The afterlife (or life after death) is a generic term referring to a continuation of existence, typically spiritual and experiential, beyond this world, or after death. This article is about current generic and widely held or reported concepts of afterlife.
Afterlife as a belief
Most cultures past and present, have contained some belief in an afterlife. Such beliefs are usually manifested in a religion, as they pertain to phenomena beyond the ordinary experience of the natural world. Through the ages, various evidence has been advanced in attempts to demonstrate the reality of an afterlife, but nothing has ever been proven about either the existence or nature of an afterlife so the topic remains highly speculative.
Types of evidence that are offered include:
- Testimony of individuals who claim experiential knowledge of facets of afterlife :-
by having died and then been sent back to this life (near-death experiences)
by having visited the afterlife during a period of unconsciousness (out-of-body experiences)
by having seen the afterlife during a revelatory vision
by a unique personal gift of remembering an afterlife (before-life)
by having communicated with (or received a message from) someone who has died (Mediumship or electronic voice phenomena) - Testimony of individuals who are thought to have special insights into the afterlife :-
holy ones
miracle workers
spectacular converts - Claimed testimony of visitors from the afterlife :-
God
Angels
Spirits
Demons - Human intuitions of goodness thought to emanate from the afterlife
- Rational philosophical or theological arguments:-
The immortal nature of the soul
The natural desire for immortality
Afterlife as an individual or collective existence
Belief in an afterlife usually entails the belief that something survives the body when death occurs, such as an immaterial soul or spirit. Philosophers have long debated whether the soul or mind has an immaterial or incorruptible quality; see, for example, the Mind-body problem. Some pantheistic systems have seen the afterlife as a process of (re-)assimilation into a cosmic spirit.
While the major monotheistic religions of the world (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and their offshoots) almost universally preach some form of mind-body dualism, many Eastern "religions", such as the many branches of Buddhism and Taoism do not contain any such claims, and may in fact preach ideologies that are opposed to it. Zen Buddhism in particular is famous for koans and parables that are meant to teach that the nature of consciousness is transient and/or illusory, with some schools going so far as to say that even the concept of a "self" is fundamentally flawed.
Afterlife as reward or punishment
Many religious traditions have held that the afterlife will resolve justice by assigning rewards and punishments to people according to how they lived their lives. This belief can be found throughout the ancient world, especially in Greek and Roman religion, as well as in various Asian religions. To the extent that the afterlife is a form of justice, it is usually restricted to humans, as other animals are not held responsible for their actions.
Salvation, faith, and merit
Most Christians deny that entry into Heaven can be properly earned, rather it is a gift that is solely God's to give through his unmerited grace. The Augustinian, Thomist, Lutheran, and Calvinist theological traditions all emphasize the necessity of God's undeserved grace for salvation, and reject so-called Pelagianism, which would make man earn salvation through good works. Not all Christian sects accept this doctrine, leading many controversies on grace and free will, and the idea of predestination. In particular, the belief that heaven is a reward for good behaviour is a common folk belief in Christian societies, even among members of churches which reject that belief.
Punishment, retribution, and deterrence
Over the centuries, concepts related to punishment have changed, and so have attitudes about punishment in the afterlife. Earlier views of punishment as retribution have largely given way to a modern view of punishment as properly serving to deter or rehabilitate. At the same time, views of punishment in the afterlife have softened. For example, Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards wrote that the saved in heaven will delight in the suffering of the damned. Hell, however, doesn't fit modern, humanitarian concepts of punishment because it can't deter the unbeliever nor rehabilitate the damned. Believers have come to downplay the punishment of hell. Universalists teach that salvation is for all. Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists teach that sinners are destroyed rather than tortured forever. Mormons believe that there are three possible degrees of glory in the afterlife, none of which are hellish. In the 1990s, the Catechism of the Catholic Church defined hell not as punishment imposed on the sinner but rather as the sinner's "self-exclusion" from God.
