Halloween is once again upon us. The modern version is yet another holiday meant for children to receive treats. Tricks are discouraged.
So are any hints of celebrating evil. Hence the alternatives, like fall festivals and harvest celebrations. Glow-in-the dark skeleton costumes and pretend cemetery scenes mock the fear of death.
Materialists are quick to dismiss the idea of life after death, although they are tickled to give miniature Snickers bars to toddling skeletons or ghoulish apparitions who manifest near their front yard spider webs and jack-o’-lanterns. The only way you can conclude, “After I die, I’m only worm food,” is to start with the assumption that the supernatural doesn’t exist. Of course, the opposite is true for those who do believe in an afterlife.
It’s worth pointing out that whichever assumption you start with doesn’t change reality. “I assume no one does Halloween anymore” wouldn’t make it go away. Throughout history humans have explored and embraced the idea of a powerful mind behind our existence and the possibility of immortality.
To dismiss the consensus of history, i.e. “the democracy of the dead," is to commit “chronological snobbery.
" Are we smarter than they? Of course, there are various views of an afterlife, like successive reincarnation or becoming one with the universe. The Christian hope can be expressed simply as resurrection. To be absent the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor.
5:8). Jesus demonstrated power.
