I am currently reading a book about railroads and their role in history.  One railroad which I have particularly enjoyed reading about is the Trans-Siberian railroad.  One of the longest railways in the world, the Trans-Siberian spans the width of Russia (a country with eleven time zones), stretching nearly six thousand miles from the Pacific Coast to the heart of Moscow.  It seems endless.
     Countless tales have been built around the Trans-Siberian, the most well known being perhaps Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.  It is a rail of great wonder, taking the rider past sights like remarkable Lake Bakail, the largest lake, by sheer volume of water, on the planet, or the massive snow capped peaks of the Ural Mountains, the traditional dividing line between Russian East and West, made famous in the film Doctor Zhivago.  It is also a rail of immense darkness.  It transported the Romanovs, the last tsarist rulers of Russia, to their eventual deaths in a country dacha, and during the reign of Josef Stalin it carried countless numbers of political prisoners to serve lengthy sentences in the unspeakably brutal prison camps of the dictator's Gulag.  Indeed, as the book points out, it is in the town of Yekaterinburg, tucked into the eastern Urals, where many a prisoner riding the
Trans-Siberian realized that he was now definitively leaving everything he knew behind.  His life as he had known it was gone forever.
     Overall, however, the Trans-Siberian has benefited Russia.  Rising out of the vision of Tsar Alexander III, it has enabled easier travel for many Russians, facilitated transport of goods and resources and industry, and greatly improved communication across the vast country.  How horrible, then, that something that has brought such benefit also has become the instrument of unbridled terror.  The Trans-Siberian is a monument to the grinding puzzle of humanity:  how grand and remarkable are we, yet how broken and cruel are we as well.  How does one come to grips with such aching polarity?
     Although we endeavor to understand ourselves fully, we really cannot, for we are using our faulty selves to analyze and improve what we consider to be our faulty selves.  We run in circles.  Yet we try anyway, as we should.  As I contemplate the enormous mystery, magic, and tragedy of the Trans-Siberian, however, I wonder:  how long will we look, how long will we wander for what we, in and of ourselves, will never find?
     By the way, this will be my last post for ten or so days.  I leave tomorrow for another mountain foray in the wilds of the American West.  Thanks for reading!

     Most religions talk about the truth.  And most religions encourage their adherents to follow the truth.  As I read, as I have many times, some of the Bible and the Qur'an's verses concerning such things, I got to wondering, as I have many times, how does one do this?  How does one "follow" the truth?
     It seems that if there is truth, and most of us would like to think that there is, it can only be one thing.  Otherwise, it would not be truth.  If all things were true, and if all things were truth, nothing would really be true or truth.  Furthermore, if we are to "follow" the truth, truth must be not just a black and white proposition but an experience, something into which we can step and know.  We can read scriptures, but unless we can experience them, they remain, at best, words.  Wonderful words, perhaps, but words nonetheless.  Without history or cultural and societal connections, words, any words, make no real point.
     So truth must be something we can access if it is to be useful to us.  This applies to scientific as well as literary, philosophical, and religious truth:  it must be tangible and applicable to our lives.  How could it otherwise be truth?  Most of us have read something about the history of religion, humanity's many and often troubled attempts to come to grips with the perceived presence of the truth.  More often than not, the religions that have given people the most meaning have been those which have provided the clearest way for people to "know" the truth.  Only then would they have been able to "follow" in the truth.
     To follow the truth, then, is to experience it in such a way that it becomes palpably real in our lives, so much that it moves us in ways we cannot foresee or imagine.  If we could control truth, it probably isn't truth.  Truth should control us, not we it.  That's what makes it truth.
     So does Jesus say in John 8:32 that, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."  God doesn't want us to mistake him for ourselves.

     How do we trust?  No doubt you have heard people of religious faith advising others when they are faced with situations of tragedy or grief to simply, "Trust God."  Easy to say, of course, so very hard to do.  How do we trust a being whom we cannot hear or see?  How do we trust a presence solely on the basis of the words he has supposedly delivered to us?
     These questions have no easy answers.  Some might say that trust is painless, that is, just let go and "let God."  How hard is that?  Well, on the one hand, it is not.  We let go of what we know to trust in someone whom we believe does.  On the other hand, that's the problem:  on what basis do we trust this someone?
     We begin, some might say, by acknowledging the worth of the communications this someone has shared with us.  We trust his word.  Others will say that although acknowledging the value of the words is vitally important, it is also critical that we learn to trust our experience.  We think about how this someone may have responded to us in times past.
     However, if we do not have a history of trusting, experience means little.  And if we do not see a reason to affirm the worth of this someone's words, we essentially have no basis from which to proceed.
     That's why the writer of the fifth verse of the third chapter of Proverbs remarks, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding."  In the end, to trust God, we must commit our heart, the center of emotion and imagination, as well as our mind, the core of our mental functions, to the task.  We must commit all of what we are.  If we omit the heart, we merely spin the wheels of our intellect.  If we omit the mind, we are shouting out without a clue.  Trusting God demands all of our being.  That's why it's so challenging--and difficult.
     For better or worse, however, if we wish to know life as it really is, we must break out of the little worlds we have constructed, in ourselves, to explain, in ourselves, that which we, in our finite selves, cannot possibly understand.  Otherwise, we'll never see what's on the other side.  And in an infinite universe, there's always another side to find.
     

