Afterlife Beliefs

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism are all religions that connect in more than one way. One major way that these religions connect is through the afterlife, otherwise known as the unconditioned reality. Hinduism and Buddhism have very similar views on the afterlife while Daoism has a slightly different view. In the end, they all have the same goal which is to achieve the final state that lasts forever. Even though this is true, that does not mean they do not differ in more than one way. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism rely strongly on theoretical, practical, and sociological standpoints. A large part of the theoretical standpoints, are myths about the gods and how things are. A large part of sociological standpoints are festivals, and temples. Lastly, practical is practiced through mediation, yoga, and payers. In Hinduism, there are various sects that worship a total of roughly 360,000,000 different gods. As you could imagine, this would be difficult to generalize in just one essay, so the branch of Hinduism I will go over just includes the basic trinity and Vedic gods. Along with this, this essay will include information on the two major types of Buddhism and how one attains enlightenment. Finally, we will go over how one is to attain immortality through Daoism, along with the beliefs of the traditional Chinese Folk religions.

Sheol The first mention of an afterlife in the bible comes in Old Testament books such as Job and Isaiah. It bears no similarity to christian hell, but is very alike to the Hellenistic idea of the Underworld. Indeed, Thomas Gale states in Encyclopedia of Religion, “The comfortless picture of Hades as ‘the land of no return’ can hardly be separated from Babylonian and Semitic ideas.”

Heaven and hell are both vague yet common terms in Christianity. It is within Christianity to believe in an afterlife instead of believing in no life after death at all. We are very curious as humans and we tend to ask a lot of questions; especially to things that are beyond our comprehension. How could our bodies possibly exist in the depths of the earth and also live beyond this earth in a place of endless happiness or endless misery? Never before have we been able to be in two places at once. Why, after we die, is it suddenly possible? Religion tries to explain the unreasonable; there is no true or false in any religion. Religion is simple means to try and put reason to the unreasonable.

In this method twelve factors were identified about beliefs about afterlife. Three of the major factors were that 12.1 percent believe in Heave and Hell. 7.9 percent believe in reincarnation and 6.6 percent believed that there ate material objects and sexual desire in the after life. The gender differences that were found are that men are not less likely to believe in afterlife but they were less likely to believe in Heaven, reuniting with loved ones, communication with the living and request for forgiveness before death. Men were more likely the women to believe that there are material objects, that spirits have human form, that there is pain, hunger, thirst and that rituals carried out after death are important. The religious differences they found were that Protestant students were less likely to believe in life-after-death then Roman Catholic students. On the other hand, Protestant students were more likely to believe that there is Hell and that forgiveness needs to be requested to get into Heaven.

An MSNBC poll, an American basic cable and satellite television network that provides news coverage and political commentary from NBC News on current events, stated that 81% of Americans don’t believe in the afterlife. Yet, a Pew Forum poll stated that 82% do believe in an afterlife. How can two respectable organizations have so different records in their surveys? Moreover, 90% of Americans claim to believe in a God, so Pew Forum is more realistic than MSNBC. Whether you believe or not, most of us have thought about death. Most believe that something after we die seems better than our present life according to the Quran, Bible, and virtually every religious publication. Nevertheless, mentioning the biological research, there is a finite chance they might be all wrong. What is an imperishable life? Biologically speaking, all living creatures today are fundamentally immortal. Through 4 billion years ago, we could trace ourselves with 50 billion DNA copyings; our DNA has had eternal life. While our species almost vanished in that Great Toba Super Volcano Eruption of 73,000 BC, where Homo sapiens dropped to perhaps a thousand breeding pairs, survived the

As mentioned in the reading by Rowe, many different religions from all over the world have several different conceptions of the afterlife. I always wondered if other people around the world believed in something similar to myself. I have learned that it is frivolous for me to think that we all believed in the same concept. Let’s take for instance the ancient Greek which believed in two different ideas of life after death which were called Homeric and Platonic views. Homeric is the conviction of immortality, as in early Greek conception, where Gods lived among humans but never died therefore making them immortal.

