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What is Afterlife?
The afterlife, or life after death, is a generic term referring to the continuation of existence after death, typically spiritual, experiential, or ghost-like, beyond this world.
While in this life, people ask the questions:
The afterlife is the belief that the essential part of an individual’s identity or the stream of consciousness continues after the death of the physical body. According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary, may not, as in Indian nirvana. Belief in an afterlife is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.
Heaven and Hell
Day of Resurrection In Islamic eschatology, Yawm al-Qiyāmah (يوم القيامة “the Day of Resurrection“) or Yawm ad-Din (يوم الدين “the Day of Judgement“) is believed to be God’s final assessment of humanity. It is called several names throughout the Qur’an, such as the Day of Reckoning, the Last Day, and the Hour (al-sā’ah). The sequence...
Immortality By immortality is ordinarily understood the doctrine that the human soul will survive death, continuing in the possession of an endless conscious existence. Together with the question of the existence of God, it forms the most momentous issue with which philosophy has to deal. It belongs primarily to rational or metaphysical psychology and the philosophy of...
Particular Judgment Particular judgment, according to Christian eschatology, is the divine judgment that a departed person undergoes immediately after death, in contradistinction to the general judgment (or Last Judgment) of all people at the end of the world. Old Testament, apocrypha and pseudepigrapha There are few, if any, Old Testament or apocryphal writings that could be construed as implying...
Hell (The Catholic Encyclopedia) This subject is treated under eight headings: Name and Place of Hell Existence of Hell Eternity of Hell Impenitence of the Damned Poena Damni Poena Sensus Accidental Pains of the Damned Characteristics of the Pains of Hell Name and place of hell The term hell is cognate to...
What is Afterlife? The afterlife, or life after death, is a generic term referring to the continuation of existence after death, typically spiritual, experiential, or ghost-like, beyond this world. While in this life, people ask the questions: Is death the end, or is there something of people that survives after death? What kind of existence will one have...
What is Heaven? Name and place of heaven The name of Heaven Heaven (Anglo-Saxon heofon, O.S. hevan and himil, originally himin) corresponds to the Gothic himin-s. Both heaven and himil are formed from himin by a regular change of consonants: heaven, by changing m before n into v; and himil, by changing n of the unaccented ending into l. Some derive heaven from the root ham, “to cover” (cf. the Gothic ham-ôn and the German Hem-d)....
Hell In many world religions, the concept of Hell refers to a literal or symbolic place (or sometimes an existential condition) of damnation where the wicked and unrighteous are punished for their transgressions. The concept of hell is prevalent in many religions although its exact description varies from one religion to another. In traditional...
Damnation Damnation (from Latin damnatio) is the concept of divine punishment and torment in an afterlife for actions that were committed on Earth. Damnation is the state of being condemned. In some forms of Western Christian belief, damnation to Hell is the punishment of God for persons with unredeemed sin. Damnation can be a motivator for conversions to Christianity....
Out-of-body Experience An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally “seeing self”), although this term is more commonly used to refer to the pathological condition of seeing a second self, or doppelgänger. The term out-of-body...
Fate of The Unlearned The fate of the unlearned, also known as the destiny of the unevangelized, is an eschatological question about the ultimate destiny of people who have not been exposed to a particular theology or doctrine and thus have no opportunity to embrace it. The question is whether those who never hear of requirements...
Divine Judgment Divine judgment means the judgment of God or other supreme beings within a religion. Divine judgment (Latin judicium divinum), as an imminent act of God, denotes the action of God’s retributive justice by which the destiny of rational creatures is decided according to their merits and demerits. Ancient beliefs See also: Ancient...
Incarnation Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient being who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial. In its religious context the word is used to mean the descent from Heaven of a god, deity, or...
Otherworld The concept of an otherworld in historical Indo-European religion is reconstructed in comparative mythology. Its name is a calque of orbis alius (Latin for “other Earth/world”), a term used by Lucan in his description of the Celtic Otherworld. Comparable religious, mythological or metaphysical concepts, such as a realm of supernatural beings and a realm of the dead, are found in cultures throughout the world. Spirits are thought...
Hades Hades (Greek Haidēs or Aidēs) refers to both the ancient Greek underworld and to the deity that presided over the spirits of the deceased. This dual use was, however, a relatively late development in classical writing, as the term originally referred only to the god—as attested to in the writings of Homer. In...
Paradise In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment,...
Annihilationism Annihilationism (extinctionism or destructionism) is the belief that those who are wicked will perish or be no more. It states that after the final judgment some human beings and all fallen angels (all of the damned) will be totally destroyed so as to not exist, or that their consciousness will be extinguished, rather than suffer everlasting...
Problem of Hell The problem of Hell is an ethical problem in religion in which the existence of Hell for the punishment of souls is regarded as inconsistent with the notion of a just, moral, and omnibenevolent God. It derives from four key propositions: that Hell exists; that it is...
How Can We Save Our Lives In The Hereafter? Being assaulted by the deceptive, seductive amusements of the present time, a group of young people were asking: “How can we save our lives in the Hereafter?” The grave is there and no one can deny it. Whether they want to...
Second Death The second death is an eschatological concept in Judaism and Christianity, related to punishment after a first, natural death. Judaism Main article: Jewish eschatology Although the term is not found in the Hebrew Bible, Sysling, in his study (1996) of Teḥiyyat ha-metim (“resurrection of the dead”) in the Palestinian Targums, identifies a consistent usage of the term “second...
Belief In The Afterlife In Non-Islamic Societies The universality of religious beliefs, including some kind of existence after death, is generally admitted by modern anthropologists. Some exceptions have been claimed to exist; but on closer scrutiny the provided evidence breaks down in so many cases that we can say that...
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