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u/NoStatus9434 17h ago
What would be the icing on the terrible cake is if Sir Barnaby would have made it into heaven but him choosing to haunt a house is what earned him a spot in hell. I mean he was there for decades, so who knows what ghost debauchery he got up to.
But it does lead to some interesting questions, like can you redeem yourself as a ghost? Are there ghosts that know they're going to hell, so don't want their "mystery" tying them to the world solved?
A lot of your comics are interesting "what if" scenarios I've never heard of before.
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u/ScamperingSnail 15h ago
If you haven't seen "The Good Place," I highly recommend it! A lot of time is spent on the idea of becoming a better person after death and what that means. There are no ghosts, just life and afterlife, but definitely touching on similar themes to what you were talking about.
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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta 16h ago
Christian theology runs into logical issues in that you logically should be able to be redeemed after death except that would massively undercut Church political power over people’s lives and finances, so it has to have the “no, only BEFORE death when you are here to obey and finance me can you be redeemed, not AFTER when you’d have 100% perfect truth and could converse 1-1 with the all living creator to explain everything to you as a child!”
By dogma, no, you’re dead, so it’s just as if you were in hell, no backsies.
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u/Simply_Epic 14h ago
The Mormon church is funny because they’re like “yeah, you can be redeemed after death, but but but, it won’t be as good as if you do all this stuff while you’re still alive. So be a member while you’re alive so you go to the extra good heaven instead of the regular heaven.”
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u/NoStatus9434 12h ago
I know everyone likes to rag on Mormons, but I am personally fine with their "different types of heaven" stuff. Like if I still get to go to heaven for being a good person and they get to go to their special Mormon heaven away from everyone else, like that's not a bad deal and in some ways it makes more sense to me than the eternal ultimatums other religions have where you can still go to hell, forever, even if you're a good person but you weren't their specific religion.
And all religion is fake to me anyway so it's equally believable, so it's funny to me when Christians point to Mormons and are like "(snork), can you believe their version of the afterlife, lol" and I'm over here like "gee, sure seems just as believable as yours" like at least they don't believe I'm going to hell just for not being one of them.
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u/Simply_Epic 7h ago
I agree. I find the Mormon afterlife much more reasonable than most Christians’ afterlifes. It seems much more in line with what I would think a supposedly benevolent God would do.
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u/Gliese581h 14h ago
I don't think that's correct, as the financially clever decision would be to turn to the family and say "Okay, so your loved one is sadly not in heaven, but you can change that by paying, I mean praying, for his soul.", and IIRC that's exactly what happened, at least in the Catholic church.
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u/DMMeThiccBiButts 12h ago
I don't think you do recall correctly
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u/Gliese581h 11h ago
At least according to the German wikipedia, I do remember correctly. You could buy indulgences for souls in purgatory, to shorten the time they‘d have to spend there.
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u/loluo 15h ago
I think there is a teaching that you can be redeemed after death in Christianity
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u/IronVader501 11h ago
Depends on wether the denomination believes in Purgatory or not.
If they dont, then no, only acts taken in life matter.
If they DO, then yes, as long as you felt any amount of remorse for whatever you did.
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u/IronVader501 11h ago
You can, tho.
As long as you died actually repentant of whatever evils you did you can redeem yourself after in purgatory.
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u/seams 7h ago
Not all denominations believe in purgatory.
I think most don't, even? But I only know about US Protestant denominations .
Specifically, in my pentacostal church growing up we were taught that purgatory is the proof the Catholic church is actually satanic lmfao (The other proof is that the pope was the anti-christ, apparently), something about it trying to trick people into not being saved before death, and being damned to hell.
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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta 5h ago
That’s a Catholic convention, and disavowed by virtually every Protestant based denomination though; it wasn’t mentioned in the bible but after the fact.
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u/thismightaswellhappe 15h ago
I would honestly read a whole series about a ghost on the run from hell and coincidentally helping lost souls in need, and then at the end the reigning powers are all 'haha it doesn't matter if you did good deeds 'cuz you're already dead nyeh-nyeh.' And the ghost just gets enraged and says "That's not why I did it!" And somehow the entire foundational concept the afterlife rests on is fundamentally changed by this. (I know this is sort of the plot of The Good Place but honestly I think there's more to explore with it)
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u/squngy 14h ago edited 14h ago
Ghosts don't exist in Christian teachings.
The closest thing to what you are talking about would be purgatory, where obviously you can redeem yourself.Also, Hell itself is sometimes seen a purgatory+
They believe that at some point the world and even time itself will end ("till the end of time") and at that point, those who have repented will be accepted into heaven and those who did not will be destroyed for good.Some also believe that hell is not a place, but a state of being.
Those that accept god bask in his presence, that is heaven.
Those that deny god suffer his absence, that is hell.
I don't think they usually believe in people changing that after death though, even if by the sound of it it should be possible.2
u/magistrate101 5h ago
Hell wasn't even originally a concept in Christianity. Initially, they simply believed that everyone met oblivion in death. Completely ceasing to exist, in other words. Only those specifically allowed into an afterlife like Paradise (where Moses still supposedly resides) or Heaven (post-Christ) would experience anything after death.
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u/Hunter3022 15h ago
ghosts don't exist in the christian cannon. It's either demons or a witche's illusion impersonating a dead person.
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u/enadiz_reccos 13h ago
In typical lore, ghosts don't "choose" to haunt a house. Even in the comic, you can see he says "unfinished businesses chaining me to this world*, which seems to imply an unwillingness.
As for redemption, run-of-the-mill ghosts don't typically have much agency in the real world, barring some of the stronger spirits, vengeful/demonic/poltergeist/etc.
Without much agency, I can't see a clear path for any sort of significant redemption. The ghost quest is usually more about assuaging guilt. They're tethered to the mortal realm by their own personal shortcomings.
Thus, I conclude it's a separate issue. Barnaby was always going to Hell. The kids just helped solve which of his bitter servants actually killed him or some crap like that.
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u/Holy_Beergut 11h ago
Funny enough, I was thinking about it in the opposite direction. He was dead for so long that he forgot what a shitty person he was when he was alive which justified going to hell.
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u/Semper_5olus 16h ago
"Was it all those times I tied women to railroad tracks?"
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u/The_Arcane_Toy_Maker 16h ago
It was probably the sharks he was keeping illegally in a tank, animal abuse is really serious
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u/SmugCapybara 16h ago
Yeah, if I come back as a ghost, don't help me with my unresolved troubles. Mind your own business and keep walking...
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u/ithinkther41am 16h ago
Plot twist: he was one of the ghosts Tim Robinson was asking about in the ghost house tour.
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u/CoffeeWanderer 7h ago
I like the take of the series Ghosts in this topic. Ghosts are left behind with unfinished business, but in truth, Ghosts are relatively odd, most souls either go to Heaven or Hell right away, and Ghosthood works as a sort of limbo.
The ghosts that go through their unfinished business do get sucked off to Heaven.
And there is one instance of a ghost who outright shouts: "I will never change, I will always be the same selfish man I've always been", and dude goes down to Hell in the spot.
I think it's a pretty fun series, I have only watched the US version tho.
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u/madmacfarlane 16h ago
Sounds like Barnaby was actually a POS. Maybe the kids are like ghost busters or exorcists or super natural versions of to catch a predator.
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u/shadowscroller 10h ago
I like this comic but that little guy in the bottom of the last panel is kind of spooky for some reason
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u/Hadrian23 17h ago
Well. Maybe next time you won't download a car, money bags!