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Allosaurus dabbled in cannibalism according to new fossil evidence
These Jurassic predators resorted to cannibalism when hit with hard times, according to a deliciously rare discovery.
01 June, 2020
Stephanie K. Drumheller et.al
- Rare fossil evidence of dinosaur cannibalism among the Allosaurus has been discovered.
- Scientists analyzed dinosaur bones found in the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in western Colorado, paying special attention to bite marks that were present on 2,368 of the bones.
- It's likely that the predatory carnivore only ate their already-dead peers during times when resources were scarce.
<p>Rare fossil evidence of dinosaur cannibalism has been discovered by paleontologists in a large quarry near the Utah-Colorado border.</p><p><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233115" target="_blank">According to a study</a> published last week, May 27, in the journal <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233115" target="_blank">PLOS ONE</a>, scientists analyzed dinosaur bones found in the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in western Colorado. In their examination, the researchers paid special attention to bite marks that were present on the bones. While many bone-bites were identified as originating from <a href="https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/theropoda.html" target="_blank">theropod</a> dinosaurs, a diverse group of bipedal dinosaurs, there were cases where it was found that the bite marks were from the same genus as the bitten. Specifically, it appears that the predatorial beast <a href="https://www.livescience.com/24815-allosaurus.html" target="_blank"><em>Allosaurus</em></a>, a type of theropod, occasionally dined on its own kind, making this an exceptionally rare finding of dinosaur cannibalism.<br></p>
Desperate times call for cannibalism
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cc909d1235ba9e4e5149f7e3580c8568"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y2ODPFiksBE?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>While scavenging and even cannibalism is relatively common among today's predators, the Allosaurus probably didn't eat their peers as a staple meal. According to Stephanie Drumheller, the study's lead author, they were likely driven to turn to cannibalism as a last resort when times were scarce in food supply. </p> <p>"Big theropods like Allosaurus probably weren't particularly picky eaters, especially if their environments were already strapped for resources.'' said Drumheller, a paleontologist in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/p-ise052120.php" target="_blank">in a statement</a>. "Scavenging and even cannibalism were definitely on the table."</p><p>The Mygatt-Moore Quarry is home to thousands of dinosaur bones dating back to the late Jurassic period, somewhere in the ballpark of 150 million years ago. When the quarry was at its prime, it was thriving with lush vegetation making it a cushy home for many large dinosaur species, including the long-necked lizard <a href="https://www.livescience.com/25093-apatosaurus.html" target="_blank">Apatosaurus</a>. The new study suggests, however, that at some point this dino sanctuary fell on some hard times, which forced local carnivores to scavenge for bits of meat from the picked-over carcasses of dead dinosaurs.</p>Study Findings
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM2NDg4MS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwODAxOTMzOX0.X586xL4Ci-v4fwAaKZJAf7QOp7EANWKy9ScFV49l-us/img.png?width=980" id="992a1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="acecfb3761e4e8b41e02b29bfd62452c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Fig 4. Dry season at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry showing Ceratosaurus and Allosaurus fighting over the desiccated carcass of another theropod.
Illustration by Brian Engh (dontmesswithdinosaurs.com)
<p>The researchers examined the bite marks on 2,368 dino bones from the quarry. Noting the width, depth, and pattern of the bite marks, the team was able to trace the chomp marks on the prey back to specific dinosaur species. Of those bones, 684, or 29 percent, were marked with at least one theropod bite. Many of those marks were imprinted by serrated teeth, suggesting to the researchers that Allosaurus (the most common theropod among the quarry's fossils) did a majority of the biting.</p><p>Allosaurus tended to feast mostly on herbivores. Yet, 17 percent of their bite victims were other theropods. That included some fellow Allosauruses, making this the first solid chunk of evidence of cannibalism in the species; a deliciously novel discovery. Interestingly, however, most of the bite marks that the scientists examined didn't appear to be killing wounds. More than half of all bite-marks found on the victim were on bony parts with little meat like fingers, toes and spinal columns. Not exactly the cut of meat a hunter with first-dibs would choose, suggesting that they were scavenging for the bare scraps. </p><p>Ultimately, these fossils tell a miserable story of dinosaurs down on their luck, left with no choice but to scrounge for measly scraps of meat off their own kin's rotting carcasses. </p>
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Sooner or later we all face death. Will a sense of meaning help us?
