So what does our fascination with tales of the afterlife tell us? A few things, but the most important recurring theme in Entertaining Judgment is that we partake in narratives that ease anxiety about our lives. In other words, stories about the hereafter make us feel better about the here.<\/p>\n
Tales of ghosts, for instance, \u201cbeckon us forward toward our future . . . to become the people we are called to become.\u201d\u009d Stories from people who returned from the dead might \u201cshine a light into the unknown and tell us something that might assuage our anxieties\u201d\u009d; they tell us that human beings can change and grow. Vampire stories satisfy \u201cour desire for an eternal life in which we will be perfected\u201d\u009d and \u201ctap into our spiritual and emotional desires to have that which is good now . . . and could only be better when we are perfected spiritual beings.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Demons and devils may be symptoms of our failure to \u201ctake ourselves and our own evil seriously.\u201d\u009d Angels teach us that \u201cwe are endowed with choice . . . that it is really up to us.\u201d\u009d Tales of a heavenly realm have \u201chelped to dry the tears of the suffering and offered the possibility of some greater meaning in our earthly lives.\u201d\u009d Hell, too, can assuage doubts about the world\u2019s goodness: For \u201cevery real-life spectacle that appalls or irritates\u201d\u201dracial cleansing, chemical warfare, children kidnapped and held as sexual slaves, stop-and-go traffic\u201d\u201dhell offers itself as a partial explanation, and as a powerful [image] that helps to explain, at least to some extent, the existence of such cruelty and suffering.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n