If you believe in an afterlife consisting of a spiritual nature, how will we know that we are still ourselves and that other people are actually who they say they are. Like from the readings from the book, if a friend dies, and you have only recognized that person by the physical appearance, how do you know what their spiritual appearance will look like? What if these two different appearances are the same people but look different from how we remembered them, how will we know if they are telling the truth or not. On earth we have an understanding of who we are, but after we die there is no possible way for those still on earth to conclude that a person still lives on after death, but then again we may not know what spirits look like. For all we know the trees we walk past on campus could be the spirit of great grandparent, just with a different physical appearance.
Steven Lippman
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Whoa, trippy! I like it, it sorta reminds me of the BFG; where all those dreams are just floating around in mid air; and the big friendly giant would go around bottling them up or passing them around to other people (roald dahl short story).
ReplyDeleteI think people who believe in an afterlife / spirituality in general; consider the concept of our ephemeral identity to be something of an afterthought in the whole life/death business. I guess, they all figure that we will just 'know' where / when / who everyone is, thats important. Who knows, maybe once we die we become semi-omnipotent / blanket presence creatures?