As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body, how closely mortality lurks just around the corner.
31 May, 2020
Photo by Alex Boyd on Unsplash
'Despite all our medical advances,' my friend Jason used to quip, 'the mortality rate has remained constant – one per person.'
<p>Jason and I studied medicine together back in the 1980s. Along with everyone else in our course, we spent six long years memorising everything that could go wrong with the human body. We diligently worked our way through a textbook called <em>Pathologic Basis of Disease</em> that described, in detail, every single ailment that could befall a human being. It's no wonder medical students become hypochondriacal, attributing sinister causes to any lump, bump or rash they find on their own person.</p><p>Jason's oft-repeated observation reminded me that death (and disease) are unavoidable aspects of life. It sometimes seems, though, that we've developed a delusional denial of this in the West. We pour billions into prolonging life with increasingly expensive medical and surgical interventions, most of them employed in our final, decrepit years. From a big-picture perspective, this seems a futile waste of our precious health-dollars.</p><p>Don't get me wrong. If I get struck down with cancer, heart disease or any of the myriad life-threatening ailments I learnt about in medicine, I want all the futile and expensive treatments I can get my hands on. I value my life. In fact, like most humans, I value staying alive above pretty much everything else. But also, like most, I tend to not really value my life unless I'm faced with the imminent possibility of it being taken away from me.</p>
<p>Another old friend of mine, Ross, was studying philosophy while I studied medicine. At the time, he wrote an essay called 'Death the Teacher' that had a profound effect on me. It argued that the best thing we could do to appreciate life was to keep the inevitability of our death always at the forefront of our minds.</p><p>When the Australian palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware interviewed scores of people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, she asked them their greatest regrets. The most frequent, published in her <a href="https://www.hayhouse.com/the-top-five-regrets-of-the-dying" target="_blank">book</a> <em>The Top Five Regrets of the Dying</em> (2011), were:</p><ol><li>I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me;</li><li>I wish I hadn't worked so hard;</li><li>I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings;</li><li>I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends; and</li><li>I wish that I had let myself be happier.</li></ol><p>The relationship between death-awareness and leading a fulfilling life was a central concern of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose work inspired Jean-Paul Sartre and other existentialist thinkers. Heidegger lamented that too many people wasted their lives running with the 'herd' rather than being true to themselves. But Heidegger actually struggled to live up to his own ideals; in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party, hoping it would advance his career.</p>
<p>Despite his shortcomings as a man, Heidegger's ideas would go on to influence a wide range of philosophers, artists, theologians and other thinkers. Heidegger believed that Aristotle's notion of Being – which had run as a thread through Western thinking for more than 2,000 years, and been instrumental in the development of scientific thinking – was flawed at a most fundamental level. Whereas Aristotle saw all of existence, including human beings, as things we could classify and analyse to increase our understanding of the world, in <em>Being and Time</em> (1927) Heidegger argued that, before we start classifying Being, we should first ask the question: 'Who or what is doing all this questioning?'</p><p>Heidegger pointed out that we who are asking questions about Being are qualitatively different to the rest of existence: the rocks, oceans, trees, birds and insects that we are asking about. He invented a special word for this Being that asks, looks and cares. He called it <em>Dasein</em>, which loosely translates as 'being there'. He coined the term <em>Dasein</em> because he believed that we had become immune to words such as 'person', 'human' and 'human being', losing our sense of wonder about our own consciousness.</p><p>Heidegger's philosophy remains attractive to many today who see how science struggles to explain the experience of being a moral, caring person aware that his precious, mysterious, beautiful life will, one day, come to an end. According to Heidegger, this awareness of our own inevitable demise makes us, unlike the rocks and trees, hunger to make our life worthwhile, to give it meaning, purpose and value.</p>
