Posted on 04/03/2010 9:50:37 AM PDT by betty boop
Review of Life After Death: The Evidence
by Stephen M. Barr
Life After Death: The Evidence
by Dinesh D’Souza
Regnery, 256 pages, $27.95
While much apologetic effort has been spent arguing for the existence of God, relatively little has been spent defending the reasonableness of belief in an afterlife and the resurrection of the body, despite the fact that these are among the hardest doctrines of biblical religion for many modern people to accept. D’Souza brings to the task his renowned forensic skills. (By all accounts, he has bested several of the top New Atheists in public debate.) He understands that persuasion is less a matter of proof and rigorous argument than of rendering ideas plausible and overcoming obstacles to belief.
One obstacle to belief in bodily resurrection is the difficulty of grasping that there could be places that are not located in the three-dimensional space we presently inhabit, or that there could be realms where our intuitions about time, space, and matter simply do not apply. D’Souza rightly points out that modern physics has broken the bounds of human imagination with ideas of other dimensions—and even other universes—and has required us to accept features of our own universe (at the subatomic level, for example.) that are entirely counterintuitive. He shows how blinkered, by contrast, is the thought of many who think themselves boldly modern, such as Bertrand Russell, who asserted that “all experience is likely to resemble the experience we know.” Another impediment to belief in life after death is our experience of the disorganization of thought as sleep approaches and the mental decline that often precedes death. While near-death experiences do not prove as much as D’Souza suggests in his interesting chapter on the subject, the discovery that many have a surge of intense and coherent experience near the very point of death does counteract to some extent the impression of death as mere dissolution.
D’Souza approaches his subject from many directions. In two chapters, he gives a very accessible account of recent thought on the mind-body problem and the reasons to reject materialism. In the chapter “Eternity and Cosmic Justice,” he bases an argument for an afterlife on our moral sense. Our recognition that this world is not what it objectively ought to be suggests not only that there is a cosmic purpose, but that this purpose is unfulfilled and unfulfillable within the confines of this world. Some of his philosophical arguments, however, are less happy. In particular, his use of Hume and Kant to undermine what he regards as the pretensions of science will provoke not only scientists, but all those who have a strongly “realist” epistemology. D’Souza can also be faulted for sometimes claiming to demonstrate what cannot be demonstrated. Nevertheless, even those who find loose ends in his arguments will be rewarded with many fresh perspectives on the only question that really is of ultimate importance.
Well, (to the first question) by God's perfect will "No", because God says we are to obey our governments, which He established and in the US polygamy is illegal. However, under His permissive will, if that happened for some unknown reason it would somehow be a part of God's plan. (I do sincerely hope that God's plan does not involve your jail time! :)
While all good and perfection does come from God, He is by no means the causal antithesis of illness. You know that Revelation is packed with God-caused human malady, and from the OT we have this:
See also another example of God's permissive will. It was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart.
It's all just chance, right?
Yes. My understanding is that to God our physical appearance means nothing. To a Christian God it is the disposition of our souls that matters. The body is corruptable and this life is a station on the way to bigger and better things. Ultimately it is not the body but the soul that lives. God is expected to make new bodies anyway.
Now, if God gives us intellect, because it matters to him, does that mean all the stupid people are bound for hell, or do you think your next door neighbor in your heavenly condo with a view will be some Darwin Award winnder with baby blue eyes? In that case, what is God's IQ heavenly pass cutoff score?
That's the problem with computers - dry wit on the keyboard is not normally matched with facial expressions or vocal intonation. When various Christian doctrines teach that one person is of greater worth or above another, then that, in this case anyway, morphs into justification for things like slavery, condoned by the religious authorities. And the secular ones. Proof positive to the slaveholders, anyway.
What a strange innovation. Tell me more about these different wills.
Yet from Jesus we have this:
Mark 3: 7 3 Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples. A large number of people (followed) from Galilee and from Judea. 8 Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. 9 He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. 10 He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him. 11 4 And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, "You are the Son of God." 12 He warned them sternly not to make him known.
Luke 7: 20 When the men came to him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?'" 21 At that time he cured many of their diseases, sufferings, and evil spirits; he also granted sight to many who were blind. 22 And he said to them in reply, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. 23 And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me." 7
Luke 13: 10 5 He was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. 11 And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, "Woman, you are set free of your infirmity." 13 He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.
