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** Religion and the Afterlife: So what do They Think? **
_This page is about Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam and what they believe in and do not believe in when it comes to the topic of the afterlife. No matter what religion humans share we all know that one day we have to die and will no longer be on this earth. This page is to compare and contrast what they teach their followers about the afterlife.


 * Hinduism: **


 * Hinduism is the world's third most popular religion, with close to 750 million followers. The religion of Hinduism originated in North India, about 4000 years ago and is the world's oldest existing religion. **
 * One of the most important principles of Hinduism is the concept of samsara, rebirth. Humans are reborn over and over and over again. They can, however, "escape" rebirth by ridding themselves of karma and attaining moksha(means salvation from the suffering that always is in the world. There is not that much that is told about the afterlife, and really only a small talk of salvation. Some texts, such as the Rig Veda, suggest that different people go to different places after they die, but there is little detail regarding the matter. The Bhagavad-Gita talks about these two paths that a soul can go after they leave the body. These two paths are : grihastha and sannyassa. **
 * Those on the grijastha path pursue all four goals (piety, wealth, pleasure and liberation). The way they do so changes according to their age or ashrama in life. Those on the sannyassa path renounce artha, karma, and family dharma to try and get moksha liberation from rebirth on Earth through a personal experience of God. **
 * This depends on when they died and the things that they performed on Earth. The first path leads to the world of the son; the second one to the world of the moon. It tells you in this scripture that that people who do not perform good deeds and have bad karma do are not allowed to go to these two paths. Instead they descend into hell where they suffer for a long time until they are cleansed and purified so they can go down these paths. In Hinduism there is a lot about how we should do good while we are on the Earth because this plays a major part in the path we are given in the afterlife. **


 * Judaism: **




 * Judaism is the first religion when it comes to the three Abrahamic religions. It has about 14 million followers that live in the world today. Jewish sacred texts and literature really do not have much to say when it comes to the topic of the afterlife. This may seem surprising to people who are not Jewish since Christianity and Islam (both religions that come from Judaism) tell a lot about the afterlife. They believe that you should focus more on the good you perform in life. **
 * Even if Judaism does not elaborate on the afterlife they do give you some insight on what the afterlife holds. A Mishnah passage says, "This world is like a lobby before the Olam Ha-Ba. Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall." The tractate Moed Katan teaches, "This world is only like a hotel. The world to come is like a home." What both of these quotes tell us is that Earth is just a waiting place for entering into the ** ** Gan-Eden(Garden of Eden). Religions like Christianity and Islam try to tell us the same concept that this life is just a rest stop on our journey to eternal life, but how we treat and act during this rest stop has a lot to do with where we end up. **
 * The Torah describes the afterlife in not direct terms, a lot of it comes from the views of the living. **
 * An early common theme is that death means rejoining one's ancestors. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and other patriarchs are "gathered to their people" after death.The wicked are “cut off” from their people (Gen. 17:14; Ex. 31:14). Other imagery emphasizes the finality of death: the dead are like dust returning to dust (Genesis; Ecc. 3:19-20) or water poured out on the ground (2 Samuel 14:14). **


 * Islam: **


 * Islam is the last religion of the three Abrahamic religions. As the Judaism and Christianity they have the same God but believe that the Prophet Muhammad is their messiah, there are about 1.57 billion Muslims in the world. **
 * Like Christianity, Islam teaches the continued existence of the soul and a transformed physical existence after death. Muslims believe there will be a day of judgment when all humans will be divided between the eternal destinations of Paradise and Hell. **
 * "We have ordained death among you, and We are not to be overcome, so that We may change your state and make you grow into what you know not." -- Qur'an 56:60-61 **
 * The **** Last Day ****, on which the world will be destroyed and ** ** Allah ** ** will raise all people and **** //jinn// **** from the dead to be judged. **
 * The Last Day is also called the Day of Standing Up, Day of Separation, Day of Reckoning, Day of Awakening, Day of Judgment, The Encompassing Day or The Hour. The resurrection that will take place on the Last Day is physical, and is explained by suggesting that God will re-create the decayed body (17:100: "Could they not see that God who created the heavens and the earth is able to create the like of them"?). **
 * On the Last Day, resurrected humans and jinn will be judged by Allah according to their deeds. One's eternal destination depends on balance of good to bad deeds in life. They are either granted admission to Paradise, where they will enjoy spiritual and physical pleasures forever, or condemned to Hell to suffer spiritual and physical torment for eternity. Hell, or Jahannam (Greek gehenna), is mentioned frequently in the Qur'an and the Sunnah using a variety of imagery. It has seven doors (Qur'an 39:71; 15:43) leading to a fiery crater of various levels, the lowest of which contains the tree Zaqqum and a cauldron of boiling pitch. The level of hell depends on the degree of offenses. Suffering is both physical and spiritual. **** Being a Muslim does not keep one out of Hell, but it is not clear whether Muslims remain in Hell forever. Non-Muslims (kafir), however, will be punished eternally. **** Other Muslim commentators, noting that Allah can rescue people from hell as he chooses, and that he is merciful and compassionate, have hypothesized that eventually hell will be empty. Alternatively, Hell can be seen as a place of progress where souls are instructed until they are fit to go to heaven. **


 * The point: **


 * Even though Islam and Hinduism are two completely religions I noticed that they do share something in common; that even if you are sent to Hell it does not mean that you will stay there. This is something that stood out completely. That they would both share this same concept. Judaism and Hinduism are alike in the sense that they strongly teach that you should perform good deeds in this life to even be promised into the afterlife. Also something that was interesting is the fact that Judaism does not go into depth about what the afterlife has. Judaism differs the most of these three religions because it does not give off enough information about what to expect in the afterlife. The other two Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam) give very vivid and exact details to help us try and understand as well as visualize what we are promised after our Earthly life and duties are completed. This is important in today's world because there are major religions in which people follow and they teach their followers what to do and what to expect before and after death. One thing that all of these 3 religions tell us though is that there is some sort of afterlife, that this world is not the only thing that we will be given. **

Bibliography: V, Jayaram. "Hinduism and Death." //Death and Afterlife in Hinduism //. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. .

Rich, Tracy R. "Judaism 101: Olam Ha-Ba: The Afterlife." //302 Found //. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. .

Davies-Stofka, Beth. "Islam Afterlife and Salvation." //Balanced Views of Religion and Spirituality with Faith //. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. .