Religious identity and perceptions of afterlife gleaned from a funerary monument to a young girl from (late) Roman Melite

Possibly late during the Roman occupation of Malta, a young deceased girl had a funerary monument set up in her memory by her loving mother. Analysis of both epigraphic content and iconographic elements on this monument would show that the mother; at least, is likely to have been originally a public slave but later achieved manumission, a status which remained to be enjoyed by herself and by her daughter. Moreover, they seem to have adhered to the then commonly held beliefs regarding the nature of death and afterlife. Yet, identifying their beliefs on the nature of death and afterlife did not prove sufficient to determine their religious identity as such beliefs were evidently shared by different religious groups.peer-reviewe

Virtuous Life, Honored Afterlife and the Evolution of Confucianism

Confucius states that we must not focus on the afterlife, because we know so little of it, and we must focus on everyday life. However, Confucianism holds a philosophy of afterlife, even if it is not outright said or depicted. This paper will aim to prove just that. First, through Confucian ideals of being a dutiful person, to grant yourself an honored afterlife, and second, through how Confucianism influenced other religions such as Buddhism and Daoism, which will show a clear depiction of afterlife by considering death rituals, festivals, commune with ancestors, prayers, tomb decor, and the ideology of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism – you will begin to see the depiction of afterlife within Confucianism. But also, you will get to see how Confucianism has evolved and took on traits of both Daoism and Buddhism, which in turn is called Neo-Confucianism. Furthermore, the paper also taps into the history of Confucianism within Modern China. When communism took power, it obliterated Confucianism within society, culture, and government. This left the Chinese people without an identity and there was a revival of Confucianism within China

Do children think of the self as the soul?

Journal ArticleBering's work provides new insight into the child's concept of the self. For his results indicate that children don't regard bodily identity as required for identity of self across time. Bering's methodology for investigating afterlife beliefs might also be exploited to explore the extent to which children think that psychological similarity is required for sameness of self

Will there be races in heaven?

Drawing on work in the Philosophy of Race, this chapter argues that the existence of races in heaven is either incompatible or only questionably compatible with the mainstream Christian view of the afterlife. However, it also argues that there is a phenomenon adjacent and related to race that can exist in the afterlife, namely racial identity. If one thinks of racial identity as a kind of practical identity, it turns out that racial identity is primarily psychological. Thus, its existence in heaven is compatible with the mainstream Christian view that people with some semblance of human psychology continue on after death. Furthermore, the chapter offers reasons to think that we will need racial identities in the afterlife to facilitate forgiveness and reconciliation. Finally, it suggests that preserving racial identities from this life to the next is, on balance, preferable

The supernatural guilt trip does not take us far enough

Belief in souls is only one component of supernatural thinking in which individuals infer the presence of invisible mechanisms that explain events as paranormal rather than natural. We believe it is important to place greater emphasis on the prevalence of supernatural beliefs across other domains, if only to counter simplistic divisions between rationality and irrationality recently aligned with the contentious science/religion debate

Survival of the most memorable : Darwin’s textual afterlife through rhetoric in On the Origin of Species

The unassuming Charles Darwin did not invent the theory of evolution. However, one reason why Charles Darwin specifically appears as the figurehead for evolution, and not somebody else, comes from his rhetorical endeavour to create a textual afterlife for himself. Creating a personal afterlife for yourself within your written works is a trait that scholars have observed as a goal within many literary poets, authors, and scholars of the 19th century. Darwin, apparently, also imbued himself into his writings, especially On The Origin of Species, to create his own textual afterlife, one that would survive the other evolutionists of his era. Darwin survived by creating his own textual afterlife through the rhetorical elements of identification with his audiences and transcendence, concepts theorised by the 20th Century rhetorician, Kenneth Burke, strategies that Burke argued were the most fundamental to persuasion. I will show how Darwin survives the other evolutionists by creating his own textual afterlife that would connect to and exist in the collective memory of not only his contemporary Victorians, but also generations of people who would come cross Darwin and his theory of evolution.peer-reviewe

The Copernican Principle, Intelligent Extraterrestrials, and Arguments from Evil

The physicist Richard Gott defends the Copernican principle, which claims that when we have no information about our position along a given dimension among a group of observers, we should consider ourselves to be randomly located among those observers in respect to that dimension. First, I apply Copernican reasoning to the distribution of evil in the universe. I then contend that evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life strengthens four important versions of the argument from evil. I remain neutral regarding whether this result is a reductio of these arguments from evil or the statement of a genuine evidential relationship