What happens after we die?

Subject: What happens after we die? Tue Dec 09, 2008 1:45 pm

What happens after we die?

This is one of the questions found so often in the field of religion in which different faiths teach a variety of incompatible, mutually exclusive beliefs, while most people are convinced that they know the answer precisely.

Many mental health professionals and religious historians believe that believe that religion was created millennia ago as an attempt to explain how the universe works and what happens to people after death. Religions were originally developed so that people could have a sense of power over their life and environment. Knowing that they may be wiped out at any time by starvation, animal attacks, drought, floods, foreign army attack, illnesses, accidents, etc., ancient people sought security in an insecure world. Religion filled that need.

There are few if any fears more serious than the fear of death. Religions answered these fears with a belief that somehow a person's personality, memories, talents, and consciousness survived death in a new form.

There is general agreement among persons of all religions that a person's eventual destiny after death will be one of the following:
Heaven: Eternity is spent in Heaven or Paradise with God, in a state that is beautiful beyond our ability to conceive.
Hell: Eternity is spent in Hell with Satan and his demons. All are tormented and tortured, in isolation from God, without any hope of mercy or relief.
Annihilation: The body rots. One's soul, spirit, memory, personality, awareness, body, and mind disappear and are no more.
Transmigration of the soul: Our soul and spirit are reborn into a human fetus or newborn child.
Reincarnation: Our soul and spirit are reborn into another living entity - not necessarily human.

Most people believe that up to three of the above destinations and states exist. For example, some faith groups teach that people who are saved go to Heaven; those who are unsaved go to Hell and are eventually annihilated. They regard the other options as religious fantasy which do not exist in reality. But, of course, there is no general agreement about which are the true states and which are the fantasies.

There is close agreement within most faith groups, but little agreement between religions, about what criteria is used to determine whether, for example, a person eventually resides in Heaven or Hell. There is little agreement about the processes, locations, and states that a person will go through between death and their final destiny.