The Heart Hath Weight
Many millennia ago in Ancient Egypt, the Egyptians had a rather complicated and extensive system of belief; mostly in the area of what happened to the soul once the individual had died. As one who has studied Egyptology on my own and read numerous books and watched countless hours of documentaries, presentations, and debates on the subject matter; there is one particular scene from the Egyptian book of the dead which describes judgement- that stands out to me in the 21st century as a Christian. That scene was known as the weighing of the heart. They believed that the god of the dead (Anubis) would take the heart of the deceased, and weigh it in a scales against the feather of 'truth', personified in the goddess Ma'at. If the heart was heavier than the personification of truth, the soul was judged to be laden down with sin and guilt, and was thus destroyed by a monstrous demon called Ammit. If the heart was lighter, then it was judged that the so...