Matthew 17: 14 13 When they came to the crowd a man approached, knelt down before him, 15 and said, "Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic 14 and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him." 17 Jesus said in reply, "O faithless and perverse 15 generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him here to me." 18 Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, 16 and from that hour the boy was cured.
Jesus healed the sick; He did not sicken them. He cured their afflictions; He did not impose them. The OT interpretation is of a bloody and veangeful God; the New is of a loving and merciful God. Kosta has recently said, very correctly, that God is not really just - He is merciful. And that gives us all hope. See also another example of God's permissive will. It was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart.
I'm still not sure of the difference or where it is Scriptural.
God indeed gives us all we have. Paul tells us that. If it comes down to believing you or Paul, I'm with Paul and historic Christianity.
"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation" -- Acts 17:24-26
"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." -- Colossians 1:16-17
"The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them." -- Proverbs 20:12
"But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you." -- John 10:26"For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?" -- 1 Corinthians 4:7
In all fairness, ancient Jews didn't know any better. To them, God was the source of good and evil—good if they obeyed him and evil if they worshiped the idols. The ancient Jews of the Five Books of Moses "credit" God with their misfortune as well as fortune.
The belief in the "resident evil" does not begin until after the Maccabean Revolt (middle of the 2nd century BC). This also marks the emergence of apocalyptic Judaism of the Essenes and the Pharisees, and the last books of the OT, the Book of Job, the Psalms, and the Book of Daniel. None of these was considered part of the Bible by the Sadducees.
The God of apocalyptic Judaism was no longer seen as the vengeful OT God, but a merciful one who will defeat the resident evil—a concept borrowed from the Persian Zoroastrian religion. The menace, whose name comes straight out of Zoroastrianism, Ahriman, becomes the Satan of Christianity, who together with his demons becomes the cause of illness and human suffering.
Genetics decide which color hair and eyes you will have Dr. E. This is not 1st century Palestine or the OT magic land. They believed what they believed and I can't fault them for not knowing any better. But we do.
What is your view of heaven and life in it? Why would our looks and the color of our eyes matter to God?
The trouble is, is that it is not historic Christianity. You do provide a snippet of Paul, of Luke (Acts), Proverbs, and a total out of context John as proof.
There is no NT support that wealth and status are indications of the favour of God. Where do you guys pull your doctrines from? You guys cannot get it right on anything. An example is your heretical post on the Rosary thread. How can you possibly lay claim to even being Christian?
Correct. And some self described Christians insist on applying that to NT Christian revelation.
The belief in the "resident evil" does not begin until after the Maccabean Revolt (middle of the 2nd century BC). This also marks the emergence of apocalyptic Judaism of the Essenes and the Pharisees, and the last books of the OT, the Book of Job, the Psalms, and the Book of Daniel. None of these was considered part of the Bible by the Sadducees.
Interesting. Didn't know that about the Sadducees. Are there any other discrepancies?
The God of apocalyptic Judaism was no longer seen as the vengeful OT God, but a merciful one who will defeat the resident evil—a concept borrowed from the Persian Zoroastrian religion. The menace, whose name comes straight out of Zoroastrianism, Ahriman, becomes the Satan of Christianity, who together with his demons becomes the cause of illness and human suffering.
An interesting evolution. What attributes of Ahriman followed the journey into Christianity other than disease and suffering? Are there any specifics of the Fall, the story of Job and so on? Or is that specific to Jewish and then Christian history?
Yes they do, which explains why they make very few references to the Gospels.
Didn't know that about the Sadducees. Are there any other discrepancies?
Quite a bit. here is what Encyclopedia Judaica says about them:
What we know of them is what was written by Josephus (a Phasisee) and the Talmud, which is of course the collection of Pahrisaical writings that morphed into rabbinic Judaism of today.
They rejected the Pharisaic doctrine of resurrection. They considered only the Five Books of Moses to be the Jewish Bible, rejecting the oral tradition of the Pharisees, but strictly accepted only that which was written. They were in charge of the Temple as high priests.
Furthermore, the Jewish Encyclopedia says that, according to the NT, they did not believe in angels and dmeons. This is probably a Christian myth because angels are mentioned in the Torah.
They seem to have been literalists (eye for eye, tooth for tooth), which explains some of the Jesus' remarks in that regard in Mat 5. Also their temple practices differed form those favored by the Pharisees.
What attributes of Ahriman followed the journey into Christianity other than disease and suffering?
