Steve - I agree that there is a need for ongoing dialogue about this - in almost every case when the state has a endorsed a "State religion" problems arise...and even in America, where there is a lot of freedom to choose one's religious practice and to carry it out unimpeded, we still see many trying to use courts and legislative actions to limit or remove one or another group's rights [sometimes even private citizens rights] to practice their own religion peaceably. I certainly do not have any easy answers: this country was designed to allow tolerance of diverse ideas and views, but our international policies and actions seem to me, at times, to belie that. and internally, many of us are very intolerant of other's worldviews...I hope the Dalai Lama's decision plays out as he hopes... As for the USA, If Christians would take the lead in promoting religious tolerance it might help...I find it hardest to be that person when it comes to my closest associa
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Subsequent generations of people will reuse some of the same atoms that are in our bodies. But they will not be us. If people possess some quality that endures beyond this physical sphere, then existence in that sphere must necessarily be profoundly different, experience in that sphere must be profoundly different, and our notions of attachment are likely to be profoundly different. So the suggestion that our attachments here will translate directly to that sphere seem naive, at best. One might as well ask, will I want anchovies on my pizza and will I still be addicted to coffee?
Well, scripture is clear that they aren't married in the next life, but more than that I don't think we can say definitively. It appears that people continue to be recognizable as themselves. They do many things, mostly praising God, but other things as well.
Thanks - I also remember reading "A Severe Mercy," by Sheldon Vanauken [and I believe Lewis may have written a preface or an endorsement of that book?]...In it the author claims his deceased wife was present in his life for awhile, in spirit, after she died...