Eschatology

Their favourite subject was eschatology.

It really sucks when scatology turns to eschatology, or the other way round.

This week I will be doing a series on personal eschatology.

Eschatology is the study of end-times.

Which do you like better about your religion, the soteriology or the eschatology?

According to the eschatology of your modish religion, this world would end soon. My Auntie Modie and Uncle Lex waited and waited, but they passed away without witnessing the end of this world. The same was with my father and grandmother who both had the same religion. Are you sure that your generation is so privileged to see the end? Why would you have children? Your religion is not long-view Oriental.

Buddhist eschatology tells that there will be a time when the teachings will be forgotten and this world will be dismayed. Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the Future, will arrive to reteach this world.

Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a so-called Abrahamic religion. Muslims, as Islamic people are called, repudiate Christianity's Trinity which alludes to polytheism. Islam is strictly monotheistic as they believe that there is only One God, Allāh. Their sacred writings are in the Qur'an, divided into 114 suras, containing 6236 āyāt, verses. Muslims believe that the Qur'an is only perfect in the original Arabic because any translation would be deficient. Their main prophet is Muhammad, the messenger. Muslim eschatology includes bodily resurrection at the Day of Resurrection, Yawm al-Qiyāmah, when everyone will be judged for good or bad deeds. Trials and tribulation precede and coincide with al-Qiyāmah, the time of which no human knows. (I read somewhere too that in Islam, being in hell may be an impermanent condition.) Like other Abrahamicists, Muslims believe in angels. Muslims believe in predestination or divine preordainment. Muslims must pray 5 times during the day. The prayer rituals are called Ṣalāh. Like other religions, Islam has subdivisions, as the Sunni and Shia, the contention being the successor, Abu Bakr or Ali respectively, to Muhammad. (The Islamic religion's progression and overall ambiance are depicted in Frank Herbert's Dune series, which is set thousands of years from now in outer space. There is a desert planet called Arrakis.)

So, too, in his descriptions of the Elysian Fields and of Tartarus, Virgil simply reproduces in substance the many similar descriptions which occur in the Greek poets and philosophers; and although he perfects these with many exquisite touches of his own, such original contributions of his belong rather to the domain of art than of eschatology.

These final pages are as deeply pleasureful as they are moving. Their comic eschatologies are consistent with the spirit that informs all of “Ada,” the spirit that is underscored by the last syllable in Ada's name when it is pronounced correctly in “the Russian way with two deep, dark ‘a’s” — da!