Wednesday, 7 June 2017

A Perennial Issue

The question of a hereafter has been an issue on the blog:

Ysan souls are heard to go somewhere;
Dahilis returns as a seal;
Dahut lingers and has to be exorcised;
Budic is seen in a hereafter;
SM Stirling's Wiccans are dead serious about their Summerland;
some of Poul Anderson's characters merge with AI's in a technological hereafter;
we discussed the issue here.

It is on my mind again because British imams are refusing Muslim funeral services for terrorists killed by police.

Years ago, a parish priest told a neat story from his own experience of a Bishop refusing Christian burial for a young man who had left the priesthood, then changing his mind when someone who had known neither that X had left the priesthood nor that he had died, claimed to have seen Father X among other clergy attending an ordination service in a Cathedral. (Mistaken identity but it meant something.)

At the moment of death, I hope to be alert, letting go and expecting nothing. I would like a few more decades of life to be better prepared. I request that of any relevant deity.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm EXTREMELY skeptical it will be possible to download human personalities into an AI, while still finding such speculations fascinating. A technological hereafter seems so STRANGE to me!

Sean