Supposing there is an afterlife
 

What three people within it do you want to meet and why?
Abraham Lincoln-For doing what he saw as being right no matter what the prevailing opinion, putting millions of lives at risk for a cause they had mixed feelings about, for emancipation purely on moral grounds despite there being no idea of the consequences of it. I'd wanna talk to him about morals and ethics

Martin Luther-For putting the lives of himself and all around him at risk by criticising the most powerful organisation on earth, for standing firm on his principles no matter what, and to ask him how he feels about the fact he plunged Europe into chaos simply by doing the right thing.

Elvis Presley- How must it be to revolutionise the world accidentaly, and be acclaimed as a genius despite only being yourself, and how it feels to be so betrayed by those around you and to know you squandered so much potential.

beethoven - come on. you should know why.

john lennon - **** YOU, dying young

god - if there's an afterlife, there's a god. i could learn anything.

You think the emancipation of slaves in the south was based purely on moral grounds?

It certainly wasn't socially or economically viable, as seen by the disaster of Reconstruction and failure of the "40-Acres and a mule" proposition.

He was a politician, it was a political decision. Lincoln needed popular support for the war and so he gave it a moral impetus. He was just as much a racist and believer that blacks were an inferior race as anyone else at the time.

Only a racist by our standards. By the standards of his time, such as those of Stephen Douglas in the 1858 debates on slavery, he was actually one of the more enlightened. What must be remembered is that the idea of different races living amongst each other in a state of equality was an unknown concept. His use of racial slurs and confusion as to how to carry out Reconstruction are the failure of 19th Century Society, not just him.

I'd like to meet people like Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei and Leonardo DaVinci. These are all people I greatly admire. I think I've been day-dreaming about meeting Leonardo since I was a kid. Of course I'd love to tell them how right they were and teach them a little something as well as in my imagination, they're always quite inquisitive and interested in what we have discovered in modern times.

These meetings and dialogues are probably better in my imagination than they would be for real could I ever actually meet them, but hey - they're my fantasies. :p:

though the reconstruction was hard, lincoln was not trying to think that far ahead in terms of freeing the slaves. he freed them simply to preserve the union and end the war.

i quote lincoln..."My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

but as far as being a great president...yes he was truly one of the best. he saved the union...did end up freeing the slaves...and was a brilliant political mind.

i would want to meet:

jfk - he is just one of my favorite historical figures and i would want to know what he knew about what was really going on in the government those days.

mozart - so i can get his opinion on the direction of popular music.

god, also - yeah you can pretty much know anything with this guy...assuming we are going with the christian version of the afterlife.

Leonardo DaVinci would be one of the first people I'd make a b-line for, along with Alexander the Great and George Best.

But he was a crook, and possibly the worst US President.Every criticism of the Bush adminstration was equally applicable to Kennedy/Johnson.Doubtless he would approve.

i'm debating whether or not i should rebut this...i've gotten into the jfk argument so many times i just don't know if have the energy again...

I just personally can't stand the man.He's seen as a hero in Ireland despite the fact he was accomplished very little, was a racist, slowed down Civil Rights compared to the Presidents before and after him, the Cuban Missile Crisis was his own fault for being so unnecessarily aggressive, he was an adherent of the ridicoulous Domino Theory,and couldn't manage the economy.

I'm guessing your knowledge of US history is pretty slim if you think JFK was one of the worst presidents. He might not have been the most apt at his job, but as far as "worst" presidents go he isn't even in the top ten.

My knowledge of US History is reasonably good.I heartily dislike Kennedy, but Andrew Johnson,the two Bushes,Ford,Carter,Buchanan and Hoover(despite being an outstanding man) were all worse.JFK remains a disaster though.

before this debate requires the use of hard evidence i just want to point out that despite what his accomplishments look like on paper, he has one of the few presidencies where what truly matter are his goals and worldviews. now, i have no clue where you got the racist stuff...in fact johnson thoroughly ended a lot of civil rights movements that kennedy had attempted to set in motion. but as far as everything else goes one thing that needs to be made clear is how ineffectual and ridiculous the two party system in the US is. kennedy was a democrat surrounded by conservatives, and was criticized and fought at every turn. his own cabinet members, including the vice president, attempted to end every policy he tried to make.

kennedy was a president truly elected from what the people wanted and came out of nowhere for the republicans. and he was assassinated for it.

Throw in John Adams, Andrew Jackson (despite being the coolest pres ever), Woodrow Wilson, and maybe Grant and we've got oursleves a party.

jackson may have been instrumental in the terrible treatment of native americans in this country...but the guy walked around with bullets in his chest and ran the country with constant debilitating pain. i wouldn't cross him...

Is any of this serious? Some of it seems tongue in cheek. If you are serious I really can't tell.

Half-serious.I would like to meet all 3.