From the moment I was born I was a Methodist. I was baptized in church very young and henceforth brought up in that same church. Every Sunday my family and I get up and head to church, and I mean every Sunday. Because of this, the belief in God has been heavily instilled with me along with many of the key principles of Christianity, one of those being the afterlife. I believe that 2 forms of the afterlife exist: Heaven and Hell.

I don't know what to answer when faced with the question of whether or not I believe in the afterlife. To be quite frank, I don't have a definite answer to give, as I find myself constantly turning those same type of questions over and over in my mind. What would it be like to die? Which way would I choose to go? What happens after? Day after day I hear the murmur of the questions in the back of my mind; pushing back the answers I might face, too scared to deal with what my mind might come up with. Honestly, I hope there is no afterlife. Add all of that to the fact that I have never been a very open person to begin with, when anyone would touch on the subject of religion and afterlife I would normally just end up saying something the other

Establishing that there has been ample research on how children conceptualize God, there has not been less attention given to children’s understanding of soul, death, and afterlife. According to cognitive-development framework, children’s concepts of death and afterlife are in correspondence with how they distinguish between mind and body in early life (Bering & Bjorklund 2004; Richert & Harris, 2006). Even though children might understand that death means ending physical functions, they do not understand or grasp the idea of ending mental and emotional functions. One study specifically elaborated on the aforementioned idea. Bering, Blasi, and Bjorklund (2005) studies afterlife beliefs in Spanish 5-10 year old children. They found that young

Every culture has their own set of beliefs when it comes to the afterlife, what happens to our soul, morality, fate, and also share their own version of punishment and reward. Some cultures believe there's a life after death while others do not. For instance, the Egyptian culture do believe in an afterlife. In fact, their culture is so deeply rooted in this that they form their whole lives around and spend their entire lives preparing for their death and afterlife. Egyptians believe the life you have on Earth will be the same in your afterlife. Their concept of an afterlife was a mirror-world of one’s life on earth. Well, it was specifically one’s life in Egypt. Therefore, one was expected to live that life well if one hoped to enjoy the rest of one’s eternal journey. The Egyptians also believed the soul left its physical body to journey off into the afterlife. However, they believed you needed your entire body to remain intact and pure in order to have a chance at living in paradise after this realm. So, if your arm was missing at the time of your burial, according to their beliefs you could not transcend into the next life. You'd be left in limbo. This is why their embalming rituals were created. These rituals were created to make a body pure to be able to transcend into the next life. Speaking of purity, the ancient Egyptians had a code of morals and ethics which was known as Ma'at. It was the ethical conceptions of "truth", "order" and "cosmic balance". Also these

     I was raised as a Christian and believe in the tenets of the faith. I also know that many other religions also share the same tenets, while differing in there views of the afterlife. So I try to personally refrain from judging others ( and it is not easy). I do believe that what goes around comes around and if I want to be forgiven I must forgive. And when it comes to the afterlife that will hold true there too. So in conclusion the afterlife is a place of forgiveness and acceptance. A place of peace and love and glory. I read a statement from Joseph Cambell that I agree

I don't know what to answer when faced with the question of whether or not I believe in the afterlife. To be quite frank, I don't have a definite answer to give, as I find myself constantly turning those same type of questions over and over in my mind. What would it be like to die? Which way would I choose to go? What happens after? Day after day I hear the murmur of the questions in the back of my mind; pushing back the answers I might face, too scared to deal with what my mind might come up with. Honestly, I hope there is no afterlife. Add all of that to the fact that I have never been a very open person to begin with, when anyone would touch on the subject I would normally just end up saying something the other person would want to hear, particularly when it came to family.

     The afterlife doesn’t exist because everything is based off of concrete reactions and because it is impossible for a soul to exist.  Pro-afterlife arguments can be refuted rather easily.  Everything points to life after death being nothing more than a

Key beliefs of the Catholic Church regarding life after death is that death is inevitable and is a natural progression of life and is something not to fear as everyone eventually dies “There is a season for everything ... A time for giving birth, a time for dying.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).

Similarities are apparent between newer and older religion’s concept of the afterlife. Both Hinduism and Buddhism exalted the idea of reincarnation. One excerpt from the Upanishads, a significant collection of Hindu texts, reads “ those who are pleasant of conduct here- the prospect is, indeed, that they will enter a pleasant