for this dreadful place must not be laid on God, or even the religious texts, but on the believers, who seem incapable of conceiving as fun anything that isn't forbidden by their religion.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (52 posts)