The actual philosophical discussion of an afterlife is interesting. However when it comes to a religion, it's not really a discussion.
It's carrot or stick.
"Behave yourself and be nice and you go to a nice place forever etc."
"Don't do what we say, or even believe in us, then you go to a nasty place forever etc."
What both carrot and stick have in common that to experience them, you have to be dead. So either ways, you have to take the priests word for it - faith y'see.
Apart from in fiction (such as A Christmas Carol), are there any reports of spirits via a medium or seance, or a ghost, that say "Cor, lummie - I wish I'd listened to the reverend - the amount of suffering and torment on this side of the veil would make yer eyes water"?
Or do spiritualist churches have a form of pre-selection to filter out the non-comforting?
This is apart from 'pronouncements' by demonic entities which seem to be a separate class of paranormal being.
Well, at least some religions have a philosophical approach of the topic. The pity is that, because of politics, lazyness and because not everybody is inclined towards philosophy (or trained to develop a curious mind), manichean "carrot or stick" beliefs tend to spread far and wide at the expanse of more subtle reflexions. Yet, both have their positive, valuable "uses".
In Buddhism, for instance, according to the "Prajnaparamita sutras", our lives are considered an illusion. And the same is true for our so-called "afterlives", be they located in Heaven or in the numerous buddhist under-worlds. Neither of these existences are considered "true". They're all fictions, like dreams or mirages. The dreamer takes the characters in his dream for himself, and rejoices or suffers according to their adventures. He can only break free by waking up, hence the name of this doctrine : Buddhism is the religion of the "bodhi", which means "awakening" (
no relation whatsoever with "wokism"). What lies after the "awakening", nobody can really tell ...
" Carrot & stick" is not always used for heinous purposes. In Buddhism and sister religions such as Tibetan Bon, it is also a tool to encourage "deluded" people towards spiritual progress. When your frenzied neighbour is about to murder his whole family, it might be expedient to appeal to his fears (by threatening to call the police) rather than to enter a philosophical debate on the unethical nature of his acts ... So, the issue is not so much about the tool ("carrot and stick") but about the "intention" of the one using the tool.
Now regarding the lack of after-life spirit feedbacks :
There are plenty of documented feedbacks from deceased people supporting the "carrot & stick" vision of the afterlife. Unfortunately, one can suspect that they most of the time purport an ideological agenda, precisely because (1) they support a "carrot & stick" vision, (2) they are documented by living people ... who can always be suspected from telling stories which support their own views.
Here are a few examples :
* The last books of Plato's Republic tells the "myth of
Er the Pamphylian", one of the earliest recorded NDE histories. Er, a soldier left to die on a battlefield, revives long enough to tell what he saw of the afterlife. To summarize to the extreme, what he reports fits extremely well with Plato's philosophy of self-control (foolish people choose the wrong afterlife, sages like Ulysses, prefer a modest after life). So can we trust the great philosopher ? Does he give us an impartial view of Er's experience ? And did Er even really exist ? Probably not.
* In the Middle Ages, in Catalonia, a popular song tells the story of
Comte Arnau (Count Arnau) a cruel noble man who comes back from hell mounted on a demonic horse, to harass his former wife. She's very surprised to see him alive and unwell. The undead count asks the permission to take their daughter back with him. When his wife rejects his demands, he goes on to describe in ominous terms his current condition, and ends up requesting some prayers to alleviate his pains.
The whole story is so typical of the catholic beliefs of the era that it can hardly considered a reliable testimony ...
For those interested, you can listen to this medieval song in Jordi Savall's CD "Cancons de la Catalunya Millenaria" (
https://www.amazon.fr/Cançons-Catalunya-Millenaria-Jordi-Savall/dp/B002JKBL66 )
* I am sure everybody here knows about the story of
Odran of Iona : the monk who was buried alive to sanctify the foundations of Iona's monastery. When disintered, he alledgedly revived just long enough to tell that he had seen hell and that it wasn't all that bad ! WHich prompted his saviours to re-bury him immediately. The humourous story is still told to the tourists visiting Iona, but I can't trace its origins. In any case, can we consider such a testimony reliable ? Probably not.
And what about mediums ? Could we trust their tales just because they say they spoke with great grandpa ? Even if they do not represent a "religion" (and some actually do), they also have their agenda.
NDE's are interesting, on the other hand, because the actual witness, is the one who tells the story. And it seems that although some people do experience "hellish" or "paradisiac" experiences in NDE, it is not necessarily correlated with their own belief system. I can't find back the website where I saw these stats but it appears that the more "orthodox / religious integrist" victims of NDE thereafter tend to adopt more moderate views about religion & the afterlife [but "god" knows what biases went into the study collected this data, and which source I can't locate].
So all we know is that we cannot know anything. I guess I should be ashamed to conclude thusly such a long development. Sorry ! :-D
