The Rise and Fall of Christianity
I think there is some truth in claiming that the great success of Christianity, the feature that allowed it to become the world's 'biggest', most populous, religion, was by promising 'Life after Death'. (A feature it shares with Islam, the 'second biggest religion'.) The idea that something, (the soul or core or essence) could survive death seems to be basic to the human psyche and was well known in the Middle East long before Jesus. It is certain that the idea of bodily survival after death was not the message that Jesus was trying to teach. Indeed, he explicitly scoffed at it (Matthew, 22:23 ). But the idea proved enormously popular and, over the centuries, the idea of bodily survival was grafted onto the teaching of Jesus, and has brought many hopeful converts to Christianity.
Did the initial disciples of Jesus, by emphasising the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus, perpetrate a scam? Or were they honestly describing their experience? How can we ever know? But by 325 CE, when the bishops met at Nicaea, politics rather than theology or historical truth seem to have dominated the discussion. For the Nicene Creed quite explicitly promises the resurrection of the dead. And that formula became even more explicit in the next two centuries. [See below 'Several different Christian Creeds']
Does 'Christianity' (by which I mean, not the explicit teachings of Jesus, but the more-or-less unified teaching of the Christian bishops from 325 A.D. to the present day) deliver any sort of 'Life after Death'? Yes, if you are inspired by the belief. No, if you cannot so believe. We see that many could in the past, a number still can today, but many now cannot believe.
By distinguishing between the teaching of Jesus and that of the Christian bishops I have effectively opened up the question -- was Jesus a Christian? I mean, could he have subscribed to the Nicene or any other 'Christian' creed on the question of Life after Death; does the explicitly quoted teaching of Jesus promise anything like that which Christian Bishops have promised in his name? Furthermore, we may ask whether the explicit teachings of Jesus (such as we have them) do better at delivering on their promises?
Jesus is reported to have said that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." (Matth. 22:32). He is also reported as saying that the idea of meeting up with your spouse after death shows a misconception of Heaven; "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. " (Matth. 22:29 ). Heaven is (he suggested) more like when a king prepares a wedding feast for his son, and repeatedly sends out invitations, but the invitees do not come (Matth. 22:2-6). So he sends out invitations to all and any (Matth. 22: 9). They come, but those that come to the party in the wrong frame of mind get nothing out of it. (Matth. 22: 12).
Was not Jesus saying something like: God is for the living, and Heaven is for the living, not for the dead. That we are invited to join him, in Heaven; so should we not attend? And if we accept the invitation, and go to the party, it surely behoves us to attend in the right frame of mind; count our blessings and feel glad to be there.
I feel the same way. I feel that to love creation with all one's heart, and with all one's mind (Matth. 22:37), and to love and treat your neighbour as you treat yourself (Matth. 22:39), creates a better world, an acceptable world, a world in which to be glad, in which to be grateful, and for which to wear festive clothes. Even if plenty problems remain.
In that sense I find that the teachings of Jesus deliver. By contrast, the doctrinaire Christian churches are dying, precisely because they are still paying 'lip-service' to the creeds of the fourth to sixth centuries A.D.
The part that dies and the part that lives on.
To get anywhere in discussing the question of Life-after-Death, it is essential to be quite clear about the concepts of material reality and ideal thought. Material things in the real world have mass, and can be observed simultaneously by several observers; ideas conceived in a human brain do not have mass and are experienced by only one brain. A similar thought in a different brain is a different thought. But an idea can be written down, captured in words, and spoken to another brain. (The term 'Spirit' is undefined; it is therefore ambiguous, and is therefore avoided here.) It is also essential to seek the truth, and embrace it. There is no room here for deliberate ambiguity and obfuscation. I would hate to offer a reward hoping that someone might misunderstand and accept, even if the mistaken hope gave pleasure; yet I think that is the parlous position of many Christian and Muslim priests.
Human life, as far as I understand it, requires a flow of oxygen to the heart, and to the brain; without that oxygen, life and thought are impossible. Life is incompatible with death, with the absence of oxygen, or indeed the absence of a body (heart, brain, etc.)
I attended a Quaker funeral at Whitley Bay Crematorium in 2008. One Quaker read a poem of Betty Walters about a leaf, containing the consoling idea that it, the leaf (but, similarly, the poet), might be reabsorbed back into 'God'. So I refrained from reading the poem of Francis Thompson that makes a similar but slightly different point – that birth implies death and death implies birth; "Nothing dies but something lives".
Instead, I found myself developing a thought I had started earlier in the day – that there are two parts to a person: a part that dies and a part that does not. What we love about a person is not so much the physical reality; a kilogram of cardiac muscle, or mushy liver. That, of course, is the part that dies. What we love is the husband, father, grandfather, the bread-winner, the musician, the student, a smile, an anecdote; in fact more the idea of a person than the reality of a person. And that is the part that does not die, but lingers in the memories of the still-living. So, in effect, I have reached the conclusion that, to our emotions, a person (alive or dead) is more important as an 'idea' than as a 'thing'.
I am not able to believe in Life Everlasting 'in the flesh', so get no comfort from the Christian promise. But I do find some value in the undeniable fact that ideas about the good points of bygone people linger in the minds of the living; and will linger for a generation in most cases, and for two millennia in outstanding cases. In thus lingering, these memories support us in our endeavour 'to find heaven on earth'.
That much I do believe.
Several different Christian Creeds:
(https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43801/creeds.pdf )
[1] Nicene Creed, CE 325 ("We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come".)
[2] Apostle's creed, c. CE 500, Wikipedia ("I believe in .... the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.")
[3] Athanasian creed, c. CE 500, Wikipedia ("
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
42. and shall give account of their own works.
43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.")
