triplew00t

Ojuice and JTVrocher... I would be very interested in talking to you both in real time. If either of you has AIM or Yahoo, please let me know.

AIM: triplew00t (with zeros)
Yahoo: shootthewigger

Thank you all for your responses, and please continue to respond if you think of anything new.


Nero

gsx1138

Having been one once: Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in an afterlife either. However, they do believe in a resurrection so that might throw a wrench in things. Also, they're fucking nuts.

I don't have much of an opinion about the afterlife, being Pagan myself. I hope for one but I'm not holding my breath either. My own experience suggests that there is something but I can't prove it. The beauty of being Pagan is that you don't have to worry about converting anyone because it is for you.

triplew00t

Ojuice. Could you please provide some links to site that talk about the unconscious state of souls in the Roman afterlife? It would be much appreciated.

Nero

Ojuice5001

This is a little embarrassing. I got my idea from NovaRoma, but I may have been practicing the fallacy of eisegenesis (sp?)--interpreting someone else's thoughts in terms of my own. If you'll follow the link, you'll find a lot of complex myths, but those seem to be special cases. Only a single sentence is devoted to Asphodel.

I'm less interested in those than in the fate of the average person, and still more in my own. And it seems that most people (and myself) qualify for none of the special cases, but are destined for the "average" afterlife, Asphodel. Now the page says that in Asphodel nothing happens and you are a shade, i.e., a ghost. And surely such a being would have a consciousness similar to being asleep. People usually didn't want to become a shade, but if you look at it rationally a shade should be expected to have the kind of very muted, but in a sense contented, consciousness that you have when asleep.

As I said, though, I may be imposing my own beliefs onto an account that, face it, isn't that clear about what the average person can expect. In particular, my interpretation may come from an aversion to the Christian system, which absurdly decides that it's just to treat everyone with eternal bliss or eternal horror, and no one with a more mediocre fate like my interpretation of Asphodel.

And, compared to most modern believers in the Roman gods, I'm not that big on making my beliefs match those of the Romans. This is certainly the case when it comes to an afterlife; I think there could be none at all, or my "sleeping shade" idea that I outlined, or a life roughly similar to earth, or absorbtion into one of the gods--I claim knowledge of a lot of supernatural ideas, but not of the afterlife.

Infidelettante

If you like switch to the PM feature here at IIDB. I am happy to help but I don't care for real time.

Leah

True, it was the carpenter who introduced the concept of some form of afterlife into what is commonly known as the bible.
Where as the old testament only ever refers to phyiscal death being the final end.

Nothing wrong with that.

contracycle

Its debatable how much we can know about the real ideologies of ancient religions, but the old Mesopotamian societies may well have a non-afterlife. They understood life after death to be like a being a cobweb-like wisp in an empty room, devoid of consciousness or feeling. The Epic of Gilgamesh itself concludes that there is no immortality but in human memory.

The caveat to this is I'm not shure howe identical our concepts of Faithful worship and their concept of worship are. They certainly displayed obeisance to gods, though...

emotional

No, it wasn't Jesus, it was much earlier. Jewish beliefs in the afterlife took root after the Jews made contact with Persian Zoroastrian beliefs in the Babylonian exile. It was then that ge hinnom ceased to mean just "Valley of Hinnom" and came to mean a place of torment in fire. The NT writers were just echoing the Jewish beliefs of that time.

The OT has no mention of an afterlife, except an allusion to the resurrection of the dead in Daniel, but this is because the author of Daniel was in fact a late author, who lived in the time of the Hasmoneans (ie well after Alexander the Great).

Milton

Although it is not plainly put, I have to disagree with you, and say that the Hebrew Scriptures do imply some form of spiritual being or life. Samuel is an example of a spirit being, previously human being, who was contacted after death.

The story states that Samuel was called up by Saul. And it was Samuel himself who came up.

I know there were the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection, but I don't know if they believed in some form of spiritual life. Then we have the book of Ecclesiastes, which seems so pessimistic, and problematic to anyone who does not understand from what point of view it is being presented.

Nonetheless, there is some early evidence in the Hebrew Texts of belief in the spiritual life. Hence the prohibition on divination and other spiritual arts.

Milton

You know, in a way, I see it as this:

All my memories will be erased, so I won't know or remember anything from this life. This would be in the same category of 'oblivion' to my consciousness. I do think that the only exception to this are the Jews, I think that the Jews will live like Adam and Eve would have lived.

But for the non-believers et al., I believe they will be punished forever. (Now, I don't know how long forever is, so I can only say that it is forever.)

So, you might want to join us, because you are not a Jew, so you won't have to worry about having an after-life, because you won't have one.