     How do we balance art and order?  In Death in Venice, Thomas Mann's masterful portrayal of a man whose life unravels when he becomes entranced by the sight of a young boy and who, eventually, succumbs to cholera, we see some clues.  Underlying Mann's narrative is a wrestling with the balance between restraint and excess.  How must a man deal with this kind of attraction and yet remain a part of society?  How should a person indulge her pleasures while conforming to prevailing social mores?  Or should she?
     Art is a funny and wonderful thing.  It requires excess, that is, it must be able to think outside of the box, to ponder what isn't right now, to step into the unknown, boundaries or not.  Good art springs out of honest and determined exploration of possibility.  On the other hand, many of us have seen art (the image of a crucifix submerged in urine; two totally nude people standing outside a museum; a pile of junk on a concrete slab; or a cartoon portrayal of the prophet Muhammad come to mind) which we find silly, distasteful, repulsive, or something else.  We have issues with its boundaries.
     Yet the calculus is difficult.  It's an ordered world--that much is readily apparent--yet it is populated with often disorderly people.  On the other hand, it is often out of disorder that even greater order and meaning come.  One person's disorder is often another's gateway to dream.  Even though I may not find all art sensible, I am willing to look at the bigger picture and recognize that if God is there, everything, things apparently good as well as things apparently bad, occur in a purposeful world.  There is point.  Order is there,  and purpose abounds.  Art defies, and art exceeds, yet all things remain.  It's a curious nexus.
     As it should be.  We're not likely to find meaning, much less God, living in a box.

     My heart aches for Iraq.  It aches for the pain of the innocents caught in the current crossfires of sectarian strife, the people who are not about choosing sides but who simply want to live in peace.  It aches for the losses, personal, material, or both, people are experiencing.  Life seems to be crumbling before them.
     Perhaps the greatest tragedy in this debacle is that it is largely fueled by religion.  How decidedly unfortunate that an experience (and relationship) that can provide much comfort and meaning to us has become the source of tremendous hardship, suffering, and pain.  God, though not the God of those who are inflicting the current brutality, must feel awful.
     According to the Genesis account, after God created the world, he turned it over to his human creation.  Use it well, he told them, use it wisely.  Treat it with kindness, and cultivate its health and longevity.  Although God remains active in the world, he largely allows us to run it as we choose.  If we run it thoughtfully, if we treat it and ourselves well, we prosper; if we do not, we are crushed by the weight of our disenchantments.  So, as Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five often opines, it goes.  Nonetheless, God's vision remains in force.  As to how it will move and grow, however, only he knows.  But it will.
     In that is our only hope, really.  Used thoughtlessly, religion will tear humanity's common fabric and rip it horribly apart.  Interpreted rightly, however, it will weave humanity together in community and cause.  Whether you are religious or not, hope, maybe even pray, for religion.  Hope and pray that the truest embodiment of God in the world, the personal and genuine experience of his love and meaning, will continue to prevail and make itself known, that religion will be allowed to be what it can most be.

     As most people around the world know, yesterday was Father's Day.  Although it is in truth a "Hallmark" holiday, it is nonetheless a day worth thinking about and celebrating.  It's a time to think about and, we hope, celebrate our fathers and, if we are fathers ourselves, to think about what that means and, we hope, to celebrate being one.  All of us are aware, of course, that not everyone has had a positive experience with his or her father, and for this I am very, very sorry.  Moreover, all of us fathers out there have regrets, some a few, some many, about the manner in which we raised (or are still raising) our children.  None of us is perfect.
     I lost my father, very unexpectedly, many decades ago, to a heart attack.  It was shocking then, and it still is today.  Why did Dad have to go so soon?  Happily, however, I have many, many wonderful memories of my father.  I owe so much to him, not just for taking care of me materially, which he did in abundance, but even more for being such a splendid picture of what life could be.  Dad embodied for me life's astonishing potential, communicating about and encouraging me to consider the nearly endless possibilities of existence.  With Dad behind me, I felt as if I could do anything.  His simple words, "Do your best," still resonate with me today.  He was a father, yes, but he was also a friend, a friend whom I miss every single day.
     I am so thankful to God for Dad, so grateful that he and Mom had me, so overwhelmed that God's loving vision bequeathed such a wonderful human being.  Having had Dad in my life underscores for me that although life can be thoroughly confusing, it is nonetheless a fountain of immeasurable joy.  The world is gloriously greater than itself.
     Thanks, God, for Dad, and thanks, Dad, for being my Dad.

     As I indicated I would do, I offer the text/outline on which I based my talk of a few nights ago.  It's not intended to be comprehensive (this would consume many, many books), but it does present the basic elements of the "history" of death as well as the essential fundamentals of each major religion's (and the non-religious) viewpoint on death.

Death and Dying

Religious and Non-Religious Perspectives and Viewpoints

William E. Marsh*

The Fact of Death

•      Death is inevitable:  we all are going to die.  Death is a part of life:  to be born is to         die, and to live is to die.  For many, the fact of death drives life

•      Death is an idea, and death is an experience:  we think about it, we face it, we taste it—but do we ever really know it?  Indeed, how can we?

•      Death is a terminal experience, that is, it’s nothing that can be reversed, and nothing that can be otherwise.  It represents a final extinction, an absolute end to this present existence.  Afterlife or not, death vanquishes and ends, without appeal, present consciousness, awareness, remembrance, space, time, morality, and value:  earthly sentience is gone and over forever.

•      To repeat, for most people, there is a connection, of some kind, between life and death

•      For some, the fact of death gives life meaning, be it a call to live this life wisely and fully, knowing that nothing will follow it, or a call to live wisely and fully, knowing that something will follow life, something whose parameters and conditions are shaped by how one lives it.