<p>While Western medical science, which is based on Aristotelian thinking, sees the human body as a material thing that can be understood by examining it and breaking it down to its constituent parts like any other piece of matter, Heidegger's ontology puts human experience at the centre of our understanding of the world.</p><p>Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with melanoma. As a doctor, I knew how aggressive and rapidly fatal this cancer could be. Fortunately for me, the surgery seemed to achieve a cure (touch wood). But I was also fortunate in another sense. I became aware, in a way I never had before, that I was going to die – if not from melanoma, then from something else, eventually. I have been much happier since then. For me, this realisation, this acceptance, this awareness that I am going to die is at least as important to my wellbeing as all the advances of medicine, because it reminds me to live my life to the full every day. I don't want to experience the regret that Ware heard about more than any other, of not living 'a life true to myself'.</p><p>Most Eastern philosophical traditions appreciate the importance of death-awareness for a well-lived life. <em>The</em> <em>Tibetan Book of the Dead</em>, for example, is a central text of Tibetan culture. The Tibetans spend a lot of time living with death, if that isn't an oxymoron.</p><p>The East's greatest philosopher, Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/was-the-buddha-an-awakened-prince-or-a-humble-itinerant" target="_blank">Buddha</a>, realised the importance of keeping the end in sight. He saw desire as the cause of all suffering, and counselled us not to get too attached to worldly pleasures but, rather, to focus on more important things such as loving others, developing equanimity of mind, and staying in the present.</p><p>The last thing the Buddha said to his followers was: 'Decay is inherent in all component things! Work out your salvation with diligence!' As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body, how closely mortality lurks just around the corner. As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, however, I am also reminded how empty life can be if we have no sense of meaning or purpose. An awareness of our mortality, of our precious finitude, can, paradoxically, move us to seek – and, if necessary, create – the meaning that we so desperately crave.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/71b0539e-67f6-466c-a52b-da10d9ca0cf3.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/sooner-or-later-we-all-face-death-will-a-sense-of-meaning-help-us" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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How old would you want to be in heaven?
Is the cult of youth what we really want trailing us into the afterlife?
06 May, 2020
Photo by Sam Wheeler on Unsplash
Many religious faiths propose different versions of heaven as a location: There are walled gardens with streams, flowers, pleasing scents, pretty angels, rapturous music or delicious accessible food.
<p>But what about us – the once-mortal – who will go on to inhabit the heavenly real estate? What form will our bodies take? Not all religions posit bodily resurrection. But those that do tend to depict them as young. </p><p>As the author of <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ending_Ageism_or_How_Not_to_Shoot_Old_Pe/YG8kDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Ending+ageism+or+how+not+to+shoot+old+people&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">prize-winning</a> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Aged_by_Culture/Qh_3UhFfM9kC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=aged+by+culture&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">books</a> on age and culture, I tend to notice unseen forms of ageism. </p><p>I wonder: Is the cult of youth what we really want trailing us into the afterlife?</p>
<h2>The righteous are young</h2><p><a href="https://biblehub.com/luke/20-35.htm" target="_blank">According to Christian orthodoxy</a>, if you're worthy of being raised from the dead, you'll be resurrected in the flesh, not merely as spirit, with a body restored like that of Christ, who died at 33.</p><p>In heaven there will be no whip marks, no scars from thorns, no bodily wounds. If eaten by cannibals or bereft of limbs from battle – some medieval people worried about wholeness in such conditions – people would regain their missing parts. The body would be perfected, as the Apostle Matthew <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/matthew/11-5.html" target="_blank">promised in the New Testament</a> when he wrote, "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear."</p><p>In Islam, in the traditional <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hadith" target="_blank">Hadiths</a> – the commentaries that succeeded the Quran – the righteous are also youthful, and apparently male. "The people of Paradise will enter Paradise hairless (in their body), beardless, white colored, curly haired, with their eyes anointed with kohl, aged thirty-three years," <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Garden_and_the_Fire/ASEG9cFAkjMC?hl=en" target="_blank">according to Abu Harayra</a>, one of Mohammed's companions.</p><p>The afterlife isn't all based on sacred text. Folklore, cultural traditions and audience demand also shape its images.