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Life After Death
anable
North TexasRegistered User regular
North TexasRegistered User regular
I'm doing some research for a book I plan on writing in November for NaNoWriMo. We have a thread in WB if anyone else wants to get in on that action.
Anyway, my book is about a husband that has a wife in a coma who is most likely going to die according to the doctors. The idea is that he temporarily plunges into the afterlife in search of her spirit so he can rescue her and bring her back. During the course of the book, I want him to travel through the various version of the after life that exist in different religions.
Here's where you come in. I'd like to hear what your religious beliefs are on the afterlife. I've done some research on it myself, but most of the information I find is on what to do in your time on earth to get to heaven/hell/nirvana/etc. I'm more interested in what actually goes on once you are there (9 circles of Hell, 40 virgins, etc). Feel free to provide your personal opinion or just drop me a link to a site with someone else's opinion.
tl;dr: What does your religion say goes on in the afterlife?
Anyway, my book is about a husband that has a wife in a coma who is most likely going to die according to the doctors. The idea is that he temporarily plunges into the afterlife in search of her spirit so he can rescue her and bring her back. During the course of the book, I want him to travel through the various version of the after life that exist in different religions.
Here's where you come in. I'd like to hear what your religious beliefs are on the afterlife. I've done some research on it myself, but most of the information I find is on what to do in your time on earth to get to heaven/hell/nirvana/etc. I'm more interested in what actually goes on once you are there (9 circles of Hell, 40 virgins, etc). Feel free to provide your personal opinion or just drop me a link to a site with someone else's opinion.
tl;dr: What does your religion say goes on in the afterlife?
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i only know a little bit of it, though.
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
I had this same thought myself, but my understanding is that WDMC was just a Christian perspective on the afterlife. I was looking to span everything from Buddhism to Atheism to ancient Greek mythology.
Well... I might still watch the movie. I'm not really sure I would consider WDMC a "Christian" perspective... granted I'm Catholic myself and we're a funny bunch, but I think most Christians would agree that, while an interesting movie, WDMC doesn't paint an accurate picture of what we percieve heaven to be.
Another suggested version.. try Dante's Inferno.
Seriously. Stuff like Dante's Inferno have colored perspectives on the afterlife far more than any canonical spiritual texts by now. You'll definitely want to check out stuff like this.
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I wasn't aware that the Mormon's believed in resurrection. When it says that you will stay in the spirit world until you are resurrected, does that mean there's no eternal afterlife? Just an endless cycle?
I'm definitely interested in more work like this. I just don't know of any that aren't Christian. Are there any Islamic or Shinto inspired works like this? Or Greek/Roman mythology?
That said, for some inspiration, I suggest Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. There's a whole lot of afterlife business there.
This is why they don't believe in cremation, because they think that they are comin' back to earth and that their physical bodies somehow relate to their angelic form during this time.
I may be wrong about the angelic part, their souls may just be returned to their original bodies.
Then, after 1000 years, the earth (and possibly the universe) will be destroyed. Supposedly the angels get spared.
Some of this might be hazy, it's not like I have a Bible to whip out and start citing passages.
Basically, Southern Baptists interpret every line of the Bible very literally. You don't usually hear that part of it unless you had to attend a Southern Baptist high school for two years. *cough*
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Oh, so this is a sort of heaven on earth type of thing?
I tried this but the majority of the information I find is very vague and more along the lines of what to do with your time on earth so you go to heaven/nirvana/etc.
Also, thanks for the summary Jas.
In terms of afterlife, things are a little fuzzy. It's clear there was belief in something- see elaborate burials etc. And whilst there are written records, they are mostly by the enemies of the celts (see: Romans). The general consensus is that after death, the soul moves on to the Otherworld, which can be described as largely similar to ours but without the shitty things like injury, starvation, warfare, and so on. In other versions it is simply another world parallel to our own, with distinct differences but not necessarily better or worse. Frequently it gets stated that the celts believed in some form of reincarnation- I've not heard much convincing evidence for it myself, and it seems to generally be a misunderstanding of the idea of the Otherworld.
Can explain more if necessary.
Yeah...you're off base on a lot of that. But for now I'll just say that I've never ever heard anyone say that you can't be cremated.
Edit: I'm a Buddhist, by the way. (The whole you don't exist thing is something that a person comes to realize after the lifetimes of suffering associated with trying to separate yourself from the rest of existence by the device of identity. But, you are reincarnated over and over again until you can give your identity, or being, up. So, in a way, you don't really die until you are ready to.)
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Speaking of Buddhism, there are a number of flavors of it since it often got integrated into an existing set of beliefs. So the nitty gritty details of how they view reincarnation and the like can differ and make for some interesting research.
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No, not really. That's actually what they teach. If I'm wrong about anything it's about the circumstances of their return to Earth. Nobody said Southern Baptist interpretation of Revelations was sane, true, or conventional.
As far as the cremation thing, there's a whole chapter or two in Corinthians (I think so, I know it starts with a C) that goes over reanimation which the Baptsits base their whole "don't give up your organs/don't get cremated" belief.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
(Just kidding, I'm actually Discordian, so I change my mind on what happens after death depending on my mood at the time)
www.churchofsatan.com has more info on that though. I can't recall the specifics.
I also have a fascination with the Forgotten Realms (Dungeons and Dragons) idea about the nine hells...also known as Baator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baator
As well as the Lords of The Nine Hells
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_the_Nine_Hells
I get that Baator is fantasy but I always loved the concept.