•      For still others, death is an interloper, an intruder, a point of grief and anguish; for others, a necessary though perhaps distasteful fact; for others, an entry way; for others, a welcome release; for others, wholly nothing:  it just happens; for others, nothing that one wishes to ever image or contemplate; for still others, a blend of all these and more

Death’s Connections

•      In addition, most people see death as a medium of connection with some larger purpose

•      That is, most people die believing that in some way they will live on, be it in the memories of loved ones, the real or imagined impact of their offspring; the ecological cycles of the planet; the acclaim or hatred of others; the works they have done; the people they may have touched, and more.  Many people tend to think, perhaps want to believe that even if at death they are totally and materially gone, the fact of their life is not.  Somehow, some way, they “live” on

•      Many people draw connections between death and religion and all that comes with it, including transgression, judgment, and sin; sacrifice; the afterlife; and more.  For them, death carries a transcendent moral value, whereas for those who do not see connections between death and religion, death carries a material and worldly moral value

•      Either way, most people view death in moral—broadly speaking—terms

•      In addition, religious or not, most people cope with death according to the five stage process identified many years ago by psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross:  denial, anger, negotiation, depression, acceptance (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying

A History of Death

•      Since the dawn of humanity, every people group, tribe, and civilization on the planet has dealt with death.  Until the appearance of writing, however, we had no good way to discern precisely how people were thinking about it.  Archaeological evidence from east Africa, east central Europe, and the ancient near east (generally acknowledged as the epicenters of human emergence and activity) indicates that “primitive” human beings engaged in a variety of funerary rites and rituals to mark the passage from life to death.  Although we do not have written evidence of religion from early Africa or central Europe (we have an abundance from the ancient near east), we can say with reasonable certainty that judging from the artifacts left behind, religion, of some kind, was implicit in these rites and rituals

•      (See Marija Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses; George Roux, Ancient Iraq; Will and Ariel Durant, Civilization; The Cambridge Ancient History; Olduvai Gorge, edited by George Leakey and authored by Louis and Mary Leakey; W. H. McNeil, The Rise of the West; and many more.)

•      This brings us to the question of the appearance and development of religion.  Many theories have been put forth to explain the appearance of religion in the human race, ranging from Max Müller’s idea of “naturism” (the gods as personification of natural forces); Edward Burnett Tylor’s notion of animism (the idea that spirits inhabit all things); Emile Durkheim’s thought that totemism and ritual constitute the bases of human activity; Sigmund Freud’s contention that religion is a projection of a need for a father figure; and more recently Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins’s (and others) view that religion is an irrational crutch that people invent to feel better about their lives.

•      More broadly speaking, however, it seems clear that if religion is to be regarded, as most sociologists and anthropologists think today, as a vehicle by which people seek meaning in their lives, then religion’s connection with death should be apparent.  In the face in the intractability of death, human beings began to look outside of (and occasionally, even with religion, within) themselves to find answers for it.

•      (See James George Frazer, The Golden Bough; Max Müller, The Sacred Books of the East; Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life; Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, Ego and the Id, Future of an Illusion, Moses and Monotheism; Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity; Rodney Stark, Discovering God; Sam Harris, The End of Faith; Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion; Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great; James Henslin, Sociology; Philip Weiner, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Volume I, Gregory McMahon, Cultic Boundaries in Ritual; Eliad Mircea, A History of Religious Ideas, Vols 1 -3, trans. Willard Trask; and many more.)

•      The earliest written evidences of humanity’s dealings with death appear in the inscriptions of the Old Kingdom of Egypt (roughly 2575 – 2134 B.C.).  Principal among these is the Book of the Dead.  This is a lengthy set of prayers and rituals designed to ensure a supplicant’s safe passage into the afterlife.  It includes penance, confession, petition, and thanksgiving.

•      The first surviving genuine meditation (or as some put it, the “discovery” of) on death is the Epic of Gilgamesh.  Versions of Gilgamesh appear in Akkadian, Sumerian, and possibly Hittite, in Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, and Anatolia.  Gilgamesh, likely named for a historical king (king of Uruk) whose name appears in the Sumerian king lists, tells the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu and their lives together.  They meet after Enkidu, termed a “savage,” finds, through a liaison with a woman, his humanity and, with Gilgamesh, proceeds to roam about the earth.  Their quest is driven ultimately by their mutual anxiety about death and the seemingly ineluctable fact of certain extinction.  In numerous laments similar in form to the early chapters of Job (written later; see chapters 5 - 9), the two men groan, weep, even wail about death and its impact on them and the human race.  Gilgamesh overflows with belief in the presence and activity of the gods, and like the Book of Dead, underscores that the gods ultimately have power over all human life.  (Gilgamesh also contains an account of a global flood, replete with the building of an ark.)

•      (See Wallis Budge, trans., Book of the Dead; James Pritchard, editor, Ancient Near Eastern Texts; and The Epic of Gilgamesh, trans. N. K. Sandars.)

•      Even as the peoples of the ancient near east (and elsewhere in the world) tried to view death in the compass of some sort of divine presence, the Greek culture and, later, that of Rome, produced history’s first recorded dissents to this approach.  Although most Greek thinkers (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) affirmed the idea of God and an afterlife, they did not believe in a personal God, setting the divine instead in their concept of the logos (Phaedo, Phaedrus, On the Soul, and Metaphysics), several Romans rejected the notion of a supernatural and another world.

•      The most well known of these is Lucretius, whose De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), along with Epicurus’ On Nature and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations assert materiality as the prime source of meaning (although Aurelius talked about the everlasting) and reject any notion of heaven or hell or, for that matter, any afterlife at all

•      With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and Europe’s descent into the so-called Dark Ages, the Christian Church gained near universal control over the minds and hearts of the continent’s inhabitants.  Consequently, as monks in France, Ireland, and the islands of Iona and Lindsfarne off the eastern coast of England labored to preserve the learning of Greece and Rome, and kings like Charlemagne and others were crowned Holy Roman Emperor, fusing church and state in a lengthy and painful bondage, nearly everyone in Europe came to believe in an afterlife.  The Church taught its people a doctrine of otherworldliness.  This life is unbearably difficult, it told its people, so focus on the next one and see this life as mere prelude to one far better.

•      (See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic; Arthur Lovejoy, The Chain of Being; Sidney Painter, Medieval Society; Jacques le Goff, Medieval Civilization; Jeffrey Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages; Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society; John Wippel, ed., Medieval Philosophy, and many more.)

