- Testimony of
individuals who claim
experiential knowledge of facets
of afterlife
- by having died and then been sent back to this life
- by having visited the afterlife during a period of unconsciousness
- by having seen the afterlife during a revelatory vision
- by a unique personal gift of remembering an afterlife (before-life) existence
- by having
communicated with (or
received a message from)
someone who has passed over
(See life after life by Raymond Moody)
- Testimony of
individuals who are presumed to
have special insights into the
afterlife
- holy ones
- miracle workers
-
spectacular converts
(See Holy Bible, Holy Quran, etc.)
- Claimed
testimony of visitors from the
afterlife
- God
- Angels
- Spirits
(See Afterlife Encounters by Diane Arcangel)
- Human intuitions of goodness assumed to emanate from the afterlife
- Speculation and extrapolation
While there is information available from all of the above sources, a preponderance of concoctions, speculations, and extrapolations have arguably historically characterized formal descriptions of life after death. Religious traditions have historically formalized and codified ideas about afterlife in widely divergent forms. Though the onset of the information age is bringing to light increasing consistency and uniformity of beliefs about afterlife from across and without religious boundaries, most afterlife conceptions continue to follow traditional descriptions, often viewed as rationally weak by skeptics who -- particularly atheists and agnostics of a secular humanist mindset -- may hold that we entirely cease to exist. However, it should be pointed out that not all atheists and agnostics necessarily rule out the existence of an afterlife. For example, many Buddhists neither confirm nor deny the existence of the supernatural (gods, demons, heavens, hells, etc.), while simultaneously embracing the concept of rebirth.
For those who do believe in life after death and an after life, the various conceptions about it differ in their answer to the following questions:
- Is the afterlife a normal life, or a different type of existence?
- Are afterlife conditions a consequence of good and bad actions during life?
- Is afterlife eternal?
- Is it possible to reincarnate as a human or other form of life?
- What happens at the moment of death?
- Are ghosts
and other undead a proof of life
after death?
(Ghosts)
Afterlife as an individual existence
For an afterlife to exist, there must be something that survives the body when death occurs. This something is usually believed to be extra physical and is usually called the soul or spirit.
Afterlife as reward or punishment
One notion of afterlife which is common to Judaism, most sects of Christianity, and Islam is that human souls go on for eternity to a place of happiness or torment, such as heaven, hell, or purgatory or limbo.
Many religions hold that after death people get reward or punishment based on their deeds or faith.
The Christian Bible, for example, contains the words of Jesus: "The measure you give will be the measure you get." (Mark 4:24). For many, belief in an afterlife is a consolation in connection with death of a beloved one or the prospect of one's own death. On the other hand, fear of hell etc. may make death worse.
In the informal folk beliefs of many Christians, the souls of virtuous people ascend to Heaven and are converted into angels upon their deaths. However, a more literal reading of scripture suggests that the dead wait until the Last Judgment, which is followed by resurrection for the faithful. The Roman Catholic Church makes a sharp distinction between angels, who were created by God before the creation of humanity, and saints, who are virtuous people who have received immortality from the grace of God.
In view of the eternity of afterlife, some consider regular life as relatively unimportant, except for determining whether life after death follows, and, if so, what it is like. It is just a provisional situation, and the metaphor of a tent as provisional housing facility is used as quoted below:
- For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:1)
In what we know of Egyptian religion, afterlife is very important. The believer had to act well and know the rituals explained in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. If the corpse was properly embalmed and entombed in a mastaba, the defunct would relive in the Fields of Yalu and accompany the Sun god on its daily ride. If, during the psychomachia, the souls of the defunct were found faulty, the Devourer monster would eat them.
Others, including some Universalists, believe in universalism which holds that all will eventually be rewarded regardless of what they have done or believed.
Life after death, however, is in no way a universal belief; for example, Jehovah's Witnesses interpret Ecclesiastes 9:5 as precluding an afterlife:
- For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
They believe that a resurrection in the flesh at some future date will be a reward and that death (non-existence) is a punishment
Afterlife as reincarnation
Another afterlife concept which is found among Hindus, Buddhists, and Wiccans is reincarnation, whether as humans, animals, or as spiritual beings. One consequence of the Hindu and Buddhist beliefs is that our current lives are also an afterlife, and both Hindus and Buddhists interpret events in our current life as being consequences of actions taken in previous lives.
Some Neopagans believe in personal reincarnation, whereas some believe that the energy of one's soul reintegrates with a continuum of such energy which is recycled into other living things as they are born.
