Christianity And Afterlife Essay

They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they 'd say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn 't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn 't quite dying, because in a curious way, it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself. "

- Karma, samsara and nirvana fall under the religion of Hinduism. When all of our actions bring consequences, either in this life or the next is referred as karma. Samsara means the cycle of birth and death. Us humans are basically good, but are caught up in a cycle of pure desire and also of suffering that is a direct result of ignorance and of the go. Nirvana is another word to describe the permanent liberation from life. It is a liberation from the cycle of samsara, in which we cease to exist and become one with the universe.

Reincarnation is a very common belief by most humans. This is a Buddhist and Hindu belief of the afterlife. Reincarnation is the belief that souls within every living organism never die, applying to plants, animals, and people. Reincarnation is all based on karma. Karma 's law included in the belief that determines someone’s life. In reincarnation, if one has good karma, one ascends to a higher spiritual being like going from an animal to a human, or, if one has bad karma, one descends to a lower spiritual being. This is known as samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth. Nirvana is

Life after death is a very controversial topic around the world and in society. Throughout our lives, we often wonder ‘what happens when we die?’. There are many different beliefs as to what happens to our bodies and to our souls after we die. Religion provides answers to this question, however different religions offer different beliefs and answers to this question. There are two basic kinds of religion in this world: Eastern and Western. Through learning about the key beliefs of Catholics and Hindus I have been able to learn some similar and some different perspectives on the forever debatable question ‘what happens when we die?’.

Not everybody has the same beliefs about certain things. The world is a big place with billions of people and a lot of them have their own beliefs. One belief about death is the way Buddhism people see it and their belief is reincarnation. Today, Buddhism is found in Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and China and in India, Sri Lanka Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, Cambodia, also in the European countries and the USA. It is believed that the Buddhist population of the world is over five hundred million. Five hundred million people believe that if you die it is not the end of your life but the beginning of a new one. Your new life would be reborn in one of six realms which are: heaven, human beings, Asura, hungry ghost, animal and hell. This all depends on the karma of your life; the better your karma is, the better your reincarnation would be, and that is called the

Nearly everything could be represented by a god or goddess. Death and the afterlife was represented by Osiris. Aten and Ra were sun gods. The Egyptians felt that they needed to pray and build temples for these gods and goddesses to stay in their favor. These gods were believed to control everything, and if the Egyptians pleased them they would be rewarded. They worshipped their gods by making offerings. They would leave flowers and food in temples to show their respect. Commoners were not often allowed in temples. Priests had plenty of power because the gods were often feared. Most Egyptians did not actually love the gods, but feared their wrath. Commoners could occasionally attend ceremonies. At these ceremonies animals were often sacrificed.

The afterlife is usually thought of as something even better than life as we know it. Having certain beliefs about one’s destiny after passing can help with coping and believing that one is where they belong. Thoughts about the afterlife have always varied greatly. Even so, all cultures and religions are alike in one way; they stick with their own specific beliefs because their way is the only “right” way. Although all believed in deities, the views on the afterlife of Egypt and Early Greece believed in something greater after passing while Mesopotamia was more of being fearful and not knowing, but living.

Death is a promise by God that we as humans still have not found the courage to accept nor comprehend. Good or bad. Old or young. God has promised us all an eternal resting place in heaven or hell, or even in someone. Where we can live through their thoughts and imagination, get a second chance at life through them. Throughout Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya we see how the dead linger and live in Antonio, unfolding their souls in his inquisitive mind and hand him the bricks to make them a home of his religious ambivalence.

The Buddha described reincarnation as lighting successive candles using the flame of the preceding candle. Although each flame is casually connected to the one that came before it, it is not the same flame. When one personality dies, a new one comes into being. Buddhism teaches that what is reborn is not the person but that one moment gives rise to another and that this momentum continues even after death. Instead of a fixed entity, what is reborn is a “stream of consciousness,” whose quality has been conditioned by karma. It is similar to Hinduism in that karma determines the circumstances of subsequent lives, so there is continuity between personalities but not persistence of identity. Circumstances of rebirth are not seen as rewards or punishments from a controlling God but are the natural results of various good deeds and misdeeds. The cycle of rebirths involves suffering and continues until all cravings are lost and nirvana is achieved.

George Patton Jr once said that, “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” Mr.Patton realized that death is natural and inevitable, so he gives thanks to God for the life that he, his friends and family have been dealt. At funerals, usually several individuals are pain stricken and severely upset. These individuals have been conditioned to fear death and to believe that death is something to run away from. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross speaks about actually tuning into the patients in order to figure out what their needs are. Mrs. Kubler-Ross, in her novel, On Death & Dying uses a five step blueprint in order to describe the dying process effectively.

Whether you are of South East Asian beliefs, of western religions like Christianity or Atheist, we all believe in different outcomes after death. The Hindu belief of after afterlife and rebirth can be seen as the foundation for the Buddhists beliefs of the wheel of life and the pure land although many believe that it is the ying to Buddhist yang. In order to understand these process we need to appreciate the Buddhist nirvana and the Hindu moksha. Nirvana is a state of enlightenment in which there is no suffering, desire, nor sense of self.

Buddhism’s liberation from samsara is known as "nirvana" which literally means "blowing out" or "extinction," like quenching a flame. In Buddhist teaching, humans are bound to samsara through the flames of anger, ignorance and desire. So when one attains nirvana, one quenches anger (which focuses on the past), ignorance (which focuses on the present) and desire (which focuses on the future). In Buddhism, humans escape life and death by quenching all the anger, ignorance and desire while the physical body may still be alive. This is why Buddhists speak of rebirth rather than reincarnation. Nirvana is

In the western world, a dominant belief is that after life, a person’s soul is sent to a place of eternal bliss, heaven, or a place of eternal damnation, hell. To Buddhists, this concept is not the norm. Buddhists believe that a person is reincarnated into another life form, either human or animal. What life form a person is reincarnated as is determined by the person’s karma. The concept of karma not only affects reincarnation, but also what path a person’s life takes. While much of the concept of karma is believable and comprehensible by a person of any denomination, some aspects are dependant upon a belief in reincarnation and that a person will eventually be punished for his sins or rewarded

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There are many religions that have different beliefs about dying. Buddhist?s do not believe in life after death meaning heaven. Buddhist?s believe that when one dies he is reborn again and this continues until the person reaches Nirvana. Nirvana is