What would a world be like without the “idea” of heaven? How would people behave? What would they live for?
The pre-literate Greeks of Homer’s day did not apply the balm of eternal life to their troubled psyches.
They lacked the conception of a paradise of the type Christians believe in, no sense of reincarnation such as the Hindus expect, and no Muslim vision of eternity. They didn’t anticipate a reunion with relatives and friends who had predeceased them.
Instead, death led to a trip to Hades, the underworld, where habitation was a pale, unattractive shadow of their past life, not something to be eagerly awaited. If we wish to know how men survive without the notion of a hereafter, we might look to these people.
Remember, too, the brief lives of the pre-literate Greeks (the Greek alphabet is thought to have come into use around 800 B.C.). Even at the turn of the last century, about 1900, the average American lived only about 50 years.
Greek literature and philosophy point to two driving concepts that motivated males. (I speak of men, because women were extraordinarily disadvantaged, seen as having almost no role beyond sex, companionship, rearing children, and domestic handicrafts).
Honor and glory drove men. The former came in the accumulation of goods, precious metals, enslaved people, concubines, and the like; in other words, material things or humans to be used.
Like recent times in some ways, perhaps?
In our world, honor is conferred by status and objective things—the size of your house, the amount of money in your bank account, a trophy spouse, the car or cars you drive, etc.
Glory (the Greek word kleos) is another matter. What might kleos have consisted of to the ancients?
It took the form of a reputation or fame continuing beyond death. Lacking the written word, you and your accomplishments had to be outsized enough to generate long-lasting discussion, song, and story.
In war, one could hope to attain both. He might grasp the honor attached to sacking cities and accumulating wealth, enslaved people, and sex partners; and the glory of having the fearlessness, strength, and courage in battle, sufficient to cause others to sing your praises after your death.
Not the regret portrayed by Christopher Nolan’s recent movie version of Odysseus.
As I mentioned, today’s world doesn’t strike me as much different from yesterday’s on the point of achieving honor, although we are a little more discreet about our sexual conquests. At our best, we have risen above keeping slaves, but the treatment of those who do not match our religion or race has returned to the level of disgrace in many places.
On the subject of glory, we and our contemporaries appear to do everything we can to avoid death, which in ancient Greece instead meant risking one’s life on the battlefield and slaying enemies.
Whether you believe in heaven or not, the “idea” of it has provided some civilizing effect on the human species. There are more ways of getting to heaven in our cosmology than killing people. We display imperfect attention to what the Bible says about showing generosity to strangers, nonetheless.
Our domain also includes souls without religious faith who have dispensed with the expectation of living on in any form of continued awareness beyond the time of their earthly demise.
Not in words or writings, imposing buildings bearing their name, photos or videos, businesses or charities or foundations surviving them, students they have taught, artistic creations or inventions, or visits to their grave.
Not in making the planet a better place for those who succeed them, and not in the biological output of children and grandchildren who continue their genetic line.
These can be understood as part of a legacy and as worthy on all counts. As atheists reckon it, however, they are not permitted any posthumous consciousness of a life’s work after one’s passing.
It is hard to give up the idea of glory; some posterity—the hope for an afterlife—isn’t it? We are humans not so different from those who came before us.
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The first painting is Teiresias Fortells the Future to Odysseus by Henri Fuseli, 1800. Next comes Odysseus and Circe by Bartholomeus Spranger, 1580 to 1585. Both are sourced from Wikiart.org.