</p><p>Western art has, over the centuries, located the promise of posthumous perfection in bodies that are youthful. British historian Roy Porter <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/i329131" target="_blank">writes</a> that the art of the Renaissance (in which bodies were first portrayed with muscles and motion) showed "rosy-fleshed and even lithe bodies rising elegantly from the earth, in an almost balletic movement." Think of the muscular naked bodies in Luca Signorelli's "Resurrection and the Crowning of the Blessed" in Orvieto cathedral.</p><p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip"></a></p><p>A section of Luca Signorelli's fresco 'Resurrection of the Flesh.' (<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luca_Signorelli_-_Resurrection_of_the_Flesh_-_WGA21214.jpg" target="_blank">Cappella di San Brizio</a>/Wikicommons)</p><p>Throughout history, some people died in their 90s, as they do now. But the luck of having lived a long life on Earth, with its wisdom and experience symbolically etched on the face and signaled by the august whiteness of hair, apparently did not cross over onto the other side.</p><p>In such visions of heaven, there would be no signs of our ordinary mortal passage. No wrinkles. No disability. No old age. "Perfected" means never having grown up even into the middle years.</p><p>Ageist and ableist, these traditions promote cults of youth. The New Testament, the Quran, the Italian Renaissance, the Romantic era – all sing the same decline-oriented, exclusionary song.</p>
<h2>On our screens, forever young</h2><p>Jump to the myths of the modern world, and the aftercare of the fit juvenile body remains precious. In vampire stories, for example, the undead bloodsuckers appear young and attractive. When their true age is revealed, it turns out that they're often thousands of years old.</p><p>"Who wants to see old ghosts?" critic Martha Smilgis wrote <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601910603,00.html" target="_blank">in a 1991 Time feature</a> about a recent spate of films that featured young, lithe actors populating the afterlife. "Hollywood wants to remain forever young," she continued, "and what better way than to extend yourself into another life?"</p><p>In the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/emmys-2017-winners-black-mirror-san-junipero-charlie-brooker-outstanding-writing-tv-movie-a7952266.html" target="_blank">award-winning</a> "Black Mirror" episode "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4538072/" target="_blank">San Junipero</a>," the fantasy of forever young becomes a reality: The dead can upload themselves into a simulation to live out their afterlives as their younger selves.</p><p>In other television shows about the afterlife, one way to avoid old ghosts is to simply have the characters all die young. And so in series like "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348913/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" target="_blank">Dead Like Me</a>" and "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7720790/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8" target="_blank">Forever</a>," freak accidents on Earth ensure the resurrected are fit and attractive.</p>
<h2>The best version of you</h2><p>Because we now live in <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Age_of_Longevity/sTWNDAAAQBAJ?hl=en" target="_blank">an age of longer, healthier lifespans</a> – and because I'm in my 70s – I'm nonplussed by seeing the cult of youth persist.</p><p>People I know in later life are healthy. Some are handsome. Unlike the great unwashed of previous epochs, old people too now bathe. We brush our teeth, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160229-how-our-ancestors-drilled-rotten-teeth" target="_blank">so we don't lose them before 40</a>. Syphilis, in the rare event that we contract it, can be cured. If we have partners, <a href="https://womensenews.org/2011/08/sex-can-also-get-better-not-worse-age/" target="_blank">we enjoy sex</a>.</p><p>I can understand idealizing youth in this life, but only by considering the ageism that people endure in the workplace. Sure, a midlife job seeker, desperately unemployed, tweaks his date of birth on his resume because he is considered "too old" at too young an age. A woman dyes her hair and gets a little Botox for the same reason.</p><p>But in heaven too, where capitalism is gratefully left behind? Surely part of the Rapture is not having to depend on a boss and a paycheck. You can't be fired, downsized or made redundant. If heaven means nothing else, it works like a good labor union, assuring blessed tenure.</p><p>So might we disrupt the ancient adolescent fantasies that, translated to our contemporary era, seem so anachronistic? I am no longer a teenager. I have put away on Earth – as it should be in heaven – the peer pressures, the showy embarrassing décolletage, shaving my legs, the comical hair styles and the beach-blanket boozy fantasies of <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/body/how-to-get-an-hourglass-figure" target="_blank">the hourglass figure</a>.</p><p>My earlier face would look weird to me were it suddenly to appear tomorrow over the bathroom sink. If heaven were furnished with mirrors – an unlikely scenario – I am certain I would want to behold the face I have now. Whatever its earthly faults in the eyes of Hollywood plastic surgeons and the tiresome fashion magazines, it has the virtue of familiarity.