Greek Afterlife Beliefs

The Greeks believed that the importance of where you go depends on the manner of your death, the behavior you had while still alive and how you were buried could affect where or what happens to you. This is similar to reincarnation because ideas are that the way you act while you are alive, conclude what type of person you are in the future. The way you are buried affect what type of person you become in your future life, such as rather you are buried or cremated. The differences between the Greeks thoughts and mine are that when you die in the Greeks thought, you go to the Underworld if you were judged to be “bad” and if you were “good” you went to Elysium. In reincarnation, some people can go to different places or you can be reincarnated. Another difference is that the Greeks believed in the underworld, if you traveled there your loved ones would be there and available to talk to. With reincarnation you are reborn into a completely different life and are unaware of who your past family was or any relation to your past life

Since ancient civilizations people have been trying to explain what goes on after death. Throughout history, many cultures have had different theories about what happens. Two distinguished ideas of where people go after death are the underworld and Hell. The idea of the underworld came from the Greeks and Romans. A few famous works by the Greeks and Romans that talk about the underworld are The Iliad, The Aeneid, and, The Odyssey. A famous work that discusses Hell is Dante's Inferno. Hell is an accepted part of the Christianity religion and taught all over the world. The two beliefs are very similar but some distinct differences can be seen.

The Egyptians also worried very much about the after life and made many preparations before the afterlife. There graves were very important to them, and they also did much to keep them from decaying after they passed. That is why they had the idea of mummification to allow them to not decay long after they passed. We also pay a lot of money to allow us to keep from decaying on our burials and the coffins.

Hades is the Greek God and ruler of the Underworld. He is often associated with wealth and agriculture. He is also the son of Cronus and Rhea and the third most powerful Greek god. Unlike his two brothers, his realm cannot be seen by anyone living. The Greeks believe that his name, Hades, means “The Unseen One.” He is the only god that does not live on Mount Olympus; he has his own glittering palace made of pure gold and gems in the Underworld. The Greeks believe that when mortals

The underworld in Greek mythology was not a lively place, for it was where all the dead souls went. When a person died, the soul would be sent to Hades, a more formal name for the underworld. "The dead would go to Hades because there was no annihilation in the Greek mythology. The dead are dead because they have a flavorless and unhappy existence".

In ancient Egypt, food offerings were made to the dead. In ancient Greece, pictures of feasts and their favorite things along with food were offered. The overall funeral between the two cultures was very similar in the way things were conducted, however grievers were different. In ancient Greece, people wore black robes and women cut their cheeks and hair to show their grief. In ancient Egypt, people showed their grief through the floral collars they wore . While the beliefs of the afterlife and funerals don’t differ tremendously between the two places, the way they handled the actual body did. In ancient Greece, they buried the dead so the dead who had good hearts would be ensured to make it to the good parts of the afterlife. In ancient Egypt, they used their advanced technologies to preserve bodies through mummification, so the dead could come out of the dead to accept offerings and essentially live forever. Sometimes, afterlife religious practices involved sacrifices which were found in different parts of life leading to the next idea.

As humans, we are always imagining what our lives will be like when we die. While the depictions of what hell or heaven may be from the ancient times and now, what has stayed consist is the idea of an afterlife altogether.

Hades lives in The Palace of the Underworld; this is because he was forbidden to visit Olympus, where the rest of the gods reside. The Underworld is a deep, dark place under the sea.

In the ancient Hebrew writings, the concept of heaven and hell is limited to an underworld development. After burial, it was believed that the souls of the dead would descent into the lower parts of the earth. This underworld or Sheol was a place where people would “dwell as weak, dim shades with no consolation from God.” The book of Psalms considers Sheol as the Pit, where there is no help and the soul is remembered no more (Ps. 88:3-5).

A dark, silent, formless void, a perpetual abyss without orientation, this is essentially what the Greeks believed was the origin of the world. The ancient Greeks while trying to further explain the world, invented beguiling myths (Evie). From these myths a world of human like gods and goddesses was formed (Evie). Through narratives, legends, and myths this world justified various abstract ideas, thus creating Greek mythology (Evie). A central element in Greek mythology is the underworld. The underworld is considered to be the place where one’s soul goes to after death. The underworld has played a vital role in Greek culture by serving as an incentive to live a virtuous life, which in turn has affected all aspects of Greek life.

He was to spend eternity on Mount Olympus, immortal and among the rest of the gods.

Joe Arce 19 Sept 2011 Socrates Vs. Gilgamesh Socrates’ view of death in the Phaedo, Crito, and Apology is complex. His argument tries to prove that philosophers, of all people, are in the best state to die or will be in the best state after life because of the life they lead. Socrates’ views are sharply contrasted in The Epic of Gilgamesh. In fact, he would probably say that Gilgamesh had not lived the proper kind of life and his views of life, and death would lead to an unsettled existence in the afterlife. Socrates’ view of death, from his opinions on the act of dying, the state of the soul after death, and the fear of death, differs from that of The Epic of Gilgamesh to the extent that Socrates would refute every belief about death

The Odyssey emphasizes the barren and sad nature of the Underworld, showing that the Greeks believe that death is the end of life's happiness. Odysseus' mother explains to Odysseus why he cannot embrace her: “The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together;/ these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has/left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream” (Homer 6). From this statement, it can be inferred that the Greeks think that death is a great equalizer. The bad have it worse in Hell but they die like the good, feeling rather sad in not being able to live again. Virgil, however, describes the Underworld in greater detail through its sequences and in much more glorified details (Leach 120). In The Aeneid, every seat in the Underworld is a product of judgment on people's lives (121). Virgil depicts Pluto's dome, which has the roman vestibulum where official and honorable guests congregate (121). Virgil also describes the differences between the people of honor and people of sin in the Underworld. Sinners suffer in the cliff guarded by Tisiphone, where vultures eat their livers and experience numerous other forms of suffering. The Underworld also holds heroes who continually fight their legendary battles: “Here found they Tsucer's old heroic race,/ Born better times and happier years to grace./ Assaracus and Ilus here enjoy/ Perpetual fame, with him who founded Troy” (Virgil 6). Virgil is saying that

The Mesopotamians had a gloomy picture of the afterlife. They believed that the winged spirits of the dead were confined to a dark netherworld, doomed to perpetual hunger and thirst unless someone offered them food and drink. They believed that some spirits escaped to haunt live human beings. The most interesting thing about their vision of the afterlife is that in it, all humans suffered equally -- there was no special treatment for those who had some well and good in life or for those who had been poor or bad. There were burial rituals, and people were usually buried with pottery and other trinkets. There were not, however, tombstones or inscriptions to identify the dead. The explanation offered by Historians is that the Mesopotamians were mainly concerned with the problems of the mortal world and leading a good life before dying.

There are hints of the Greek conception of the universe in Homer, who mentions many subjects on his two epics describing war and the perils of trying to come home after long absence. For Homer, heaven is a solid inverted bowl straddling the earth, with fiery, gleaming "aither" above the cloud-bearing air. Homer mentions the movements of sun, moon, and many stars by name. The fact that Hades is on the underside of earth has an important impact on conceptions of heaven: it is unlit by the sun, therefore, the sun--and by extension, other heavenly bodies-- must sink only to the level of Ocean, which is conceived as a river circling earth's edge. From it the Sun must also rise--though how it gets back to the eastern bank of Ocean is never explained. These popular conceptions of sky are more fully explained in Hesiod, whose works on gods, on agriculture, and animal-herding are more closely connected to the practical application of astronomy. He clocks spring, summer, and harvest by solstices and the rising and setting of certain stars, and notices that the sun migrates southwards in winter