Thinking about Harold Camping's end of the world prediction has caused me to think about the reasons "we" hold on to so many odd ideas. I think it is the way we look at the world. Each of us has assumptions about the world, our ways of looking at the world. Most people tend to be in the same political party as their parents. They look at the world with Democratic or Republican eyes. We also tend to belong to whatever religion we were raised in. Our whole world view is inherited. Or course this is not true for everyone, but as a general rule it seems true. Our culture makes us what we are.
Our world view, what I am going to call our templates, is how we perceive the facts around us. Part of leaving Babylon is to understand that our templates are corroded by our cultural inheritances and our past decisions. It is difficult to look at the world fresh, but absolutely necessary. As Socrates supposedly said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
In my first podcast I will talk about some of the templates people use to interpret the book of Revelation—some false, some true. I know you can hardly wait! But until then if you want to think about our religious templates you can consider the template of hell. "Our" view of hell is derived, not from the Bible but from our culture, even including cartoons. So while you are breathlessly waiting until I do the first podcast next week, you should consider Pam Dewey's blog on Hell. She is trying to show us how to peel back the learned false assumptions we have about hell by looking at how we got to where we are today in our pop culture view of the afterlife.
Is this True?