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God and the Art of Toy and Diecast Marketing
The Afterlife (part 1 of 2)
By Lu Su
"Do you believe in an afterlife?" I asked both of my friends sitting in front of me.
The waiter had just brought our drinks. We were seated at this dimly lit Asian fusion type of restaurant near Saint Patrick's Cathedral. In comparison to my two friends, I was way underdressed. They were in suits and polished black shoes. I knew they had some appointments earlier that day. I knew that, but they weren't so forthcoming with that detail.
"We got dressed up just for you Lu," William said earlier.
I have absolutely no recollection on how we got onto the subject of the afterlife (life after death). Maybe walking by the Cathedral had something to do with it. But I was pleased, because it's a topic that rarely comes up in conversation.
Have you noticed how we humans are drawn to stories? We just crave them. It doesn't seem to matter what country or what century you are in. Humans seem to have had multiple venues to read, listen, or see a story. And we Americans crank out the stories and influence the world with them. The medium we use most is either books or motion pictures -you know movies. Just like the subject of the afterlife rarely comes up in conversation, it also rarely comes up in movies. But every once in awhile, a writer and director will portray their take on what the afterlife is like. I sit up and take note because I like to see how it squares with my world view on destiny.
Ridley Scott is probably one of my favorite directors. Some movies he has directed included Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, and Gladiator. He's very good in setting up the scenes and pulling the viewer into the story. I think Scott's particularly talented in making you feel the angst the main character is struggling with.
I bet most of you have seen the movie Gladiator starring Russell Crowe, so I don't think I would be spoiling the ending here by taking about it. Here the writer with the help of Scott shows us their depiction of afterlife. Russell Crowe plays a characters named Maximus who is like this 5 star General for the Roman army. But he's tired of serving. He's sick of fighting. What he longs for is to just return home to his wife and son. This is a video clip of the end scene to Gladiator. If a little blood makes you squeamish, don't view it.
If the embedded video doesn't play for you, here is a link to the end scene to Gladiator.
In my opinion, the afterlife depicted in Gladiator is a beautiful one. It's not a place where you we make war or striving for power, money, or control. It's a place of peace and tranquility. It's a place of the freedom that so eluded Maximus on this world. Realize before he was a slave who turned into a gladiator, he was a slave to the military arm of Rome. What the Spaniard so wanted was to just return to his wife and son -back to them on their farm. Note that the afterlife depicted in this movie is totally contrary to the afterlife in many world views.
Atheists do not believe in an afterlife; but the movie depicted one. Many Eastern world views believe in this concept of rebirth or reincarnation; so after your death you get to come back (usually looking very different) and back into this world; this view was not depicted in this movie. In the afterlife presented in this movie, Maximus is still himself in his own body. He gets to keep his memories and the opportunity to be reunited with love ones. In this afterlife, the ego continues to exist in a body that can touch and feel.
The Christian world view believes that there is an afterlife. Christianity teaches a concept that we have a soul. And the soul will continue to exist, even after our mortal bodies fail us. Now after Christians kick the bucket, here's the big kicker -we get a new body. Our soul continues to exist in a body. After our death, we aren't ghosts floating about with the opportunity to whisper stuff into Demi Moore's ears (like in the movie Ghost). We actually get new physical body.
We call this concept of coming back to life again in a new body resurrection. When we are resurrected, it not just a spiritual resurrection but a bodily one as well. As demonstrated by Jesus, a resurrected body gets to touch, feel, and even eat. You even get the chance to do the Michael Jackson moonwalk, if you haven't taken the time to learn the movie with your current body.
This particular term (resurrection) is almost always used in conjunction with the word "dead". So it can be kind of scary and gross at the same time. Hollywood often portray resurrected bodies quite differently, like in movies like Frankenstein or one of the many vampire or zombies movies. Apparently Hollywood's version of people with resurrected bodies have just one thing on their minds -Arlo Guthrie's lyrics "I want to KILL, KILL, KILL." But not just our culture, many cultures and world views think that a resurrected body would be gross. Much of this kind of thinking stems from the belief that the body is bad -bad in an evil sense.
So many of these new age religions want you to purge all the food and liquid out of your system; it's your body hampering your mind in finding (fill in the blank). Hinduism or Islam does not teach that Krishna or Allah could become a mortal man. This is understandable, given the axiom that the body is bad (evil), God incarnating into one is not even a possibility.
"Yes, definitely" replied William. Will's background is that he was brought up in the Catholic tradition. His answer squared with the Christian world view.
"What about you Stu?" I asked. "Do you believe in an afterlife?"
"I don't know." replied Stu.
"You don't know?" I asked lifting one eyebrow and doing my best Chinese version of Dr. Spock.
"I believe there's probably something," replied Stu "but I'm not sure what that something is."
"What are the rabbis teaching in his synagogue these days?" I thought to myself.
The reason why I was a bit surprised by his answer is because, I consider Stu a fairly devout and practicing Jew. He attends synagogue regularly, serves as a trustee in the synagogue, and I just assumed that Judaism would naturally address the four big questions in life: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.
Christianity and Judaism both believe that the Torah (also known as the first five books of Moses) is Scripture. We believe that Scripture is God's word (revelation to man) -so we believe it is True. In Hebrew the books are called B'reshit, Sh'mot, Vayyikra, Bemidbar, and D'varim. The Greek-Latin-English translation of these names are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
I want to challenge you to start thinking more of the afterlife. If it exists, it seems that you'd be spending more time in that life than this one.
I think the best way to find out the answers to the question, "Is there an afterlife?" would be to ask somebody who knows. Not someone who thinks they know, but someone who really knows. And then compare their answer to Scripture, which we know to be True. But who knows the answer? Who could we put our complete trust in? Can we trust Ridley Scott's depiction of the afterlife? How about Shirley Maclaine's view of the afterlife?
It just so happens that a group of very devout Jews asked Jesus Christ this very same question. But it was asked in a way by giving him this really bizarre scenario. Next week, let's look at the scenario, the question, and Jesus' answer to the question, "Is there an Afterlife?"
