Afterlife

In the Holy Quran, the term for the hereafter appears over a hundred times. A certain realm is described for both heaven and hell, paradise or eternal fire, based on one's deeds. In the earliest Sanskrit Hindu Vedas there is no reference at all to afterlife. Yet, later scripture adds the concept, along with cause and affect Karma, literal reincarnation, the transfigured soul. Many Buddhist beliefs are most similar.

Christian tradition believes in both the Old and New Testament. In the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible, there is no clear cut view of the afterlife. The New Testament, created within Christianity, teaches that, depending on a person’s belief in Jesus as the Savior of humanity, one would be consigned to heaven or hell.

All of these belief systems deal with the hereafter differently, and all require blind faith in the sanctity of scriptures. It is hardly unusual for any beings to wish their own existence to continue in some eternal form or manifestation. There is nothing more human than a desire for immortality, life after death.

While certainly possible thru any of the major faiths, or thru some other means or physics we can't know or measure, any idea of hereafter is largely unlikely. In many thousands of years, human civilization hasn't seen one proof of life after death, no evidence at all, nothing. Not with any species on this earth.

But, the utter absence of afterlife proof doesn't end the issue, it's not that easy. We use the idea of afterlife for hope, strength, and inspiration in this life. I talk about the afterlife with my mom, 96 and dealing with dementia. She misses my father so much, gone nine years now, and wants to see him again, to be with him for eternity. I always assure her that is exactly what will happen, her whole family coming for her, all alive again from the horrific concentration camps, spirits survived, as mom actually survived Auschwitz.

We want there to be an afterlife, for all the obvious reasons, this life so brief and imperfect. So uncertain and abrupt this existence, another is most needed.

Ultimately, does it really matter, whether or not afterlife is true? We all must be kind and decent just the same, the mission doesn't change from here.