</p><p>Heaven is supposed to be the entrance to a fuller, or better, future life – what mortals fail to obtain in the real world. Does that now mean Club Med for young people? Fort Lauderdale at spring break? With more clothing? Or perhaps less?</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2005.00239.x" target="_blank">Mormons are promised</a> that they will spend eternity with their kin. For many people now, paradise is, more than anything, a place where we will meet loved ones. Often a beloved parent. I would have no interest in a heaven in which my mother appeared to be 33, when I scarcely knew her as a six-year-old. Nor would I want her to look six decades younger than I do, were I to arrive in my 90s.</p><p>She died at 96, and I want her to have the face I loved in her very old age. There she would be, still smiling at me benignly, as she does in a photograph I see every day of my aging-into-old-age life.</p><p>Heaven can keep the pleasant streams, the divine choirs and the luscious apricots. It can heal us of pain. We can be loved for who we are. If all that, who needs to be younger as well? I believe our dreams of the afterlife need to challenge the idée fixe that only the appearance of youth is valuable.</p><p>Some of us with longer lives don't think it perfection to have the signs of who we are now, erased for eternity. We have a finer dream of human solidarity.</p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/margaret-morganroth-gullette-437980" target="_blank">Margaret Morganroth Gullette</a>, Resident Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/brandeis-university-1308" target="_blank">Brandeis University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-old-would-you-want-to-be-in-heaven-127410" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Ask an astronomer: How do astronauts deal with isolation?
Being stuck at home is not as intense as being away from Earth, but there are ways to cope in either scenario.
26 April, 2020
- While she has not personally been to space, NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller has heard from friends and colleagues what it is like to truly be isolated. Coping mechanisms for these extreme cases can also benefit people here on Earth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Setting and maintaining a schedule can help you and your body return to a more normal state, as can finding familiar sensory inputs. For astronauts, that includes Earthly scents like citrus.
- Speaking personally and making a point about silver linings, Thaller shares a story about how COVID-19 has given her more time with her sick husband for what are likely his final days.
Headed for heaven or hell? This roadmap will help
'The Broad and Narrow Way' helped 19th-century preachers explain the consequences of virtue and vice.
31 March, 2020
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- This moral topography shows two walks of life with very different outcomes: heaven and hell.
- It all starts with a simple choice: the broad gate or the narrow one. From there on in, follow the Bible verses to your choice of afterlife.
- Despite the map's stark, binary landscape, sinners can still repent and good Christians may be tempted by the Devil.
Forked path
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNjIwNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMzQ4MDAyNX0.Wy4ffvWWpsUB6VlbC1yN3T10YfFQId6vzztrIi5bDs0/img.jpg?width=980" id="f4359" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7a903a67d7417da867aab6f597ddd624" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="The Broad and Narrow Way: colour lithograph, published by Gawin Kirkham, London (1883)." />The key verse: Matthew 7:13-14.
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
<p>If your path in life is pleasant and comfortable, reflect on your final destination: it may be eternal hellfire. For the road to heaven is steep and – wait, there are lions?</p><p>In late 19th century England, Christian open-air preachers used this picture of 'The Broad and Narrow Way' to illustrate the stark choice their audiences faced.</p><p>The journey of life was presented as a forked path through a moral landscape, with Biblical verse as signposts along the two very different routes. The key verse is Matthew 7:13-14, right at the beginning, where the key choice has to be made: </p><p>"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide <em>is</em> the gate, and broad <em>is</em> the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait <em>is</em> the gate, and narrow <em>is</em> the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."<span></span></p>Bacchus and Venus
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNjIwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMDY3NTAxNH0.VqNwrB61du1WX2TJSTRQqB4NS_ohakw9kX6DkdqaJzA/img.jpg?width=980" id="6005b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f1661af5e44fc675bd589aad2fa64280" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="The Broad and Narrow Way: colour lithograph, published by Gawin Kirkham, London (1883)." />Going to hell in a motorcar.
