Christian afterlife

[Lohrenswald]

unusual thread, but I've had this on my mind for a while, and while my preference would be asking a theologian of some kind, or "christian historian" or someshuch, I think asking the "general public" can be interesting too.

Now I've never studied christianity hard. I had classes in school, but they're not vivedly remembered. And eventually I became a "hardcore atheist", which is a label that has some baggage today, but that's a whole other thing.

Anyway so I've gradually developed this understanding over my life, from catching bits and pieces here and there. But it goes against the commonly held understandings, which I speculate is something that's grown over time from the middle ages, and that this "fake" view has eventually become more palatable.

Short version of the "fake view", as I believe this is not the real christian belief, is I think well known. When you die, your "soul" leaves for either heaven or hell, in the former often thought as you become an angel. How literally this is up and down, depends.

Now here's what I mean is actually the case (or the actual christian view):
When you die, you are put to rest in the ground. You're lieing there, doing nothing. This is why you can say "rest in peace". This is how ghosts can fit in, people who are dead but not resting in peace. If you're in hell, you're obviously not resting in peace, if you're in heaven, you would maybe be extatic in stead.

Another thing that fits with this is the disaster of drowning at sea. Then you're not resting in the earth.

And the english phrase "ashes to ashes, dust to dust", I really don't understand. I'd dismiss it as some mistranslation. Here the priest says to the person getting buried: "From earth you've come, to earth you shall become, from earth you shall again arise"

And so this is where the afterlife really comes in. The end of the world begins, and all those who've died, who've been resting in peace for centuries and millenia, rise up from the grave, completely physically with bodies, not some vague ghostly soul. They're then judged, the sinners either go to a kind of hell or are just destroyed, and the people deemed worthy of eternal life, live eternally here on the earth. The earth is transformed in various ways, I kinda remember something about the ocean dissapearing, but the thing is they rise from the grave and don't have any further vertical translation, and then get to live forever.

And this is my notion of what the christian religion "actually" espouses, but I see it very few places. Do you think I'm right? absolutely wrong? partially right in some aspects?

 

[Farm Boy]

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Approximately: From ashes to ashes, dust to dust

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

We do have an 'Ask a Theologian' thread run by @Plotinus.

 

[Lohrenswald]

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Approximately: From ashes to ashes, dust to dust

yea I guess my main issue is the third part is missing

I'll like concede defeat on that point, mainly because I don't care much about the specific details (like the drowning thing) as the main idea

which is corporeal resurrection at a future date (for everyone at the same time), rather than "spiritual afterlife" immediatly after death

 

[Lohrenswald]

We do have an 'Ask a Theologian' thread run by @Plotinus.

yea and I asked a question there before which he didn't answer. I think that thread ought to be considered discontinued

I would like to hear from him the most out of everyone here though, obviously

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, that fits. But there are also an incredible number of Christians that believe, with complex theology, that heaven and hell are populated now. And the building of the New Earth will cause reconstitution into Earthly forms.

 

[Farm Boy]

From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I like purgatory as a concept the older I get. Nothing ever returns exactly the same.

 

[AdamCrock]

You opening this much it is only fair to open to You as well. By my understanding You are not joining anybody , because You already are joined. We all are - that is why God left only 1 (not 10 like in old Testament) true commandement - which is to "Love each other", You are a part of God as much as a junkie dying in his trash. The commandement of love is therefore as strong , because God IS that junkie needing help or that poor man You despise, or that alcoholic You hate , Somehow , and I do not not how and why we are all joined , we are all GOD. "And whetever You do to the least of us You do to me"

 

[Birdjaguar]

Christianity is not monolithic and there are more than one interpretation of what happens after death.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Christianity is not monolithic and there are more than one interpretation of what happens after death.

I mean I can't deny change and like, living human culture

but like, there was an original idea, shared by few, later growing. At certain points, figures of authority do things to reduce this kind of spread.

I suppose I could read the bible.

I guess my point is I feel what I'm saying is more "original". I also suspect it's a view more held by theologians and priests than lay people.

A common thing to point out is that there's no specifiying what fruit the tree of knowledge was bearing, despite it often being depicted as an apple. And I feel to some extent the apple view has lost some traction to the favour of "generic fruit"

Another thing is like the rapture, which also is often pointed out isn't in the bible. Many serious christians believe it. My suspicion is that outside "charismatic protestantism", most clergy do not believe in the rapture (I suspect partially for the reasons of what I'm saying, It's not that people are whisked to heaven (the sky), but that the dead rise from the ground).

I hope the comparison like makes it clear what I mean.

(Another thing that struck me now is such movements as uniterianism that like are kind of christian only as much as that's the origin of it, it's so changed you could almost classify it as another thing, but that's really another topic please don't start talk about uniterianism instead, I ask everyone)

I feel I should try explaining further in other ways but I hope it makes sense

 

[Birdjaguar]

Another thing is like the rapture, which also is often pointed out isn't in the bible. Many serious christians believe it. My suspicion is that outside "charismatic protestantism", most clergy do not believe in the rapture (I suspect partially for the reasons of what I'm saying, It's not that people are whisked to heaven (the sky), but that the dead rise from the ground).

