Talk:What Happens when We Die - Abrahamic Viewpoint
Semitic or Abrahamic faiths (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) offer a very divergent answer on what happens after we die. They state that we have only one life. After we die, our souls go into a state of limbo, till a day called the Day of Judgment. On this day, God looks at the relative balance between our good and bad deeds and also whether the person subscribed to correct beliefs or not. He then revives/resurrects the soul’s body (that had been buried in the grave), unites it with the corresponding soul, and awards them with either an everlasting hell or everlasting bliss in heaven. In the case of Christianity, correct belief means believing that Jesus Christ is the Only Son of God and that he alone can deliver us from sins. In Islam, it is the belief that there is only one God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. Having the ‘right belief’ can even override an overall stock of evil deeds. Conversely, even a virtuous ‘non-believer’ is condemned to eternal hell despite his sterling character[1].
The entire process of resurrection is very mundane. When a person dies, his soul is put to sleep and awaits the Day of Judgement, which will come suddenly and without any forewarning. An ‘Anti-Christ’ will appear on that day and will slaughter all the living creatures, human or non-human, who exist at that time. Therefore, the ‘believers’ are asked to ