Last Judgment (Post) (Rogers) n. 90

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90. [90.] I spoke with some Muslims about the resurrection, telling them that Christians believe the resurrection will first take place with the destruction of the world, at which time their bodies will be united with their souls, and will be gathered from every direction in which they were dispersed. But in the meantime, according to them, they are spirits, which they imagine to be like puffs of wind, particularly puffs of breath, which they picture therefore as flitting about either in the upper atmosphere or in outer space, without hearing, sight, or any other sense. There they wait in expectation of the Judgment, they say, and so, too, those who have died from the first dawn of this earth, who have thus been flitting about in the universe now for six thousand years. Moreover, some think these spirits are together somewhere, in what is not so much a place but some limbo or other, and also that angels are of a like character. Christians can scarcely comprehend that after death a person lives as a person as he did in the world, I said, for they are unable to entertain the idea of a spiritual body; but still, when not thinking in accordance with their doctrine, they think of themselves after death as living as people, as they do when they are close to death. So it is, I said, that those who eulogize the dead write openly of them as being among the angels, as speaking with them, clothed in white garments, living in paradises. But as soon as they approach ideas from doctrine, they think as I said, of a person after death and of an angel as being like a puff of wind. After I finished speaking, the Muslims then replied that they were surprised it was possible for such a misconception to prevail among Christians, who claim to be more enlightened than the rest of mankind, saying that as Muslims they knew they would live after death, would live in a happy state of marriage, and would drink wine, and this after they had cast off the integuments which as their outmost clothing in that gross sphere had served them there as a body.


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