The Hindus have all kinds of demons and layers of afterlife. I took a class that briefly discussed it but it is very interesting.
African tribes in some cases believe that in after life you can turn into a zombie. How sweet is that.
Another perspective to try would be Egyptian and traveling through the valley of the dead with the Anubis.
Dont leave out the norse land of Valhalla.
Inferno and paradise lost are good places to start for the christian side of the house.
The native american spirit world is pretty complex as well and the mound building indians especially have some wacky beliefs. (that is to say very different from my own.)
There are dozens and dozens and dozens of books on the afterlife out there. You could write a 20 part miniseries if you had someone walk through them all. Just to save yourself some time and because the average reader is only going to recognize like the 3 main ones you might want to stick to just one or two.
STEAM
I'd like to reply to this topic fully, and I probably will later after work, but for now I'd like to correct some things here. Opposition to cremation has more to do with: 1) It was considered dishonorable for a person to not have a proper (read traditional) burial 2) The repeated indication of the practice of traditional burial in the Bible (and lack of other occurrances outside of God dealing with people in judgment) 3) God Himself practicing traditional burial (see Moses death in Deuteronomy 34).
If the only reasoning had to do with bodily resurrection, surely one could conclude an omnipotent God could manage to bring ashes together properly.
Allow me to provide a brief outline here to summarize this accurately. I'm going to assume that we are examining the after-life from the perspective of one who has died:
1) The Bible teaches that, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the LORD," (2 Cor 5:8). So, the first fundamental belief for Christianity is that, upon death, the soul of a believer is present with God in heaven.
2) At some point in time, an event called the Rapture will occur. It's at this point that the teaching of some form of reunion with the physical body exists. It's unclear exactly what purpose that plays as obviously most dead people's bodies will be fairly useless at that point and some type of "transformation" is indicated.
As a side note, there is no belief that Christians become angels in heaven. There is quite strong indication that human existence in heavenly form will be distinctly different from that of angelic form. The only comparison between the two is Jesus' note to the Sadducees that humans will not engage in marriage in heaven, as the angels do not.
3) After a period of seven years, it is taught that Jesus, the angels and believers will return to earth for the above period of 1,000 years. The teaching there is that Jesus will be the one who is ruling; believers may or may not be involved in that. I don't know that there's any clear indication that they would be.
4) At the end of the 1,000 years (the proper theological term for this period is the mellenium (go figure)), there will be a final attempted insurrection by Satan and some unredeemed human beings who were propagated down from the end of the seven year period mentioned prior.
5) After these things, the destruction of the physical universe mentioned above would occur; with a new one being created in its place (the purpose of course being to remove the sin tainted creation and institute creation as it was originally, presumably).
It should be noted that the order and exact details of these events varies somewhat substantially even in Christianity proper (not even including offshoots such as Mormonism, Jehova's Witnesses etc.). The view I present above is Pretribulational. This refers to at what point the Rapture event mentioned above happens (in this case before the 7 year period). There are also mid- and post-tribulational views. I'm sure you can guess from the titles what exactly they represent. The Mellenium has its own set of views with it as well. The view above is, once again, premillenial. There is also postmillenial (the pre and post in this case referring to the timing of the return of Jesus to the earth) and amillenial (a denial of the thousand year period occurring at all, usually with some explanation of the passage as the mellenium as some kind of esoteric existence in the hearts and minds of believers.
6) From that point through eternity is existence with God. The express purpose of this existence is to bring glory and praise before God (much like we would say the purpose of this life is, the difference being the ability to do so in this life versus the next).
Essentially, the fundamental differences between this life and the next in the eyes of Christianity can be summed up by the following (Revelation 21:3-4):
I guess I ended up replying fully now; so, I'd better scurry off to work. Hopefully that's all clear enough and useful for what you're working on.
Also, for your book, I think it would be pretty cool if you integrated the atheist POV as one the versions of the afterlife your character has to go through. Going through NOTHING could be as traumatic as any of the alternatives. It all depends on how skillful you are at conveying the proper feel.
I'm also atheist, so my version of "the afterlife" is this: naturally, your consciousness itself ceases to exist when you die, but you live on in the sum of all of the consequences of your existence and actions in the universe, like a persisting echo in a large room or tunnel.
Oh, and you might want to check out the movie Brainstorm (1983) which stars Christopher Walken, among others. It's somewhat related to your subject matter.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla
Everyone-- from the gods themselves to the smallest of insects-- is trapped in samsara, the constant cycle of death and rebirth. What determines what you are in the next life is your spiritual kharma-- a sort of currency given for good deedsthat you do. The problem is, you can only gain kharma by doing worldly deeds, which means eventually your good kharma will run out. So even if you've been a god for thousands of years, you'll eventually turn into an ant as your worldly-bound kharma dissipates.
Life, then, is an endless prison to your eternal soul. Life is suffering; life is purgatory.
The ultimate goal of Hinduism, then, is moksha, the release from the constant cycle of life and death. How you achieve moksha is where tons of the different sects of Hinduism diverage.
Anyway, I hope that helped provide a cool perspective. Good luck with your story.
I like this, big fan of the mythology as well.
I'm not athiest, just agnostic ( some people think there isn't a difference ) but I think there is a higher power ( not really a person ) just an entity or something that we derived from and will never understand. Life after death...possibly but will we know, probably not when the time comes.
I mean I'd love to go to some form of "paradise" but I know that's not in the cards so I'll go with my gut and say.....nothing because I have no idea.
Edit: The Inferno itself is also heavily influenced by classical mythology as well.