•      All this was to change with the Renaissance.  Although most Europeans (and Asians as well) continued to believe in God and any afterlife he may provide them, humanity’s focus steadily shifted from the next world to the present one.  Whereas during the Middle Ages, people regarded God’s grace as superior to nature, during the Renaissance, they set nature—themselves and the world—above God’s grace.  Though most people still believed themselves to be creations of God, they also dignified what they considered to be the goodness and majesty of the human being.  Humanity was the crown of creation, able to do, with God’s help, anything.

•      (See Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance; Frederick Artz, From the Renaissance to Romanticism; Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization; Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?; Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, The Dignity of Man; Marsilio Ficino, The Soul of Man; Pietro Martire d-Anghiera, The Golden World; James Saslow, trans., The Poetry of Michelangelo; Julia Kristeva, This Incredible Need to Believe; and many more.)

•      The Scientific Revolution accelerated this trend.  Although the leading scientists of the age affirmed their belief in God, they came to view the world’s systems, as they discovered them, as the primary impetus for the workings of the planet.  God and his afterlife were still considered to be there, but were largely no longer discussed.  The elements and patterns of astronomy, cosmology, biology, chemistry, all came to be explained without recourse to God.  In addition, the advent of the scientific method tended to render God an assumed yet unprovable assumption.

•      This perspective laid the groundwork for the pivotal event in Western history regarding belief in God and the afterlife, the Enlightenment.  With the Enlightenment, many Europeans came to reject the necessity of God (David Hume and Denis Diderot), the physicality of God (Immanuel Kant), the aseity of God (Voltaire), and more.

•      In due course, this viewpoint birthed the American and French Revolutions and, eventually, the Industrial Revolution.  In addition, it encouraged the rise of modernity at the close of the nineteenth century, whose ethos was perhaps captured best by Friedrich Nietzsche’s memorable phrase, “God is dead.”

•      (See Peter Gay, The Enlightenment; Isaac Newton, Principia; Francis Bacon, Novum Organum; Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone; David Hume, On Miracles, Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion; Denis Diderot, Encyclopedié; Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary; Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science; Birth of Tragedy, Will  to Power; Peter Watson, Ideas:  A History of Thought and Invention; Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence; and many more.)

•      In the aftermath of World Wars I and II, modernity, along with its successor, postmodernity, has spawned numerous and varied ways of looking at death without religion.  These range from the existentialists (life is meaningless, people are lonely, but they are to live nonetheless and see death as just another authenticating experience); to the postmodernists (life is a social construction in which people live as unknowing or absent selves, but they are to cope responsibly with it); to the generally irreligious (life is here, though we are not sure why, but we are to live it as best we can)

•      (See Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness; Martin Heidegger, Being and Time; Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature; Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian; Jesse Bering, Belief Instinct:  the Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life; Jacques Derrida, On Grammatology; Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God; Slavoj Žižek, The Monstrosity of Christ; Peter Watson, ibid.; and many more.)

Death without Religion

•      Responses are varied and often depend on the degree to which a person, irreligious or not, looks at “life” after death

•      For the thorough going atheist, there is no question that death is the final end of her conscious existence and that upon death she, or at least her perception of herself, and everything she ever was, will vanish into a vast nothingness (this is not to say that this person may well believe that her life will, from a social or environmental standpoint, continue to affect or shape the world)

•      For the irreligious but perhaps not unbelieving (in God) person, death is viewed in a countless number of ways, ranging from a belief that she will occupy some type of “spirit” world; a conviction that she will be consciously sleeping for eternity; the notion that she will be united in some way with deceased loved ones; or many other scenarios and visions

•      (See Victor Brombert, Musings on Mortality; Christopher Hitchens, Mortality; Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife; D. J. Enright, Oxford Book of Death; Carol and Philip Zaleski, eds., The Book of Heaven; Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich; and many more.)

•      Some examples of these include Susan Sontag’s admission that, “I’m going to die,” only to break down weeping (from Swimming in a Sea of Death); Larry Miller’s (a friend of mine) opinion that, “After I die, I look forward to talking with Albert Einstein;” Eddie Ostyan’s (another friend of mine) thought that, “Now that I am dying, I will go into the spirit world;” Karl Marx’s retort to his handlers, “Go on, get out.  Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough” (from Famous Last Words); John Keats’s, “If I had had time, I would have made myself remember’d” (from a letter to Fanny Brawne); Jim Holt’s suggestion that we have come from nothingness and one day “will go back into nothingness” (from Why Does the World Exist?); to an North American plains Indian who remarked as he passed away, “Nothing lives long, only the earth and the mountains” (from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee); and many, many more.

Near Death Experiences

•      Opinion differs widely on the authenticity of near death experiences.  Most cases, however, reflect some common themes.  These include visions of a bright or white light; feelings or intimations of care and concern; some sort of reunion with loved ones; unawareness of the passage of time; gardens; gates; and more

•      Although it is clear that those who have had these experiences indeed experienced them, what is not clear is whether that which they experienced actually and factually happened.  That is, it is uncertain as to whether what these people saw in fact exists.  Moreover, it is also difficult to discern the degree to which their prior beliefs shaped what they claim to have seen or experienced

•      (See Susan Blackmore, Dying to Live:  Near Death Experiences; Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life; Janice Holden et al, The Handbook of Near Death Experiences; Lynn Vincent and Todd Burpo, Heaven is for Real; Cecil Murphey and Don Piper, 90 Minutes in Heaven; Betty Eadie, Embraced by the Light; and countless others from religious traditions across the globe, including Hinduism, Catholicism, New Age, Native American, and more.)

Judaism

•      Initially, as we have observed, humans identified the gods with forces of nature.  Beginning around 1800 B.C., however, one sector of humanity, firmly embedded though it was in this cultural ethos, took a different turn.  In the Hebrews (and their modern day representatives, the Jews), we see the first attempt of humans to understand death with a belief in a God who was not a part of nature but rather the creator of it.

