David Shatz - What is an Afterlife?

What does it mean to have an ‘afterlife’? Are there different kinds of afterlives? What would it feel like to be in an afterlife? If one samples the various afterlives on offer from the world’s multitudinous religions, one would be forgiven for being confused. Here’s the core question: If there is a an afterlife, do individual personalities persist?

David Shatz is the Ronald P. Stanton University Professor of Philosophy, Ethics, and Religious Thought at Yeshiva University and editor of The Torah u-Madda Journal, a journal devoted to the interaction between Judaism and general culture.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[jmanj]

I like the line at the very end, the one about preferring action over receiving an award.

Go Bluejays!"

🙂

[chrisdistant]

I kind of hate the idea of selling people on something that they will never live to verify/falsify.

Kind of scummy, actually.

[jamesruscheinski]

soul is maintained in natural way? develops with natural life, then continues on from natural life?

[DamienMcKinnon]

How do we know for sure we're not in one right now?

[marcusboy]

If anyone is interested read a few books. One called silver birch speaks. Many books on topics. Also white eagle speaks. And seth material. Not religious dogma. It will open your eyes

[ChildofGod]

There are so many different obstacles that I face as a single mom. Some days I want to give up. God give me strength. I’m struggling to make ends meet. Both of my sons are special needs and require much from me. I keep faith because I know that God will provide. So as I struggle to buy groceries for my children, and as I struggle to pay rent every month. I turn to you Lord Jesus help me. Amen ❤️

[wthomas]

You have to question the motives of anyone selling the idea of an afterlife.

[kevanhubbard]

I tend to favour a pantheistic or panentheistic view of merging with a Universal Soul.

[chayanbosu]

God Sri Krishna explained in Bhagbat Gita very well.

[TheUltimateSeeds]

Ask people like Joseph Merrick (aka, the "Elephant Man") and others with like him with severe physical deformities, how they feel about bodily resurrection. I suggest that the human body is nothing more than a sort of "cosmic placenta" that is left behind after the soul is born out of it via death. Think of cemeteries as being "gardens of afterbirth."

[francesco]

an afterlife can be just consciousness in a "no-time" environment

[tedgrant]

An afterlife is a bit like an empty box but without the box.

[xxxs]

How will you resurrect a body if it was ashed? Resurrection of any is a spiritual one.

[scott-qksm]

Endless consciousness would be a nightmare

[richdiana]

There is no afterlife without a brain, a body, and senses. Humans can't handle the truth.

[PhillipYewTree]

David is describing the opinion of others. He has no evidence. But one day he will experience the truth.

[jonnanderson]

In an infinite universe, there is room for every theory.

[BDizzleMySchnizzle]

Then there is the original Hebrew belief that there was pretty much nothing after death. Just the grave.

[rochford]

What is an Afterlife, well time will tell?...and that applies to all things, we're all part of whole on a Universal scale!...still l would love to see those who have passed again, or maybe its a pipe dream?🤔

[biorbfan]

When we die is it possible to be reborn back in time ? not as if everything goes forwards ?