Afterlife as reincarnation
Another afterlife concept which is found among Hindus, Rosicrucians, Spiritists, and Wiccans is reincarnation, as evolving humans life after life in the physical world, that is, acquiring a superior grade of consciousness and altruism by means of successive reincarnations. This succession is conceived to lead toward an eventual liberation or spiritual rebirth as spiritual beings. However, some practioners of eastern religions follow a different concept called metempsychosis which purposes that human beings can transmigrate into animals, vegetables or even minerals. One consequence of the Hindu and Spiritist beliefs is that our current lives are also an afterlife. According to those beliefs events in our current life are consequences of actions taken in previous lives, or Karma.
Buddhist, however, views that rebirth takes place without a self (similar to soul) and that the process of rebirth is simply a continuation of the previous life. The process of being reborn as any other being is based on your karma. And from a Buddhist prespective, the current life is actually a continuation of the pastlife.
Rosicrucians, in the same way of those who have had near-death experiences, speak of a life review period occurring immediately after death and before entering the afterlife's planes of existence (before the silver cord is broken), followed by a judgment, more akin to a Final Review or End Report over one's life.
Some Neopagans believe in personal reincarnation, whereas some believe that the energy of one's soul reintegrates with a continuum of such energy which is recycled into other living things as they are born.Sikhs also believe in reincarnation. They believe that the soul belongs to the spiritual universe which has its origins in God. It is like a see-saw, the amount of good done in life will store up blessings, thus uniting with God. A soul may need to live many lives before it is one with God.
Afterlife in modern science
Modern scientific psychology and cognitive science explain human behavior solely as a phenomenon of the physical brain, and either does not require or rules out the presence of a non-brain "soul" or "spirit" that might be expected to continue a separate existence after the death of the brain. Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain the structure and processes of the brain in the context of biological evolution. The nature of consciousness and sentience itself is a subject of ongoing debate. One new aspect of the debate is the possibility of creating an artificial intelligence, raising new questions about what it means to be alive, conscious, dead, and resurrected.
Some conceptions of the afterlife are not overtly religious. Certain scientific fields developed in the 20th and 21st centuries, that were previously either unknown or purely theoretical, support interesting speculation and questions regarding the afterlife.
Is consciousness a sole result of the specific configuration of matter of a living brain, or do some forms of consciousness or experience remain present in the matter and energy that used to be a living brain? If the latter is true, even in part, then it is not certain that the subjective experience of a being's consciousness ends at the time of death, which could be interpreted as a form of afterlife.
Some investigation has occurred into the biological and experiential aspects of death; modern technology allows the process to be observed more closely than ever before. Claims of scientific evidence in support of an afterlife are generally considered not credible or pseudoscience by mainstream scientists. These claims do however, lead interesting theories regarding consciousness, and possibly, an afterlife.
Philosophical arguments
Some non-believers in an afterlife, influenced by positivism, have argued that claims of an afterlife are unverifiable and unfalsifiable, and therefore cognitively meaningless. Some have argued that, on the contrary, particular claims concerning the nature of the afterlife are verifiable and falsifiable: all one has to do to verify/falsify them is die. On the other hand, they argue, the belief in the absence of an afterlife can be attacked as vacuous on the grounds that the statement "I cease to exist" is unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and therefore by the same token cognitively meaningless. In particular, the concept of our own non-existence is inconceivable:
- What experience corresponds to your own non-existence? None.
- If there is a life after death, then is there a life before birth? And if there was, can that experience be remembered?
Schopenhauer in particular argued that the idea of an afterlife or immortal soul is contradicted by the fact that it is impossible to attach sense to such a concept as the soul without reference to characteristics such as consciousness, which depend on such physical entities as the brain. Such concepts he argued, are beyond our reach and noumenal (thus unknowable). A counter-argument to that is that consciousness does not directly depend on physical entities, merely that our bodies are merely "temporary tools crafted by our souls" (which leads back to the idea of reincarnation).