•      With a few exceptions, however, Judaism has historically entertained a fairly undeveloped and hazy notion of the afterlife.  Beginning with the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) (Psalm 16, Isaiah 26, Daniel 12) and continuing into the Dead Sea Scrolls, Talmud (with the Mishnah), and the present day, although most of Judaism has affirmed the idea of an afterlife, it has not precisely defined its contours and content.

•      For some Jews today, the afterlife is intertwined with belief in Messiah.  That the Messiah will appear one day confirms the possibility of an afterlife.  For the Orthodox groups that believe Messiah has already come in the form of deceased New York rabbi Menachem Scherr, it is therefore even more incumbent on them to live righteous lives so that they, too, will enter this afterlife.

•      For most modern Jews, however, the afterlife is relatively unimportant.  Far more important is that one lives righteously, that one does good deeds without any thought of eternal reward.  Most critical is that one seeks what is best for the world (a conviction embodied in the phrase tikkun olam, the “healing of the world”), to at all times do what is best for all.

•      On the other hand, many Jews would like to think that an afterlife exists, that there is something beyond death.  But it does not include Hell.  For most Jews, people suffer their hells, whatever they may be, in this life.  The next life is almost always positive and good.  As one rabbi remarked after Dr. Seuss died, “I imagine Dr. Seuss sitting with the children before God (Shem:  the name) and telling everyone stories.”  On the other hand, many Jews will die believing in God (Yahweh) but not necessarily that they will see him upon death.  The most important thing is to die with faith—even if it does not produce eternal dividends—for affirming the fact of God is the most important thing.  Either way, faith in the “Name” is the path to a good, even possibly eternal life.

•      (See the Talmud, in particular, the second and fifth orders (Mo’ed and Qodashim); Hebrew Bible; Tikkun Olam (the journal); Robert Cole, The Spiritual Life of Children; Geza Vermes, trans., The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English)

Hinduism

•      Around the time the Hebrews began to coalesce as a people, the Hindu religion started to take shape in India.  Unlike Judaism, which in Abraham has a definable founder, Hinduism has no known founder, but rather emerged gradually, a mix of Indo-European religion (imported by the Aryans), the Indus Valley culture, and indigenous Indian beliefs.  Hinduism’s theological bases are grounded in a series of writings called Vedas (“knowledge).  The Vedas span from 1600 B.C. to A.D. 300, and are a mix of story, history, theology, and instruction.

•      As a polytheistic religion, Hinduism does not hold to belief in one god, but many, all at once.  Indeed, many Hindus participate in a different festival for a different god every month of the year.

•      Over and above all the gods, however, is Brahman.  Brahman is indefinable, the unconditioned reality, the beginning and end of all things.  Everything comes from Brahman and everything goes into Brahman.  Nothing is outside of Brahman, and everything—good as well as evil, being as well as non-being—is in Brahman.

•      For the Hindu, to live is to strive, through doing good deeds and accruing good karma (from a word meaning “to make”), to become one with Brahman.  The Hindu’s goal is to become part of Brahman.  If one dies with insufficient amounts of good karma, she will live again in a different life form.  This cycle will repeat itself over and over (reincarnation or eternal recurrence) until the adherent achieves enough good karma to be holy before Brahman and consequently subsist, as an atman (soul) with Brahman for eternity.  For the Hindu, this is salvation (moksha).

•      (A major question here is whether the Hindu is aware that she is living with Brahman for eternity.  Answers vary widely.)

•      Unlike the monotheistic Jews, who viewed their lot in the afterlife as dependent on how God judged them, the Hindus see themselves as the arbiters of their eternal destiny.  Their only judges are themselves and their karma.  While sin and holiness are concepts in which they believe, Brahman does not judge the Hindu.  Moreover, although Brahman expresses himself in a personal way through avatars like Krishna or Jesus, Brahman himself is not a personal deity.

•      Rather than pursue harmony with a single god, Hindus, like followers of other Asian religions, pursue balance between themselves and the universe (in the beingness of Brahman).  And they are pleased to use anything in other religions to do this:  Hinduism is eclectic, open to a wide range of religious belief.

•      (See Wendy Doniger, The Hindus:  An Alternate History; Dominic Goodall, ed., Hindu Scriptures; Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads)

Buddhism

•      Buddhism arose as a revolt against Hinduism in the seventh and eighth centuries B.C.  It sought an alternative to what it perceived as the empty rituals of the latter.  Its founder was a prince named Siddartha (“one who awakens”), now called the Buddha (a title that means “enlightened one”) whose words, although he did not write them down, were subsequently recorded and transmitted by his followers across the Orient.

•      Buddhism’s primary goal is the cessation of suffering.  Its Four Noble Truths assert that humans suffer because they crave what is impermanent and that they must therefore pursue the permanent by following the eight fold path of the Buddha.  For the Buddhist, to live is to, through mindful acts and rightful meditation, gradually divest oneself of worldly want or need, to divorce oneself of any attachment to this world and, eventually, achieve salvation (moksha).

•      (The Buddha came into his enlightenment after a lengthy journey of inner conquest and self-abnegation.  See Hermann Hesse’s Siddartha for an intriguing, if fanciful look at the Buddha’s quest.)

•      Like Hinduism, Buddhism believes in karma and holds that those who through doing good deeds and avoiding the impermanent accrue good karma will move ever closer to achieving Nirvana.  Nirvana is a state of total nothingness (anitta), a permanent state of detachment from all that is permanent.  In this state of nothingness, the adherent enters into emptiness (sunyata), the final and ultimate state and foundation of being.  To experience emptiness is to experience the Absolute or Ultimate Void, the Original Substance (the Pre-Socratic Urstoff), the ground of all that exists, the heart of all that is real.  There are no more attachments.  To be fully empty is to in fact be completely full.

•      Although some Buddhists worship the Buddha or various ancillary deities, most Buddhists do not believe in God, nor do most Buddhists believe in heaven or hell.  For the Buddhist, to die rightly is to enter into a blessed state of emptiness in which one is totally free, that is, free from every possible attachment, so free that one finds the beginning of freedom itself.

