Can your pastor, cleric, minister, priest, vicar, rabbi, pujari, brahmin, monk, granthi, sheik, imam bravely let you ask difficult questions and answer without shutting down the subject matter to further debate? Do they hide ignorance behind a veil of indignation? Well a pastor probably can’t help with big questions, for example, nothing is recorded of Jesus’ teachings or any teachings in scripture of how it is decided where we go after death. If it is binary, or a three-way decision, how does Lazarus get distinguished from the rich man (as in Jesus’ teaching about the Rich Man and Lazarus)? The ancient Egyptian Anubis answer seems to be the only one on offer. The scales weighing good and bad actions, good and bad points. How does this follow on from death? Has Jesus ever revealed it through the Holy Spirit? I can imagine some church in history being told it by prophecy and maybe it being recorded in some records somewhere like the Vatican or some secret annuls in Ethiopia or Mount Athos. It would be nice for clarity on what determines each one’s destination before the resurrection, whether burning or refreshed or waiting to be avenged. How can a pastor help? Or moreover, how can scripture knowledge help since in the Rich Man and Lazarus lesson Abraham implied the answers and warnings are all in the scriptures. Even the Book of Enoch has sparse detail on the subject, though it emphasises restraint from violence as a key tip. How kind or otherwise to the poor warrants one destination from the other?