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
<p>A set of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen can be seen admiring the attractions behind a stone gate, topped by Bacchus and Venus – the pagan gods of intoxication and passion – holding aloft a large <em>Welcome!</em> sign. A more modest sign to the right indicates this is the <em>Road to Perdition</em>, while a red-fingered hand underscores the point: <em>Death and Damnation</em>. </p><p>Will they go in? Don't let the easy airs of those fine people in top hats and fancy dresses fool you. These souls are in the wilderness, being tempted by the Devil (Hebr. 3:7-8).</p><p>There's still a chance they might choose the right path, the grass seems to whisper: "The Lord (…) is (…) not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9). </p><p>But alas! A group of revellers has passed the gate, invoking the wrath of the Almighty: "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."<br></p><p>Apparently, those enemies include cyclists, smokers, motorised vehicle <em>aficionados</em>, ballroom dancers, card players and toast masters (Isaiah 5:22 heaps woe unto those who imbibe wine and strong drink). </p>Indications of non-godliness
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNjIwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDQ1NDEwNH0.xk0Qz3YT_jtrrQF8FPuZAe8ReUT1wczYX2BhgUx5k1w/img.jpg?width=980" id="9951e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a28d578754ea8b723c36dae12d76be59" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="The Broad and Narrow Way: colour lithograph, published by Gawin Kirkham, London (1883)." />Ungodly: lotteries and loans.
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
<p>Things get grim quick on the road to hell. Here we see a man clubbing his donkey. Not nice, the Bible agrees: "A righteous <em>man</em> regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked <em>are</em> cruel" (Prov. 12:10). </p><p>We see a fistfight, pickpockets at work, and day drinking (again displeasing Isaiah). </p><p>Buying oxen (Luke 14:16-18) and marrying a wife (Luke 14:20) are two of the excuses for men not to accept the invitation to a godly life. Also serious indications of non-godliness: taking out a loan and buying a lottery ticket.</p><p>The bag across that man's right shoulder is stuffed with coin, the verse from 1 Timothy tells us: "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."</p><p>Adjoining the road to hell are taverns, theatres, and gambling houses. Even if you beat the casino, you still lose: "Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out."</p><p>Gosh! And things get worse further down the road, with some roadside killing and general divine displeasure for those not yet dead.<br></p>Sunday train to hell
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNjIxMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NDg5MDUzMX0.BYsapcOJQyJgBigKywWlmqZvyM1xpjedtnGnAkgKuE4/img.jpg?width=980" id="c8436" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e1027595c0545289827a595068c77dd8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="The Broad and Narrow Way: colour lithograph, published by Gawin Kirkham, London (1883)." />"Thou (...) art found wanting".
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
<p>The flames are a giveaway: this story does not end well. In keeping with the pious topographer's curious interest in modern modes of transport as signs of moral turpitude, a <em>Sunday train</em> skirts between the fires of hell and the scene of a battle. </p><p>A lot of smiting and slaying produces no winners, only losers: "Even the carcass of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather <em>them</em>." (Jer. 9:22).</p><p>As cities topple and silhouettes of sinners writhe in the fire, bat-like devils harvest the souls of evil-doers, accompanied by some of Scripture's most thunderous verse:</p><ul><li>"A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains." (Deut. 32:22)</li><li>"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matth 25:41)</li><li>"Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." (Dan 5:27)</li></ul>The Strait Gate
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNjIxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTI4NTA1Mn0.pon9u3GEjK7BYbh6FJQcu9hqqE-Mic_6VbKNhwQT-uk/img.jpg?width=980" id="7da6c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9dfdc3abbeb81f297733ef800d863a88" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="The Broad and Narrow Way: colour lithograph, published by Gawin Kirkham, London (1883)." />Entry requirements: belief in Jesus, being born again.