•      Buddhism sees death as a glorious end of all that one has known because only then will one be completely free.  Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism does not believe that each person is an atman, a soul, and that no one is permanent.  When a Buddhist dies, she becomes what she has been all along, but which due to sin and worldly desire, she could not yet be.

•      Will a Buddhist be aware that she is in Nirvana?  As with Hindus and Brahman, answers vary, but the consensus seems to be that this person will have some degree of awareness of herself but not in the way that she is presently aware of herself.  But it is not fully clear.

•      Also, like Hinduism, Buddhism is in pursuit of not necessarily harmony with the gods, but harmony with oneself and one’s world.  Again, unlike the monotheistic traditions of the Middle  East and West, the Asian religions view universal balance as the most important thing.  Taoism and Jainism echo this sentiment as well.

•      (See William de Bary, ed., The Buddhist Tradition; Tibetan Book of the Dead; Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness; The Universe in a Single Atom; the Purva and Agama (Jain texts); the I Ching; A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Wing-Tsit Chan; and Lao-Tzu, The Way)

Confucianism

•      Confucianism arose around the same time as Buddhism, but in China.  Its founder, Confucius, like Buddha, left no written record, but his followers recorded his sayings and set them in the Analects. 

•      Confucius’ primary concern was maintaining harmony and order (like most eastern religions).  To this end, he advocated kindness and respect in all relationships.  Those in relationships are to serve one another and be loyal to them.  The goal of every man is to become a “gentleman” (“Chün-tzu”) a person who is well read and studiously helpful and kind and respectful to all.

•      Confucianism’s three guiding principles are jen (goodness); li (observing correct behavior); and i, doing what is fitting or seemly.

•      Although Confucianism was more a moral code than a supernatural religion, Confucius talked often about heaven.  Though he never fully defined it, he appeared to frame it within the traditional Chinese commitment to the Mandate of Heaven enjoyed by its rulers.  Confucius likely saw the idea of heaven as a way to connect doing well on earth with a larger ethical ethos.

•      (See Analects; Mencius, The Book of Mencius; Stark, ibid.; Wang-Tsit Chan, ibid.)

Christianity

•      As Hinduism and Buddhism were spreading across eastern Asia, Israel had returned to Palestine after its seventy year exile in Babylon, and the Roman Empire commenced, Christianity appeared in Palestine.  Jesus, a Jew and its founder, left nothing written.  His followers recorded and transmitted his words after his death, resurrection, and ascension, which occurred around 27 A.D.

•      Although Christianity shares much common heritage with Judaism, its vision of the afterlife is singularly more precise, and includes Heaven as well as Hell.  According to Christian belief, if a person has placed her trust in Jesus as Messiah and forgiver of her sin, that person can expect to experience upon death a bodily resurrection and eternal communion in a visible, palpable heaven with God.  Unbelievers will be in Hell.

•      Some Christian theologians believe that in the end all people will spend eternity in heaven with God, and others believe that one will enter heaven on the basis of faith and good deeds.  Nonetheless, Christianity is unanimous in affirming the idea of a material, visible (to those in it), and eternal afterlife, be it Heaven or Hell.

•      (See the Hebrew Bible, particularly Job and Isaiah 40-66; New Testament, particularly 1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4; Revelation 20-22; John Calvin, Institutes; Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, and many more.)

Islam

•      Founded by the prophet Muhammad (“one who praises”) in 600 A.D., Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a religion of the book (kitab).  It is rooted in the writings of the Qur’an (“recitation”), which Muslims believe Allah (“God”) revealed, through an angel, to Muhammad over a period of twenty years.  Composed nearly six hundred years after the New Testament and nearly a thousand after the completion of the Old Testament canon, the Qur’an shares much in common with both.  It reveres the same prophets, including Moses, David, Isaiah, and others (along with Jesus), and continually affirms the idea of one and only one God, Allah, who is, as the Qur’an puts it in its opening lines, “Beneficent and Merciful.”

•      For the Muslim, death means entrance into the afterlife.  For the most devout the afterlife is Paradise (“pardes” or garden, a word borrowed from Persian).  Paradise is the most beautiful place that anyone could imagine, an idyllic land of green trees, copious fruits, still and soothing waters, and eternal companionship.  Those who enjoy Paradise will experience it in bodily form and will be, upon death, ushered into it by Allah and his angels

•      Who will be in Paradise?  On this, Muslims differ.  Some say that all people who believe in God (Allah), including Christians and Jews (people of the book) will be admitted into the Garden.  Others say that only Muslims will enjoy it, and all others will be consigned to the “hellfire.”  Either way, however, Muslims believe that all people, unless they resolutely refuse to believe, will eventually gain entrance into paradise.  Except for a few, Hell is not permanent.  It is a place of purification, a temporary setback on the road to eternity.

•      In addition, although Muslims are to do good deeds and thereby gain greater favor with Allah, in the end, Allah will determine, on the basis of belief, who enters Paradise.  If a Muslim sincerely believes and has done everything she can to please Allah she will, even if she has stumbled along the way, gain entrance.  Like the Hebrew and Christian God, Allah looks at the heart.

•      Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam views the afterlife as a reward for belief and good deeds.

