Current religious beliefs about life after death

Afterlife as reward or punishment

Many religious traditions have held that the afterlife will resolve justice by assigning rewards and punishments to people according to how they lived their lives. This belief can be found throughout the ancient world, especially in Greek and Roman religion, as well as in various Asian religions. To the extent that the afterlife is a form of justice, it is usually restricted to humans, as other animals are not held responsible for their actions.

Abrahamic religions

In the monotheistic traditions of Judaism (see Jewish views of the afterlife), and most sects of Christianity, human souls spend eternity in a place of happiness or torment, such as Heaven, Hell, Purgatory or Limbo (in Islam, Mizan, the instrument used, to compare the things of good and bad in the afterlife by someone, compares everything a person has done, and it is believed limbo does not exist according to the Quran) . (in Judaism, "eternity" is not applicable to heaven, hell or limbo doesn't exist, and time spent in "purgatory" is definitely not eternal.)

Salvation, faith, and merit

Most Christians deny that entry into Heaven can be properly earned, rather it is a gift that is solely God's to give through his unmerited grace. This belief follows the theology of St. Paul: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. The Augustinian, Thomist, Lutheran, and Calvinist theological traditions all emphasize the necessity of God's undeserved grace for salvation, and reject so-called Pelagianism, which would make man earn salvation through good works. Not all Christian sects accept this doctrine, leading many controversies on grace and free will, and the idea of predestination. In particular, the belief that heaven is a reward for good behavior is a common folk belief in Christian societies, even among members of churches which reject that belief.

The dead as Angels in Heaven

In the informal folk beliefs of many Christians, the souls of virtuous people ascend to Heaven and are converted into angels. More formal Christian theology 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.

Universalism

Some sects, such as the Universalists, believe in universalism which holds that all will eventually be rewarded regardless of what they have done or believed. On that note, perhaps it is that on the other side of life, in a space we would call death, it would be more than likely that we know everything instantaneously, which would soon be followed by boredom. Perhaps it is because we would be bored in knowing everything that we come to here in life and take the present form of humanity, unknowing and curious, yet knowing that it is impossible to know everything without wondering "Why is the Universe Eternal" and failing to realize that it is Eternal to keep us Entertained with Possibility.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses understand Ecclesiastes 9:5 to preclude an afterlife:
For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they any more have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten.
They believe that following Armageddon a resurrection in the flesh to an Edenic Earth will be rewarded to both righteous and unrighteous(but not wicked) dead and that eternal death (non-existence) is the punishment for sin lacking repentance after Armageddon. Although those who are not dead when Armageddon occurs will be judged and possibly slain during Armageddon because of their potential regretless sins. They believe that death is the price for sinning (that is why most dead will be resurrected - they paid the price already

Deists

During the European Enlightenment, many deist freethinkers held that belief in an afterlife with reward and punishment was a necessity of reason and good moral order.

Punishment, retribution, and deterrence

Over the centuries, concepts related to punishment have changed, and so have attitudes about punishment in the afterlife. Earlier views of punishment as retribution have largely given way to a modern view of punishment as properly serving to deter or rehabilitate. (See for example punishment; Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria; Jeremy Bentham; and Michel Foucault) At the same time, views of punishment in the afterlife have softened. For example, Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards wrote that the saved in heaven will delight in the suffering of the damned. Hell, however, doesn't fit modern, humanitarian concepts of punishment because it can't deter the unbeliever nor rehabilitate the damned. Believers have come to downplay the punishment of hell. Universalists teach that salvation is for all. Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists teach that sinners are destroyed rather than tortured forever. Mormons believe that there are three possible degrees of glory in the afterlife, none of which are hellish. In the 1990s, the Catechism of the Catholic Church defined hell not as punishment imposed on the sinner but rather as the sinner's "self-exclusion" from God.

Afterlife as reincarnation

Another afterlife concept which is found among Hindus, Rosicrucians, Spiritists, and Wicca is reincarnation, as evolving humans life after life in the physical world, that is, acquiring a superior grade of consciousness and altruism by means of successive reincarnations. This succession is conceived to lead toward an eventual liberation or spiritual rebirth as spiritual beings. However, some practitioners of eastern religions follow a different concept called metempsychosis which purposes that human beings can transmigrate into animals, vegetables or even minerals. One consequence of the Hindu and Spiritist beliefs is that our current lives are also an afterlife. According to those beliefs events in our current life are consequences of actions taken in previous lives, or Karma.

