|
Update: 2018.01.01
Diametrically opposite from Tōr•âhꞋ, the Hellenist/Christian notion of afterlife is a refinement of the earlier Egyptian mythology of Duat, documented in their Book of the Dead; Hellenized in the Christian Καινής Διαθήκης as the domain of the Greek god of the (Egyptian tradition) netherworld and brother of Ζεύς — Ἅδης.
While typically mistranslated anachronously by Hellenist and Christian goy•imꞋ as Gei-Hi•nomꞋ or the "hell" of Greek and Roman (Latin) mythologies, in reality – and Scripture – what follows physical life is "the great unknown" (i.e. question).
The simple-minded notion of bodily physical resurrection derives from the misty shroud of antiquity; Egyptian and other mythologies. These mythologies originally evolved from ancient anecdotes of comatose individuals, assumed dead, who awoke, during burial or after having been sealed in a burial cave (later finding scratch marks trying to get out), often as zombies having suffered brain-damage as a result of oxygen-deprivation. So well-known, and feared, was this phenomenon that the custom evolved to check for "bodily resurrection" 3 days after sealing a tomb.
Any intelligent person today should be able to see that bodies are recycled into basic elements, becoming elements of, inter alia, subsequent human bodies. Those dying in the sea become food for fish, eaten by people, becoming part of subsequent human bodies. Those buried on land are recycled into plants; some eaten by people or other animals, in turn eaten by other people, etc. The most basic particles of our bodies were, at some time in history, likely the most basic particles of other people; just as some particles of our body will someday constitute the body of some future person(s). So, if a body is to physically resurrect, to whose body do which particles belong?
It's silliness to think that our sentience – ruꞋakh or nëphꞋësh – depends on physicality of any kind. The afterlife cannot be physical. Ergo, "heaven" cannot be within the physical universe. Nor can any physical attribute apply (light, touch, smell, sound, taste). ùàåì is a non-physical universe for sentience, our ruꞋakh or nëphꞋësh.
Some argue that there is no after-life. I ask: who among you hasn't had a beloved relative or pet in their past? If it were in your power to bring back that relative or pet, would you? Is the Creator, Who made the effort to design and construct our universe and us, for His Omniscient Purpose, less loving and caring than we, His children? Is it not within the Power of Him Who created us to preserve our nᵊphâsh•otꞋ?
Non-physical implies the non-existence of every one of our 5 physical senses, for which there must be some, better, substitute we can only imagine. Without physicality, it's impossible that we would "see" a "light" in the way near-death accounts suggest (big difference between near-death and death); nor hear, nor feel, nor smell, nor touch. One way to relate to a non-physical ùàåì is through today's cyber-cloud of social connections. Will your sentience – ruꞋakh or nëphꞋësh – be entirely disconnected; self-aware and alone forever in the most absolute sense; absolute sensory deprivation forever? Like Schrödinger's cat that has no contact with the outside world and no one can ever see in? To the rest of humanity as if the person no longer exists? Though sentient, when absolutely disconnected from anyone else do you then exist? If connected to other sentient beings at all, limited to what other groups of ruꞋakh or nëphꞋësh? The Biblical principle of Ha•vᵊdâl•âhꞋ dictates exclusivity. Exclusively evil and malevolent? Or exclusively qōꞋdësh – including ha-Qâ•doshꞋ, bâ•rukhꞋ hu? The latter can only be attained through keeping Tōr•âhꞋ to one's utmost, making tᵊshuv•âhꞋ for any shortcoming, and thereby receiving, on that condition, ki•purꞋ from the graciousness of é‑‑ä.
 |
|
 |