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 after one dies?
  • Will it be good or bad?
  • Is there anything one can do to make it good?

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.

In some views, this continued existence often takes place in a spiritual realm, and in other popular views, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a metaphysical realms or Otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics.

Heaven and Hell, war

Heaven and Hell

Afterlife’s Main Articles

Immortality of the Soul

Resurrection

Heaven and Hell, war

Heaven and Hell

Judgment

Heaven and Hell

Heaven

Abrahamic religions

Postmodern views

Chinese religions

Indian religions

Related articles

Hell

Punishment

Polytheism

Abrahamic religions

Eastern religions

Related articles

Heaven and Hell, war in heaven Heaven and Hell, war in heaven

Afterlife in religions

Abrahamic religions

Belief in the Hereafter According to The Old Testament

Christianity

The Catholic Church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Islam

Judaism

Zoroastrianism

Ancient religions

South Asian religions

Philosophy

Science

Evidence of Survival after Death