The rapture is an eschatological theological position held by some Christians, particularly within branches of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."[1] The origin of the term extends from Paul the Apostle's First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, in which he uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize," and explains that believers in Jesus Christ would be snatched away from earth into the air.[2]

The idea of a rapture as it is currently defined is not found in historic Christianity, but is a relatively recent doctrine of Evangelical Protestantism. The term is most frequently used among Evangelical Protestant theologians in the United States.[3] Rapture has also been used for a mystical union with God or for eternal life in Heaven.[4]

This view of eschatology is referred to as premillennial dispensationalism, which is a form of futurism.

Differing viewpoints exist about the exact timing of the rapture and whether Christ's return would occur in one event or two. Pretribulationism distinguishes the rapture from the second coming of Jesus Christ mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation. This view holds that the rapture would precede the seven-year Tribulation, which would culminate in Christ's second coming and be followed by a thousand-year Messianic Kingdom.[5][6] This theory grew out of the translations of the Bible that John Nelson Darby analyzed in 1833. Pretribulationism is the most widely held view among Christians believing in the rapture today, although this view is disputed within evangelicalism.[7] Some assert a post-tribulational rapture.

Most Christian denominations do not subscribe to rapture theology and have a different interpretation of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ, and most Methodist and Reformed Christians do not generally use rapture as a specific theological term, nor do they generally subscribe to the premillennial dispensational views associated with its use.[8] Instead these groups typically interpret rapture in the sense of the elect gathering with Christ in Heaven after his second coming[9][10][11][12] and reject the idea that a large segment of humanity will be left behind on earth for an extended tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17

 

[Lohrenswald]

Christianity is not monolithic and there are more than one interpretation of what happens after death.

there was also the possibility to me before asking that all this is something I've somehow dreamt up and not true of christianity at all. By Elmac's answer I know believe this not to be the case

I guess I should also adress

You opening this much it is only fair to open to You as well. By my understanding You are not joining anybody , because You already are joined. We all are - that is why God left only 1 (not 10 like in old Testament) true commandement - which is to "Love each other", You are a part of God as much as a junkie dying in his trash. The commandement of love is therefore as strong , because God IS that junkie needing help or that poor man You despise, or that alcoholic You hate , Somehow , and I do not not how and why we are all joined , we are all GOD. "And whetever You do to the least of us You do to me"

So you're not being clear. I don't know who you're really addressing. If it is me, like, you can't put christian values or whatever in me. I have my own understanding of the world without god, and it is a bit bleak considering the type of bonds you're talking about. But that's a whole different thing

my question is what do (authorative) christians think. Maybe you're trying to answer that.

Now I can sense a sort of, "metaphysical" thing you're describing. I'm positing that in the future, the people worthy of eternal life will like have all the nice things. You're saying we're already one with god. I understand
But like, the physical and very concrete reality exist. I was going to say that the christian view is jesus literaly walked around in palestine 2000 years ago. But maybe it's all a metaphor in some way? Perhaps, but we are not. You and me are very straightforwardly, without any sort of metaphor, pressing down buttons on keyboards. christianity has a long history in europe, lay people and clergy have lived and died. There's no iffyness about at some point having a corporeal body, being able to move around, and then stop being able to move around, and being buried underground.
So I guess my question to you: will the dead very literaly get living bodies again and rise from the ground, or won't they?

 

[NovaKart]

I have heard of people not rising until the day of judgement but it’s not such a comforting view so people generally don’t talk about it.

Also, I’m pretty sure the scriptural Christian view is that dead people don’t become angels, who are an entirely different form of being and were never humans, but this is also not a popular point of view.

 

[Birdjaguar]

And the english phrase "ashes to ashes, dust to dust", I really don't understand. I'd dismiss it as some mistranslation.

IIRC that phrase is not actually in the bible. It is a paraphrase of several different bible verses.

 

[Kaushad]

Your idea sounds like that of Jehovah's Witnesses, except they don't believe in ghosts, so "rest", until judgement, is inevitable.

Also, I’m pretty sure the scriptural Christian view is that dead people don’t become angels, who are an entirely different form of being and were never humans, but this is also not a popular point of view.

That's interesting. I tend to associate that idea as something laymen say to comfort grieving parents, although I don't know many people fully believe it or how widespread it is.

 

[Birdjaguar]

the point is, do the dead rise from the grave and live eternally without "changing dimensions", or no?

No they don't.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Your idea sounds like that of Jehovah's Witnesses, except they don't believe in ghosts, so "rest", until judgement, is inevitable.

Do I or you have any reason to say that the Jehovas witnesses in this case are not just being clear about what's a more fundamental point in christianity?

I once asked here about if people got ascencion day off work. One person expressed he'd not heard of it before, and suspected it to be a fringe thing of smaller christian sects (like JW), but the ascencion is a central thing, and the date marked by every single denomination

 

[Lohrenswald]

No they don't.

should've made it RD

I didn't want to because I didn't want to be overbearing or stuffy or something

 

[Birdjaguar]

I can make RD if you want. tbh I'm not sure what your question is or what you are looking for from posters. Help me out.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Whoa there is a lot to consider here and I will need some time to fully understand what you're asking. I can however say that in response to your statement of the rapture not being in the bible, it truly is.

The prophet Elijah was raptured in a fiery chariot and taken straight up into heaven. He never experienced death.

Noah's ark was a kind of rapture type. The ark represents the Lord Jesus and those who went on the ark did not experience the flood but were rescued from it.

In the New Testament we have a few examples as well.
See 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Edit: What does RD and DE mean when you create a thread?