•      (See Qur’an (9:72, 10:10, 11:108), 6:128, 11:106,107, 29:7, 5:18; 6:164, 11:114); Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples; and Fazlur Rahman, Islam)

*  (@2014, William E. Marsh)

     Earlier this week, I met, as I do once a month, with my atheist group.  This time, I presented, at their request, a brief survey of how the world's major religions deal with death and dying.  I also discussed how non-religious or irreligious people deal with the same.
     At one point in the evening, a member of the group, a person who had not been in at least a year, asked for the floor.  Over a year ago, Jim was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.  He was told that he had maybe six months to live.  Happily, he has already eclipsed predictions.
     Nonetheless, Jim is acutely aware that he is facing death, that he is looking the end directly in the eye.  He told us that although he doesn't believe in an afterlife, he still finds the idea of death exceedingly difficult to wrap his mind around.  How does one understand, he said, the fact of total and utter extinction?  How does one grasp the prospect of having absolutely no knowledge of anything--and not being able to know even this?  It was, he said, a thought unlike any that he had ever encountered.
     Whether we believe in an afterlife or not, I don't think any of us can disagree with Jim about the uniqueness of death.  It is an experience unlike any other and, obviously, the last one we will encounter in this present life.  We are loathe to contemplate it.
     One of the last things Jim said, this with tears in his eyes, was that he would be leaving his wife of many years behind, alone and apart.  She would be, he said, on her own, left bereft to fend with existence.  It was a poignant moment.
    I ached, however, as I contemplated, the next day, what Jim had said.  If there is indeed no God, if there is indeed no Creator, as Ecclesiastes 12 puts it, to remember, then we approach the end of our days with multiple and largely insuperable questions. We may fade away pleased with how we had lived, and we should, yet absent an overarching purpose in the universe, we are left to meditate on another of Ecclesiastes' observations that, "The dead goes to his eternal home while mourners walk through the streets."  Life is gone, and we wonder why.
     Yet it is not enough to posit belief in God to make us feel better about our lives.  It is rather to establish belief in God as the only way to explain why, not necessarily that we are here, but that we are here as beings who sense and feel purpose.  Where does purpose come from?  An impersonal beginning cannot possibly have a reason to do what it does; so why do we feel as we, products of the impersonal, have, every day, reasons to live?  Where does this come from?
     It all begins, it seems, with love, a necessarily and thoroughly personal and divine and eternal love.  Finite purpose cannot birth itself.


P.S.  My post tomorrow will present the essential text I used in my talk.

     If you did not see a entry yesterday, it's no accident.  I devoted the day to visiting a friend in prison.  It was a lengthy day and began very early in the morning and well into the end of the day.  A number of years ago, my friend, whom I'll call George, drank more than he should have and subsequently got into his car and set out into the night.  Minutes later, he failed to see a stopped vehicle at an intersection and drove directly into it.  Due to a faulty fuel tank design, the car burst into flames.  Three children were killed.  At his sentencing, the judge gave George (this was his third DUI offense) a twenty-five year prison term, of which he must serve at least twenty-two.
     No one is winning here.  Two parents have lost their children, George's three boys will grow up without their father, the taxpayers must pay for yet another prisoner, and everyone involved has incurred a wound, a deeply tragic wound, which will never fully heal.  The parents have stated that they forgive George, but that he should nonetheless be held accountable for his actions.  George daily expresses remorse for what he did and understands that he will never be able to undo it.
     Yet the pain remains.  How do we redeem it?  The root meaning of redemption is to "set free."  This becomes very clear when we set redemption into the idea of God.  It is then that we see its true character and effect.  Because God is there, and because God is all powerful and all loving, we can believe that somehow, some way, he is working, in love, in this tremendously tragic situation to, somehow, some way set people free from it.  The pain and regret will never go away, but they are not without hope or bereft of meaning.  Life has purpose, life has a point.  Jesus died, and Jesus rose.  Death, inward or outward, is not the end.  God is there.

     How do we determine autonomy?  In an interesting book called Incomplete Minds, Terence Deacon makes the point that the planet’s various systems, be they meteorological, chemical, biological, physical, or otherwise, represent what he calls “autonomous complex systems” that are “inanimate but stable.”  In other words, as I understand it, the complexities of the systems that are woven into the globe are highly complex and largely autonomous.  Autonomous from what?  Well, they did not need anything else to be, nor do they need anything else to continue to be.  They will persist as they are, perhaps changing and adapting to the requirements of a passing moment but always remaining essentially the same.

     Surprisingly, much of Christian theology would agree with this.  After the Flood, according to the account in Genesis 8, God tells Noah that as long as the Earth remains, “Seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.”  In other words, we can be assured that as long the world is here, its essential rhythms will continue.  Even if they experience upheaval, say, droughts, extraordinarily wicked hurricanes, or massive earthquakes, they will continue:  the sun will still rise every morning and set every evening.

     Moreover, on the face of it, these systems do indeed seem to be, as Deacon puts it, “self-organizing,” that is, they shift and weave according to the demands of the moment, yet always succeed in continuing on.  They need nothing else.  Granted, Deacon will readily admit that all of the planet’s systems are interrelated; none can function independently of the other.  Like the ancient Greek idea of Gaia, the interconnectedness of all things, so are the earth’s systems:  they are not absolutely autonomous.

     If this is so, then what is?  A companion question is, does anything, anything at all, need to be autonomous?  Several millennia ago, Aristotle averred that there must be an “Unmoved Mover,” a self-sustaining entity that sets all other things in motion.  Where else, he argued, would anything have come from?  Thinking in a similar vein, modern thermodynamics observes that matter cannot simply pop out of nothing.  Either way, there can be no present autonomy unless there existed a precedent that was completely autonomous.  Interdependency sustains, but it cannot create.  Can anything create itself?

     Well, another school shooting, this time in the Pacific Northwest.  And this was quickly followed a day later by a shoot-out at a courthouse in Georgia.  Total number of dead:  two, one of them the gunman who was apparently trying to storm the courthouse.  These preceded an official posting on the NRA's website disavowing a post placed earlier by a person who criticized those who who gather to parade their guns, revolvers, rifles, and all, in public to promote looser (or no) gun laws.  Granted, as any sociologist will tell us, correlation is not synonymous with causation, but one has to wonder:  if people walk around with guns, concealed or not, are not they, if they perceive themselves in a dangerous situation, more apt to use them?  Common sense tells us they will.
     Although people indeed make choices, in almost every way, their choices are shaped by the culture they inhabit.  We are captives of our context.  I ache for the families of those who have lost a loved one.  I ache for the family of the shooters.  I ache for the shooters themselves.  And I ache for the heart of America (even as I write this, I am acutely aware that people in many other parts of the world are being struck down, for no reason, by gunfire, too).  When will we understand that when we put ourselves and our "rights" first, we are ignoring the cultural captivity that in truth often brings us to assert them? The larger issue is why we are so sure that we know what is best for us when we really do not understand, apart from trusting in a transcendent being, what is good.  Or who we are.
     We cannot escape ourselves.