Buddhists, however, believe that rebirth takes place without a self (similar to soul) and that the process of rebirth is simply a continuation of the previous life. The process of being reborn as any other being is based on your karma. And from a Buddhist perspective, the current life is actually a continuation of the past life. If one dies with a peaceful state of mind this will cause fortunate karma to ripen and a fortunate rebirth as a human or god will follow. If one dies with a negative state of mind this will ripen negative karma and a lower rebirth such as an animal, hungry ghost or hell being will follow.

In Tibetan Buddhism the Tibetan Book of the Dead explains the intermediate state of humans between death and reincarnation. The deceased will find the bright light of wisdom, which shows a straightforward path to move upward and leave the cycle of reincarnation. There are various reasons why deceased not follow that light. Some had no briefing about the intermediate state in the former life. Others only used to follow their basic instincts like animals. And some have fear, which results from foul deeds in the former life or from insistent haughtiness. In the intermediate state the awareness is very flexible, so it is important to be virtuous, adopt a positive attitude and avoid negative ideas. Ideas which are rising from subconsciousness can cause extreme tempers and cowing visions. In this situation they have to understand, that these manifestations are just reflections of the inner thoughts. No one can really hurt them, because they have no more material body. The deceased get help from different Buddha's who show them the path to the bright light. The ones who do not follow the path after all will get hints for a better reincarnation. They have to release the things and beings on which or whom they still hang from the life before. It is recommended to choose a family where the parents trust in the Dharma and to reincarnate with the will to care for the welfare of all beings.

Rosicrucians, in the same way of those who have had near-death experiences, speak of a life review period occurring immediately after death and before entering the afterlife's planes of existence (before the silver cord is broken), followed by a judgment, more akin to a Final Review or End Report over one's life.

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. Sikhs also believe in reincarnation. They believe that the soul belongs to the spiritual universe which has its origins in God. It is like a see-saw, the amount of good done in life will store up blessings, thus uniting with God. A soul may need to live many lives before it is one with God.

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Edgar Cayce:

Edgar Cayce (pronounced "Kay-see") was a simple Sunday School teacher who, over the span of his lifetime (1877-1945), had more near-death experiences than anyone ever documented. Cayce learned at a young age that when he was hypnotized, he could leave his body and journey into the afterlife realms. His self-induced out-of-body experiences were identical to near-death experiences. Cayce made over 14,000 otherworldly journeys in his life and the information he gained from these journeys has astounded people all over the world.

The system of metaphysical thought which emerges from the Cayce material can be described as a "Christianized" version of the mystery religions of ancient Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, India, and Greece. It fits Christ into the mystical tradition of one God for all people, and places Christ in his proper place, at the apex of the philosophical structure - the capstone of the pyramid.

Cayce was a fundamentalist Christian who was raised in strict nineteenth century Bible tradition. When he discovered that his subconscious information declared the ancient mystic religions to be true and acclaimed Jesus as their crowning glory, he suffered the greatest mental and emotional shock of his life. Cayce had only a seventh grade education and consciously knew nothing of what he said while in a deep trance-like state. He was only versed in the Bible and had no high school or college background of any kind. Up until his revelations, Cayce had never heard of the mystery religions. Yet the Cayce material agrees with everything about them that is known to be authentic. He spoke at length on Christian Gnosticism well before the Gnostic writings were discovered after his death. Cayce affirmed that Christian Gnosticism is the type of Christianity that was taught by Jesus. Much of the information from Cayce has solved some of the greatest mysteries of humanity, some of which were later validated after the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the early Christian writings discovered in Egypt.

Cayce's descriptions of the Essenes of Mount Carmel reveal the religious sect to be an ideal for others who would prepare the way for the Second Coming of Christ. Cayce's revelations of Jesus' so-called "lost years" as a youth studying in Egypt, Persia, and India suggest an important compatibility of between the eastern and western religions. Cayce's Christology also makes the Christ soul not only an ideal and pattern toward which everyone should aspire, but a living presence to guide people toward "at-one-ment" with God - the perfect divine-human unity which Jesus attained.
Near-Death Experiences & the Afterlife

Christian Gnosticism

Edgar Cayce had many near-death experience and revealed information about ancient religions which have been affirmed to be true. The following are some of the revelations he received concerning the connection between Buddha and Jesus.

