Sells,

I did not question your materialist view, only the compatibility of one sentence you made with the belief in e.g. a personal salvation by a wide scale of Christians from the philosophically most simple-minded to the philosophically most sophisticated.

You are right that today only a few literalists and historicists believe that e.g. the Earth was created in six days some 5000 years ago, although a few centuries ago that was a universal Christian belief. They have a conflict with natural science, which is not the case with belief in personal salvation that could be overridden by science.

You know, with some of the horrors and crap that I've seen and experienced, both in Vietnam and later the coppers - and being a complete atheist, I suppose it wouldn't be too bad to believe in something really good ? Some sort of salvation or whatever you wish to call it, when we reach the end of our lives ? Instead of being interred, 6ft down and suffer the indignity of decomposition, or spend our allotted 60 or 70 minutes in the 'retort' at our local crematorium ? An exiting prospect no doubt ?

"I am glad to say that emphasis on the afterlife is waning in most churches and in scholarly circles it is commonly acknowledged that the kingdom of God is an earthly reality of justice and love."

Yes it is good that there is less emphasis on the afterlife, but that doesn't change the validity of the afterlife itself, it only means that we should rather concentrate on how we conduct ourselves in this very life.

Earthly justice and love are indeed better than earthly corruption and hate, but even that is short of the kingdom of God which is beyond all this, so it seems that the author is aiming too low.

"Thus the church is coming closer to the Scriptural conception of death as the end of human individual consciousness."

The Jewish scripture does not elaborate on the concept of death simply because it is useless to do so:

"It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down to the place of silence; it is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore, Hallelujah."
[Psalm 115, 17:18]

No scripture can teach the dead for the obvious reason that the dead have lost their memory along with their bodies and brains and also their eyes and ears, so for scripture to attempt to instruct them is wasteful.

While death certainly marks the end of human individual consciousness, being a human individual is only an illusion to begin with, so in fact nothing is lost!

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Dear David,

<<Since there is no evidence that death is not the end we should accept that it is the end and act accordingly.>>

So should we commit all manner of crimes when our death comes near and we believe that the police would not have the time to catch us?

While concentrating on the afterlife is a waste of time and energy, one should still consider its probability, which even if one believes to be small (due to lack of evidence), one should still consider the overall statistical expectation due to the weight that such a possibility carries.

Yuyutsu wrote to me: "So should we commit all manner of crimes when our death comes near and we believe that the police would not have the time to catch us?"

Please leave me out of your 'we'. I have no desire to commit any crimes. Crimes generally hurt somebody else. I have no desire to hurt somebody else. I can't stop you if that is your desire.

Dear David,

Neither do I have a desire to commit crimes, nor do most people, but temptations exist and if someone believes that the only way they could ever get what they always wanted is one that isn't kosher and on the other hand they also believe that this is their very last chance to get it because death is the end of all, then what's there to stop them from acting on their temptation?

Dear Yuyutsu,

If the only reason one doesn't commit a crime is that they either don't think they can get away with it or some big Daddy in the sky is going to punish them after they're dead they're not a very good person. Maybe you are the kind of person who is kept from committing crime because you don't think you can get away with it or you will be judged after you're dead. I am not that kind of person. I am not tempted to commit crime.

If one hopes to gain by a crime and one will be dead soon it doesn't make sense to commit a crime. I would rather spend my last moments with my loved ones or doing something else pleasant. I don't understand. Why would even a bad person with only a short time to live spend that time spend that time committing crime? Doesn't make sense.