     Do you remember the Bee Gees?  Although they perhaps achieved their greatest fame during the run of disco music in the Eighties, they had been making (and continued to make) music for many other years as well.  Yet for all their success, their lives have been marked by immense tragedy.  I was reminded of this a few weeks ago as I read a Rolling Stone profile about Barry Gibbs, the only remaining Bee Gee.  He tells a sad story of losing not one, not two, but three brothers.  First to go was Andy, dead at age 30 of heart inflammation.  Next was Maurice, gone at 53 from a heart attack.  Finally, there was Robin, who died in London, somewhat older at 63, from cancer in 2012.

     Although many observers have cited bodily abuse—alcohol and drugs—as the principal cause of these premature deaths, this doesn’t take away the pain.  Who wants to lose three brothers?  Life can be supernally wonderful, but it can also be insuperably tragic.  Yes, the writers of Job and Ecclesiastes make clear that people are born to die, that humanity is destined to suffer, and that life has a futility which nothing about or in it cannot fully undo, but they also celebrates the marvelous and amazing gift that life is.  "Enjoy life!" says Ecclesiastes 9.  Whether or not we assign the source of the gift to God, we can still marvel—and wonder—at its astonishing proportions:  who thought of life?

     I said “who” because I cannot see how an impersonal nothingness could ever think about, much less birth or "produce" anything, particularly life itself.  Life is a tremendous mystery.  And it's always standing before us.
     So how will we explain it?

     What are we do with humanity’s apparently insatiable need for religion?  Do we accept it?  Or do we agree with Sigmund Freud that it is simply a coping strategy driven by primeval sexual and relational longings?  Or do we side with Ludwig Fuerbach and say that it is no more than a projection of desire?  Or do we conclude that it is simply, for better or worse, irrationality and confusion?

     We could go on for quite some time debating why religion persists.  I share this much because as I was reading, again, the final sections of James Frazer’s massive tome, The Golden Bough (much of which, by the way, has been rejected by most social scientists today), I noticed anew how although Frazer reduces religion to a cultural impulse, he also observes that no matter what form it may take, religion has remained a steady presence in the human community for the entirety of the latter’s existence.  It will not go away.

     If we set aside the contention of some that this indicates that we are all born with a “God shaped hole” which we must fill, we might say that religion’s persistence may say something highly significant about human beings.  That is, it says that most people by and large believe, almost instinctively it seems, that they will not find full meaning unless they look beyond themselves.  Whether they view the supernatural as explanation, coping strategy, or epistemological conviction, and even if they think that it or God are more often than not largely hidden and silent, most human beings want to believe that some level of the supernatural, be it inanimate or personal, exists.

     The seemingly growing cadre of atheists in the West and the violence of some religious fundamentalists notwithstanding, it’s hard to believe (no pun intended) that over six billion people suffer from the same delusion.  

     Have you heard of Ed Whitlock?  Unless you participate in the world of running, you have probably not.  At 83, Whitlock is amassing an amazing record of performances.  At the age of 81, he ran a 3:30 marathon; at 73, he ran a 2:54 marathon.  A year before he ran the 3:30 marathon, he maintained a 6:55 per mile pace to win the Canadian Masters Championship in the 5K. 

     We can be rightly impressed and awed by Whitlock’s achievements.  He is having a great time!  And perhaps that is the important thing.  At an age when most people are consciously, whether by choice or circumstance, slowing down, Whitlock is speeding up—in a big way—enjoying each day.

     We of course do not need to match Whitlock's achievements to appreciate and enjoy each day.  But we can appreciate the picture he presents of the tremendous potential of existence.  Though existence is finite, it is nearly endlessly malleable.  And though existence will one day end, it can bequeath astonishing things until that day.  It’s all a grand balance, really, remembering our finitude (presented so clearly in Psalm 39) while appreciating our eternity, our ever present drive to find the absolute fullness of our very limited time (see Ecclesiastes 3:11).  Teleological beings that we are, we are driven to be.  Although we are limited, we are purposeful and free.

     This is precisely what God said to Adam and Eve (look at Genesis 2).  Here you are, he said, and here is your world.  You’re here for a reason, you’re here to be.  Give it your best.  As should we:  live for today, consider tomorrow, and believe in eternity.

     Is language a reflection of value?  Does the way we put words together indicate our moral posture?  So does linguist Daniel Everett contend in a book he published a couple of years ago.  The way we assemble our words, the way that we construct our grammar, the way that we develop connections between signifiers (in the view of famous linguist Ferdinand Saussure, another word for “word”) says volumes, Everett claims, about the way we frame and assign values in our world.

     In addition, as many have suggested, language reflects the culture out of which it has come.  For instance, the reason that the Eskimo languages have so many words for snow is the environment the speakers occupy a good part of year.  Or the reason that Christian missionaries who work in certain parts of South America in which a pig is revered as the holiest of all animals have taken to describing Jesus as the “pig” (not the traditional lamb) of the world is simply to fit the context of the mother tongue of the area.

     What can we then say?  What we say reflects how we feel, be it emotionally or morally, yet we construct what we say on the basis of the culture and the cultural assumptions with which we are most familiar.  So language reflects value, but as to what is value, well, there’s another question, one we cannot resolve on the basis of language alone.  Language will only do what we tell it to do, and even then it does not always do that.  If we wish to know real value, we need to determine where we stop and morality begins, for as long as we remain the constructors of value, we remain captives of our tongues, saying much but solving little.

     Morality must exceed how we represent it.