Christian Gnosticism is the highest form of Christianity according to the Cayce revelations. A close study of Christian Gnosticism shows that this early form of Christianity is more similar to Buddhism than it is to traditional Christianity. For example, both religions teach:

(a) reincarnation,
(b) a philosophy of life on earth as suffering for which we must be liberated,
(c) the oneness of all things,
(d) the divine light,
(e) various afterlife realms to journey through,
(f) the human goal of attaining Christhood is identical to the goal of attaining Buddhahood,
(g) the distinction between Jesus (the human) to Christ (the spirit of human-divine unity) and the distinction between Buddha (the human) and Dharmakaya (the Clear Light of Ultimate Reality),
(h) the concept of karma,
(i) and the importance of good works.
This is not a complete list.

The Human Being

Human nature mirrors the duality found in the world: in part it was made by the false creator God and in part it consists of the light of the True God. Humankind contains a perishable physical and psychic component, as well as a spiritual component which is a fragment of the divine essence. This latter part is often symbolically referred to as the “divine spark”. The recognition of this dual nature of the world and of the human being has earned the Gnostic tradition the epithet of "dualist."

Humans are generally ignorant of the divine spark resident within them. This ignorance is fostered in human nature by the influence of the false creator and his Archons, who together are intent upon keeping men and women ignorant of their true nature and destiny. Anything that causes us to remain attached to earthly things serves to keep us in enslavement to these lower cosmic rulers. Death releases the divine spark from its lowly prison, but if there has not been a substantial work of Gnosis undertaken by the soul prior to death, it becomes likely that the divine spark will be hurled back into, and then re-embodied within, the pangs and slavery of the physical world.

Not all humans are spiritual (pneumatics) and thus ready for Gnosis and liberation. Some are earthbound and materialistic beings (hyletics), who recognize only the physical reality. Others live largely in their psyche (psychics). Such people usually mistake the Demiurge for the True God and have little or no awareness of the spiritual world beyond matter and mind.

In the course of history, humans progress from materialistic sensate slavery, by way of ethical religiosity, to spiritual freedom and liberating Gnosis. As the scholar G. Quispel wrote: “The world-spirit in exile must go through the Inferno of matter and the Purgatory of morals to arrive at the spiritual Paradise.” This kind of evolution of consciousness was envisioned by the Gnostics, long before the concept of evolution was known.

Salvation
Evolutionary forces alone are insufficient, however, to bring about spiritual freedom. Humans are caught in a predicament consisting of physical existence combined with ignorance of their true origins, their essential nature and their ultimate destiny. To be liberated from this predicament, human beings require help, although they must also contribute their own efforts.

From earliest times Messengers of the Light have come forth from the True God in order to assist humans in their quest for Gnosis. Only a few of these salvific figures are mentioned in Gnostic scripture; some of the most important are Seth (the third Son of Adam), Jesus, and the Prophet Mani. The majority of Gnostics always looked to Jesus as the principal savior figure (the Soter).

Gnostics do not look to salvation from sin (original or other), but rather from the ignorance of which sin is a consequence. Ignorance -- whereby is meant ignorance of spiritual realities -- is dispelled only by Gnosis, and the decisive revelation of Gnosis is brought by the Messengers of Light, especially by Christ, the Logos of the True God. It is not by His suffering and death but by His life of teaching and His establishing of mysteries that Christ has performed His work of salvation.

The Gnostic concept of salvation, like other Gnostic concepts, is a subtle one. On the one hand, Gnostic salvation may easily be mistaken for an unmediated individual experience, a sort of spiritual do-it-yourself project. Gnostics hold that the potential for Gnosis, and thus, of salvation is present in every man and woman, and that salvation is not vicarious but individual. At the same time, they also acknowledge that Gnosis and salvation can be, indeed must be, stimulated and facilitated in order to effectively arise within consciousness. This stimulation is supplied by Messengers of Light who, in addition to their teachings, establish salvific mysteries (sacraments) which can be administered by apostles of the Messengers and their successors.

One needs also remember that knowledge of our true nature -- as well as other associated realizations -- are withheld from us by our very condition of earthly existence. The True God of transcendence is unknown in this world, in fact He is often called the Unknown Father. It is thus obvious that revelation from on High is needed to bring about salvation. The indwelling spark must be awakened from its terrestrial slumber by the saving knowledge that comes “from without.

Stephan A. Hoeller (Tau Stephanus, Gnostic Bishop)

Kuriakon - Infinity