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
<p>Perhaps let's see what's behind the other door then? The strait gate that leads to the <em>Way of Salvation</em> attracts a more modestly dressed crowd. </p><p><span></span>No wonder: they are here to be relieved not of their boredom, like those fancy folk next door, but of their burden: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matth. 11:28). But everybody is welcome, presumably also those without any particular load on their back: "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37). </p><p>It's a date! Through the strait (as in: 'narrow') gate we go. But wait a minute. There are some entry requirements: belief in the Son (John 3:36), and to be born again (John 3:3).</p><p>On the other side of the gate awaits the refreshing gurgle of a fountain springing from a rock. That's the water of life, don't you know (Rev. 22:17), and the rock is Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). </p><p>Through the church window on the right we see a sight grown rare of late: a priest left alone with a child. <br></p>"Be vigilant"
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNjIxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNjQ0NjAwM30.CyANsbm9eTCGLK538W7t8NOOU8H5tJxf-oDy6J26tz8/img.jpg?width=980" id="72890" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b8c6f38d8cd59beb5080e06b61d2501c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="The Broad and Narrow Way: colour lithograph, published by Gawin Kirkham, London (1883)." />Works of mercy along the Way.
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
<p>The journey to salvation is steep – hence the steps – but it requires at its outset no more than the firm faith of a child (2 Tim. 3:15), as unfeigned as that of its forebears (2 Tim 1:5). Of course, Jesus is your compass throughout: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6). </p><p>A church, a Sunday school and a religious institute provide virtuous counterparts to the theatre, tavern and gambling house on the other side. </p><p>Across the bridge, we witness various instances of divinely-inspired roadside assistance: "For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in." (Matt. 25:35). More works of mercy performed up the road. </p><p>In the grassy field on the left hand side, a preacher is booming from his pulpit to the gathered crowd: "As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways." (Eze. 33:11).</p><p>There's a break in the fence that separates this path from the evil one. Could it be that these listeners are sinners who, halfway up their trip to certain doom, have returned to the fold of the righteous? Quite possibly so; the man running across the bridge towards the Luke 15:20 verse exemplifies the parable of the prodigal son. <br></p><p>But repentance is not enough; a relapse is always possible, because danger is ever present, with its pointy claws and breath like sin: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Pet. 5:8)</p>Lamb on Zion
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNjIxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTc0NjM0OH0.8JT8XOfE1JqCFRC9EuvP7SeUcYFYU4rd13aAmDw5amk/img.jpg?width=980" id="34708" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="41e5555b77ce40e871ee91f763cc2efa" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="The Broad and Narrow Way: colour lithograph, published by Gawin Kirkham, London (1883)." />The unblinking Eye of Providence.
Image: British Museum - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
<p>If you make it past the lion, you've almost reached the last level of the game. It's finally okay to breathe a sigh of relief. In Biblical lingo: "Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name." (Ps. 103:1).</p><p><span></span>The path still winds upwards, but the summit is in sight, as are the multitudes that people it: "all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." (Rev. 7:9). </p><p><span></span>The name of the mount is Zion, and the number of those surrounding the Lamb is 144,000 (Rev. 14:1), a number discouragingly small to anyone less than rock solid in their faith. Yet elsewhere in Revelation, the number of the 'elders' around the throne is said to be "ten thousand times ten thousand, and" (for good measure) "thousands of thousands." (Rev. 5:11) – a more hopeful calculation. </p><p>At this point of the journey, only a rainbow can bridge the gap between Both Places, because "between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot." (Luke 16:26). </p><p>Over it all hovers the Eye of God, looking down on all creation: "For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil." (1 Peter 3:12).</p><p>As a symbol of divine providence, the Eye in the Pyramid also features on the Great Seal of the United States, and as such on the dollar bill. But this eye induces an even more chilling echo of ubiquity: it has the same color as Mark Zuckerberg's eyes. </p><p>The Broad and Narrow Way was originally designed in Germany in 1862, making its way via Holland to England by the end of the decade. It was an effective tool in exemplifying some of the Bible's key teachings to a Victorian audience with more appetite for piety than aptitude for study. <br></p>
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