Nikola Tesla - Incredibly refined Serbian American with a predilection for the inventive and innovative, one of my personal heroes and one of the greatest scientists to ever live. His work is probably far more important to the modern world than anything Edison ever did and he was a great supporter of the arts as well. Sadly he suffered greatly under his rival's domain and died in significant debt as a result.

Frank Zappa - Perhaps not a favorite musician, Zappa was nonetheless an imposing force within the music industry. He represents to me an extraordinarily distinguished individual who was very strident in expressing social commentary, both within his own music and in public venue. In spite of his apparent lack of formal education, I think perhaps Zappa was one of the few true "intellectual" musicians.

Grace Kelly - Take a guess.

I hate Nixon the worst. And not because of Watergate.

^
glad to hear it...that is such a cliche reason to hate nixon. there are plenty of other reasons to hate him.

ewwww


Actually that brings to mind an interesting question regarding the afterlife. If we are to assume that it exists, must we assume that its inhabitants are perpetually in the mental and physical state they were in as death came upon them? That would be annoying to say the least. And it means Grace Kelly would have been... really old.

I don't see how they could be in any physical state at all.

That's one aspect of the Christian/Jewish/Islamic idea of the afterlife that puzzles me somewhat.Would I get Vegas Elvis,Lincoln with a horrible head wound or a very old Martin Luther, as opposed to the essence of the man as he spiritually was, not how he physically appeared?

I think that the idea of having an actual body in the 'afterlife' is just a common way of visualizing it, and is easier to understand and accept.

That reminds me...
For the folks in here that believe in a soul/spirit...
What's it made of?

*scratches head*

The soul?It's a metaphysical entity.Dosn't have to be "made" of anything.

Jackson was a ruthless, land-grabbing, bullying dickhead. But I guess you kind of have to be those things to be a US President (although land-grabbing has been out of style for a while now).
I can't believe anybody is choosing any US Pres. as a dead person they want to meet if they can meet 3 dead people. I do think US Presidents are interesting and, in fact, focused my undergrad work on one of them (Jefferson) but, christ, all of them are relatively boring and horrible if we're talking about all of human history.

So why do we have one hiding, and trapped, in our body, and how does it get out when our bodies die?
How come physical tissue can trap it there?
And how does it know how to jump between dimensions? Does it use Stargate?

Well, I'd consider the body to be the matter, and the soul to be the form, or the essence of something by virtue of being what ultimately defines one individual from another.

You've never studied neuroscience have you?

Don't...
It will ruin your belief system.

Because he was a Quaker?

How is saving the union in itself something positive? What is intrinsically bad about there being two Americas?

And people tend to ignore the fact that the slavery issue was only a minor cause of the war, compared to the tariffs and the taxes imposed in the south in their international trade. And Lincon's opposition to slavery was, as mentioned, not moral, but rather populist and economic (the abolition of slavery was seen as a requirement for industrialization in the south). Never before has the fact that the victors write history been more evident than in the case of the American Civil War. Lincoln was an *******, as was Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. I really don't see why Americans feel that they have to idolize these people, they were all hypocrites.

To return to the original topic, probably Oscar Wilde, Hitler and Napoleon. Wilde for being generally awesome, and Hitler and Napoleon because they had an exceptionally large influence on the history of Europe, and to hear their first-hand accounts would be gold.

I'll agree that Washington, Adams, and Franklin were all pretty much jerks who get glorified for dubious reasons, but Jefferson? Come on, Thomas Jefferson was the man! Of all the deist pussies who lead the American Revolution, he is perhaps the only one I actually respect and admire.

He viewed blacks and natives are little more worth than cattle, I fail to see what's so good about him.

did you read my whole post? i'm pretty sure i mentioned that stuff about lincoln. and preserving the union was good, in my opinion, because it would have only resulted in continuing slavery (despite it not being lincoln's main goal...emancipation DID happen) as well as further wars and territory disputes.

and jefferson was awesome. you have to start remembering that you can't put the standards of today on the people that lived over 200 years ago. jefferson, despite having slaves, treated them well and had them because, well, it wasn't taboo. if you lived in that time and had money i would be hard pressed to think you wouldn't own slaves. in 200 years people may think it was incredibly stupid and insensitive to drive around in an internal combustion engine polluting the atmosphere, but i'm sure you don't think much of it now.

this post in no way is endorsing slavery...i'm just showing how someone's reputation can't be judged by our current standards.

The fact one was imposed by the rich upon the poor for purely selfish reasons.

I was going to explain but it would be a waste...

...because there is a certain ridiculous irony to that whole post, Lincoln, Franklin are ... and Hitler in heaven ... I'm speechless

I'd really want to see my family. particularly my little cousin. I could care less about these interesting people, they don't mean anything to me if I'm no longer on the planet, LOL!

What other standards do you suggest we view them with expect for our own? If we aren't able to judge people throughout history, then all wrong-doings in the past suddenly becomes immune to criticism.

It didn't say "Supposing there is a heaven", it said "Supposing there is an afterlife". I'm quite certain that if there is a hell, Hitler is there.