From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Wed Mar 12 2003 - 15:01:39 GMT
Hi Platt,
I've been musing about this line of questioning. Views about life after
death are very diverse - diverse within Christianity as much as between
Christianity and other religions. For example, in the twelfth century in
Western Christianity there was a shift between viewing the resurrection as a
corporate event at the end of time, to being a personal judgement and
vindication. It's a bit of a distortion to think that Christianity depended
on the appeal of life after death. Clearly the Resurrection was the defining
impetus for Christianity, but how that was understood, even in New Testament
times, was never monolithic - compare Paul's account in 1 Corinthians 15
with the various gospel stories, from Mark (empty tomb) through Matthew and
Luke (miraculous appearances) through to John (eating meals with the
disciples and having Thomas stick his hands in the wounds). (Those are in
date order, by the way)
Moreover, the simple sense of life after death that you seem to think
accounts for the appeal of Christianity is one that is, to say the least,
spiritually untenable, as it is too egoistic. 'Those who seek to save their
life will lose it' and all that. Christianity is geared around a
renunciation of the ego rather more than it is geared around the ultimate
salvation of the ego. That you find both Wim and my views on the matter
surprising - especially if we are otherwise fairly typical
Christians/Quakers - might say more about the general preconceptions held by
our society, rather than reveal the truth about Christian faith.
Which brings me to Pirsig. He seems to be thinking of human life in general
being maintained, rather than the existence of any one individual. As such
I'm not sure it makes sense to think of it as a form of 'life after death'.
Is he thinking of the maintenance of the biological level?
Also relevant are his comments in Lila's Child about the difficulties of
making individuality anything substantive. If he thinks individuality is
ultimately an illusion it makes it a bit difficult to maintain any coherent
sense of life after death.
Rather than say he is non-religious, it might be more accurate to think of
Pirsig as being Zen Buddhist. There's quite a bit of evidence for that,
after all!
I'd be happy to pursue this topic further, if it was of interest.
Sam
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