ISBN After Lives ( A Guide to Heaven Hell and Purgatory ) book English Hardcover 480 pages

One of the most profound deeply affecting questions we face as human beings is the matter of our mortality—and its connection to immortality. Ancient animist ghost cultures Egyptian mummification late Jewish hopes of resurrection Christian eternal salvation Muslim belief in hell and paradise all spring from a remarkably consistent impulse to tether a triumph over death to our conduct in life. In After Lives British scholar John Casey provides a rich historical and philosophical exploration of the world beyond from the ancient Egyptians to St. Thomas Aquinas from Martin Luther to modern Mormons. In a lively wide-ranging discussion he examines such topics as predestination purgatory Spiritualism the Rapture Armageddon and current Muslim apocalyptics as well as the impact of such influences as the New Testament St. Augustine Dante and the Second Vatican Council. Ideas of heaven and hell Casey argues illuminate how we understand the ultimate nature of sin justice punishment and our moral sense itself. The concepts of eternal bliss and eternal punishment express—and test—our ideas of good and evil. For example the ancient Egyptians saw the afterlife as flowing from ma'at a sense of being in harmony with life a concept that includes truth order justice and the fundamental law of the universe. It is an optimistic view of life he writes. It is an ethic that connects wisdom with moral goodness. Perhaps just as revealing Casey finds are modern secular interpretations of heaven and hell as he probes the place of goodness virtue and happiness in the age of psychology and scientific investigation. With elegant prose a magisterial grasp of a vast literary and religious history and moments of humor and irony After Lives sheds new light on the question of life death and morality in human culture.