The Role Of Life After Death In Buddhism And Christianity

Death is one of the most important topics that religions cope with. Since religion deals

The attitudes towards religion is often determined by how well the religion can give themselves off, especially when it comes to answering the question on how to deal with suffering. With Christianity, Jesus taught his followers that suffering is eliminated through salvation, which is by repentance and dependence on God. While with Buddhism, Buddha taught suffering is universal and that the only way to deal with it is by forsaking oneself and following the Middle Path, thus achieving a worked out salvation. Though these teachings do resemble each other in meaning, they differ in their purpose.

Buddhism began in the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ by Siddhartha Gautama. The teachings of Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama, are the major beliefs of Buddhism. Buddhism is a belief and religion based on an assortment of customs, principles, and practices. The name Buddha means the awakened one. Buddha’s teachings were of the termination of suffering, attaining nirvana, and absconding from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Buddhism has spread all across Asia and throughout the world, now with between two hundred thirty million and five hundred million followers. Buddhism is largely based around the belief of Karma. Karma is the “action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation” (Dictionary.com) or “the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person’s deeds in the previous incarnation.” (Dictionary.com) In simpler words, how you live your life now determines how you will come back when your current soul expires. Buddhists live their lives in hopes of achieving to be placed in the highest state known as Heaven. The after-life stems from Karma and leads into Rebirth. Rebirth is a course of action where humans proceed within multiple lifetimes in one or more of the six states of after-life. Each lifetime begins with birth and ends with death. Buddhists believe that we should not fear death because

It is because of this scary concept of not knowing what happens after death that religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism among others, spread so quickly and appealed to the masses. All of these religions offered a form of afterlife. They offered a way of understanding the metaphysical aspects of death. The Japanese people had no clear meaning of an afterlife. While

We all die one day. Whether it’s by old age, sickness, cancer, or anything in between, everyone dies, and in turn, many people use religion to explain where we will go when we die. Religion is a metaphysical idea that is shown in both Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, and in real life. It is almost always seen as a positive aspect that will only benefit people's lives, however, religion doesn’t always have a favorable reputation to it. There is good people in religion, but there are also bad people. There are good non-religious people, and there are bad non-religious people. People will still be good or bad without the influence of a higher power, as religion doesn’t equal morality.

In order to gain good karma, one must act according to dharma. “Dharma is like a cosmic norm and if one goes against the cosmic norm or the norm for the individual or the class, then bad karma can result” (Fowler, p.11). This concept of constant rebirth is known as samsara and the Hindus’ goal is to liberate themselves from this cycle and achieve moksa (Fowler, p.12). The aim is for the individual not to have karma, either good or bad, but to be freed

Buddhists believe all of us will pass away eventually as a natural part of the world; birth old age and death. However, they believe death is not the end of life. It is said to be the end of the body that we inhabited in that life, but that our spirit will remain and seek out a new body and new life. Your new life would be based on your previous life’s karma. This is what is lead to the person being reborn in one of the six realms. These are heaven, human beings, hungry ghost, animal, Asura (lowest rank of demigods) or hell. Buddhists believe these realms are not permanent place and one does not remain in any place forever. So in Buddhism, life does not end, that the life we are in is impermanent. They believe we should not fear death, as it will lead to rebirth.

Buddhism stands as a philosophy and a religion founding itself on the theory of a possible eternal soul. Until awakening is achieved, this eternal soul is locked in the vicious cycle of rebirth (Samsara). According to the Four Noble Truths preached by the Buddha, life is a perpetual suffering caused by desire and attachment, and freedom from suffering is only possible by practicing the Eightfold Path. The World is suffering in a succession of temptations and negative experiences from birth to death. Therefore Buddhism advises on searching to go beyond suffering, and only aspire to rest, nothingness, and liberation, into a final state called Nirvana. Happiness or Nirvana can eventually be achieved in a hereafter, another life, if man abandons any desire or perspective of action within his present life, in order to go past suffering.

The eternal state of the soul is a question almost every living being who is capable of comprehending has asked. What happens after one dies has created some of the greatest debates in history. For the Christian believer, there is a promise of an eternal existence with Christ (John 3:16). Conversely, the final destiny of those who have not accepted Christ as their Lord is not as clear. Through analysis of Scripture and evaluation of the major viewpoints of Restrictivists, Universal Opportunity, Postmortem Evangelism, Inclusivist, and others, it is clear that those who do not find saving grace in Jesus will spend an eternity apart from Christ.

On the other hand, Christianity also differs to Buddhism in many aspects. The first difference in belief system is vision about “suffering”. According to the first Noble Truth in Buddhism, suffering has many forms such as physical pain, psychological pain, unsatisfied desires, impermanence and constant change. With Buddhists, trying to relive the suffering of others is an important way to be rewarded in their next life. This does not match with how Christians feel about suffering. In Christianity, God already has an arrangement for human’s lifetime, which may include suffering but Christians should trust in his plan. God must have a reason for suffering but it is beyond human understanding. Also, suffering is a preparation for heaven, let

Karma is the connotation of causality that past actions influence future events. This is the same for both Buddhism and Hinduism. Both also believe in an endless cycle of births known as endless cycle of births, known as samsara. and release from this cycle of rebirths.

Religions are said to hold answers for all of the important questions posed to the human race. One question that appears, not only in today’s time, but as far back as the dawn of man, is the curious question of ‘what happens after death?’ Some religions state that the soul can ascend to a heavenly body and eternal paradise, or descend to a fiery pit and eternal damnation. Some say

In this method twelve factors were identified about beliefs about afterlife. Three of the major factors were that 12.1 percent believe in Heave and Hell. 7.9 percent believe in reincarnation and 6.6 percent believed that there ate material objects and sexual desire in the after life. The gender differences that were found are that men are not less likely to believe in afterlife but they were less likely to believe in Heaven, reuniting with loved ones, communication with the living and request for forgiveness before death. Men were more likely the women to believe that there are material objects, that spirits have human form, that there is pain, hunger, thirst and that rituals carried out after death are important. The religious differences they found were that Protestant students were less likely to believe in life-after-death then Roman Catholic students. On the other hand, Protestant students were more likely to believe that there is Hell and that forgiveness needs to be requested to get into Heaven.

There are many different religions in the world and every religion has a specific set of beliefs surrounding life questions. One of the most commonly asked questions is ‘is there life after death’. Almost all religions would have the same answer which is yes, but each religion has a different answer to what actually happens after death. In this essay I will compare the beliefs between Catholicism and judaism surrounding their beliefs on the topic of life after death, I will also look into the similarities between both religions beliefs of what happens after death.

There are hundreds of cultures all of the world who have different views, traditions, and beliefs. One of the major parts of a lot of cultures is the death aspect and certain things they believe about it. Although everybody dies eventually, people have different ideas about what should happen to the body left behind, what happens to the soul, and even different ways people the deceased left behind should mourn. A very big religion throughout the world is Buddhism. According to a website on buddhism, it “originated in North West India some 2,500 years ago, with the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama, who became known as the Buddha (the Awakened One)” (Buddhist Society). They have very different views on life and death from other major religions