Ahriman is actually a god in the Perisan religion, an evil god, a god of darkness, who counters the good god Ahuramazda (the "beneficial [or holy] spirit", and a god of light). Their adversity finally comes to a blow, a spectacular last Armaggedo-like fight in which Ahuramzda defeats the evil god forever.
Ahriman is the source of disease and evil spirit. Ahuramzada, who created the world, created only the good things. You can read more about it in the Jewsh Encyclopedia and you will be amazed how much of it made it into Christianity through apocalyptic Judaism.
JE writes:
So, clearly Judaism evolves following the Exile and the period of Persian liberation (Jews actually got along very well with Persians who liberated them from the Babylonian captivity).
This is the first time that Satan appears without the article (until then Satan is referred to as ha satan, i.e. "the accuser" as a title and not a personal name).
Are there any specifics of the Fall, the story of Job and so on? Or is that specific to Jewish and then Christian history?
The dualism was really given a boost with the Book of Daniel and the Book of Enoch. Part of the Book of Daniel is written in Aramaic and part of it is rejected by the Pharisees/rabbis that is otherwise included in the Christian Bible.
Apaprently, the author of Danie, who wrote c. 168 BC pretends to be writing in 500 BC (Babylonian captivity) and is therefore capable of making all the "prophesies" come true. But, in addition to that, he also develops the powers of Satan which exceed those even of Ahriman.
The Book of Job, which is a 'sandwich' of an older book filled with a more recent interpolation is also one of the late additions to the Pharisaical (aka "Jewish") Bible, or Tanakh.
As regards God being only the healer rather than the cause of illness as well, that is a later development that comes out of dualism influenced by Zoroastrianism. Pre-Exile Jews believed that lepers, for example, had the disease as a punishment from God (i.e. Numb 12:9-11), as opposed to the NT treatment of leprosy as being caused by demons.
I never said wealth and status are indications of God's favor. You did. I know plenty of miserable, unhappy, decadent wealthy people of status.
The Scriptural truth says all things come from God. Historic Roman Catholicism taught the same thing. Too bad so many RC apologists today seem so determined to argue every point with Christians that they deny even this fact.
Certainly. And did God ordain the laws of genetics? Or did they sprout from the ether as accomplished facts?
From what I could find your Church does not discriminate between what you are calling the words of men and the red letter words. From the CCC:
105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."69
"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."70
106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."71
107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72
I would certainly agree that on a given subject certain scripture may be more relevant than other scripture, but not more true. I would also have to agree with the Church here that the Holy Bible is the word of God "whole and entire". The Bible does not contain words of men that are of intrinsically lesser value than the red letter passages.
How can someone born bound to hell be "pure and innocent?"
It doesn't last. :) satan had a pretty good start too, but we all know what happened. Plus, the stain of original sin is enough by itself to condemn, even before the first actual committed sin beyond the age of reason. So, the focus is really on the nature of the faith in comparison to the appearance of the child. IOW, a child being innocent and pure by itself doesn't mean anything. The faith must be like that.
FK: The elect will receive the kingdom of God like a little child.
But we are supposedly born condemned, remember?
Yes, it is just a matter of time. At any given point in time any living elect may or may not be saved. By the end they are all saved, but this happens at different points in their lives.
Well, "on occasion" means once or twice and they were not major points. Nevertheless, I would still maintain that those verses met with God's approval.
A lot of young and zealous Republicans may not remember the disfavor Ross Perot did the Republican Party. Thanks to his "mavericky" attention-seeking egotistic short moment in the limelight, we were dishonored with the Clinton administration ....
Yes, I fully agree. I guess he was Nader before Nader was Nader in your home state. :)
Charlie Crist is another McCain character that we don't need, but perfectly capable of splitting the GOP.
I sure hope not. I can't imagine any support from any incumbents or (obviously) the GOP Senate elect committee. Do you know if he could compete money-wise as an Indy?
Sarah Palin is another "talent" we don't need. She appeals to many in the GOP ranks and is also capable of siphoning the vote from the GOP. I don't think the Tea Party is a good idea at all.
I happen to be a fan of Palin, and I really don't think she is advocating a formation of a new party. Rather, I have heard her say what is true, that it is the GOP that needs to go back to its roots of fiscal conservatism. That fully matches what the tea partiers are fighting for. We got killed in '06 and '08 in large part for abandoning those principles. So I think the tea party can be of great help if Republicans will go back to Republican values.
Thanks for the additional info.
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