What about hell?

This evening (perhaps yesterday evening depending on how quick I am to write this blog entry) I moderated a very interesting discussion. I had three very competent thinkers on theological matters discussing hell. The topic was formulated as ”Helvetet – vad ska man tro?” (Hell – what should one beleive?) The three trying to answer that question were Eskil Selander, Stefan Swärd, and Torsten Åhman and I will not try to describe their different positions. But I will say a few things.

I asked all three about if you can be a Christian without believing in hell and if you can be a Christian and believe in hell. And I am happy to say that they all said yes to both questions.

One question from the audience concerned if dead people can communicate with the living. I don't think that it happens, and unlike the question about hell it is not a question outside of experience.
People are of course free to believe what ever they want, and concerning hell there is not possible to know anything empirically about it, so it is all a matter of faith. That implies that “what people should believe about hell” can be discussed for a very, very long time. (We discussed it for exactly two hours.) But the question about communication with the other side is either supported by empirical data or it is not, once the existing evidence has been weighted the discussion is over. (Though to be realistic it is unlikely that people will agree about the evaluation of the data.)

A lot more can be said on the issue of testable claims, and even more about faith, but I leave that for some other time.

First impressions

A lot of people have heard how important first impressions are. In English you can state this in the wordplay ”first impressions last”. In Swedish we do not have this possibility but we are constantly told by so called communication experts that the first impression is the most important in all types of contact with humans (and some will doubtless say that it is true for animals as well).
I do not disagree that first impressions are very important. The first impression you give people will probably determine their ”gut reaction” to who you are and what you say.
But I have never seen any scientific study that shows that the first impression is the most important. (Though I must confess that I have not been looking for one. There are plenty of studies that show that first impressions are important but not that they are the most important.) What I find very strange is that people seem to forget how important the last impression is. After all the last impression is what you leave a person with.
Of course it is often necessary to make a good first impression if you want to be given the chance of inflicting your audience with a last impression of who you are and what you have to say. But if one consider that statement, it implies that the first impression is only a necessary mean to get the opportunity to give a last impression. Thus it appears like the last impression is the important one.
I think we should be very glad that the last impression is important, probably more important than the first impression. It is not considered correct to have prejudices today. Prejudice is the ultimate first impression, you decide that what women or black people have to say is unimportant. Or you might “know” that gypsies are thieves. If it wasn't for the fact that last impressions are more important than first impressions these groups of people might not have been able to teach people to listen to them and trust them.
Make sure to make a great last impression.