(Fifteen-minute read)
Be assured that, for every religion promising a great afterlife there is another religion somewhere else which will promise you that that the other religion has it wrong — and will do so with just as much fervour as the first.
Neither science nor secular humanism provides answers to this question the answer is none of them.
The old testament has no heaven or hell. These only get added in the NT.
Without going into the specifics for what an “after-life” and a “religion” actually are:
No one knows anything about an afterlife.
It is said that religion can be elucidated in various ways.
Here is what a few of the main religions offer.
As needs be the summary underneath is incomplete.
Buddhism and (possibly?) and Jainism offer reincarnation until one achieves enlightenment, at which point one’s soul merges with the great universal soul of Heaven.
Hinduism: Oldest living religion on earth with 33 Supreme Gods in the form of Lord Ganesh, Lord Shiva, Lord Vishnu, Lord Krishna, Lord Rama, Lord Hanuman, Goddess Durga, Goddess Lakshmi, Goddess Parvati, Goddess Saraswati, Goddess Kali, and scores of other Gods, and Goddesses. Hindus believe that their Gods and Goddesses have specialized knowledge, creative energy, and exalted magical powers.
According to one’s own karma. No religion except it gives a detailed explanation of what happens afterlife and what happens before life and what happens in between two lives.
Punishment consists of being reincarnated as a more lowly life form. You are punished in hell for your wrongdoings And rewarded in heaven for good things. But these are not permanent. After a specific time, you are again kicked back to Earth. And the cycle on birth and death starts again till you neutralize all your karmas and become one with that infinite universal god.
Christianity and Islam, offer eternal bliss in communion with God.
Punishment takes the form of Hell and eternal torment.
Sikhism. God in Sikhism is known as Ik Onkar, he has no gender, beyond time and space and without form. It forbids the representation of God in images.
It has elements of Hinduism and Islam in its beliefs, practices, and traditions. It retains the general Hindu conception of the universe and the doctrine of samsara, or rebirth, based on karma.
Sikhs do not cut their hair. According to Sikhism, all days of the week and all numbers are the same, no one day or a number is better than the other.
One need not perform any rituals or believe in superstitions to receive God’s love.
Guru Gobind Singh was the last Guru of the Sikhs in human form. He created the Khalsa, a spiritual brotherhood and sisterhood devoted to purity of thought and action.
Vikings believed in a multitude of realms or homeworlds, nine in total populated by gods, humans, and giants and sinners.
The three primary realms were Niflheim, the world of the mist, Midgard the land of mortals and Asgard the home of the Aesir gods. Vanaheimr home of the Vanir, Jotunheim was the land of the mighty Norse giants, Alfheim was the land of the elves in Norse mythology, Svartalfheim the home of the dark elves, Muspelheim the realm of fire, Helheim also known as Hel was the underworld of Norse mythology and was home to the being who oversaw this realm also called Hel.
Helheim was the place where Vikings would go should they die from natural causes, or more specifically not in battle. Once there, it would be impossible to leave, Helheim was surrounded by the river Gjoll and guarded by a devilish giant hound, known as Garm.
They who died gloriously in battle go to Valhalla, where they feasted and drank mead all night and fought all day.
Punishment. A dreadful afterlife called Hella.
Atheism, It doesn’t make any afterlife promises that it won’t deliver.
Bahá’í one of the youngest of the world’s major religions. It was founded by Bahá’u’lláh in Iran in 1863. The central idea of faith is that of unity. They believe that people should work together for the common benefit of humanity.
Buddhism. Has lots of views you are basically psychologically dismembered, layer by layer. As you pass through your journey, layers of your being are erased and rewritten into a new being. There is nothing left of the old you when the process is complete. You can try over and over again to get off the Wheel of Life by reincarnation.
The other possibility is Nirvana, in which you stop being reborn. You become one with everything, yet you also lose all identity. This is why Nirvana is often called “The Deathless State”
Once the process is complete, you are reborn into samsara (The physical world)
Buddhists believe that the 6 realms are literal, that people really come back as Devas or Pretas.
Someone who responds with Anger will enter Naraka or hell,
Someone who responds with greed or desire will become a Preta or hungry ghost,
Someone who responds with Ignorance or Stubbornness will enter the realm of the Tiryag-Yoni, or animals,
A person who responds with Passion or the Desire to Control will be reborn into the Human Realm,
A person who responds with Fear will be reborn as an Asura, or jealous-god,
A person who responds with Pride or Arrogance will be reborn as a Deva, or god.
Pantheism, offer the free option of never dying, through the realization that you existed long before birth.
Islam. Muslims believe that a good devout Muslim man will be given 62 additional wives in heaven.
Taoism, the main belief of the Taoist is that becoming one with the Tao, or, the life force of the universe brings peace and harmony to them. They believe that we are eternal and that the afterlife is just another part of life itself.
Mormons believe that most people will end up in one of three kingdoms of glory, depending on one’s level of faithfulness. They believe that God gives to (virtually) everyone general salvation to immortal life in one of the heavenly kingdoms. Belief in Christ is necessary only to obtain passage to the highest, celestial kingdom.
Judaism. Jews assumed that God chose the Jews to be the picked people to set the cases to that of the greatness moreover the ethical lead to the entire world. Judaism is an antiquated monotheistic religion, with the Torah as its foundational content.
Shintoism believe that daily life is made possible by kami, and accordingly, the personality and life of people are worthy of respect. An individual must revere the basic human rights of everyone as well as his own. The believers of this religion assumed that the supernatural powers existed in the trademark world.
Scientology, believes in the “immortality of each individual’s spirit,” therefore making death, not a significant worry. The spirit acquires another body necessary for growth and survival. Scientologists do not typically dwell on Heaven or Hell or the afterlife, instead focusing on the spirit.
Zoroastrianism believe in the existence of separation of good and evil.
Dogans believe in various malevolent and benevolent spirits who populate the bush, trees, and uninhabited places. Although the Dogon recognize the creator god Amma as the Supreme Being and address prayers and sacrifices to him, the core set of beliefs and practices focuses on ancestor worship. Death is conceived as the separation from the body of the two parts that make up the personality—the nyama, or vital life force, and the kikinu say, or soul.
Amentotop 111 believed he was a living sun god.
Native American, Australian, Polynesian, Southeast Asian, or Central Asian religions
Several seem to threaten eternal torment for not believing them.
In the end, it doesn’t even matter that to which religion one belongs to. We take birth as human beings and die as human beings. A strong society means survival of the species.
History has shown that beliefs and faith, of the most intransigent kind, have served as the justification for tragic violence and destruction and sustained the ignorance of people. People have slaughtered each other in wars, pogroms, genocides, inquisitions, crusades, and political actions for centuries and still kill each other over beliefs in ideologies, politics, philosophies, and religion.
So how about my new religion- Problemist – it could be or could not be.
Instead of owning beliefs, we are open to all beliefs allows us to correct our mistakes without submitting our ideas to years or centuries of traditional time-consuming barriers.
Problematic beliefs do not leave behind fossil evidence.
We communicate without resorting to preconceived ideas based on past beliefs. Our feeling of wonder about the universe provides us with the fuel for exploration; how much more magnificent the results from useful thoughts than ones based on belief or faith.
We do not require education, knowledge, or understanding. Even the most uneducated of us can believe in anything.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
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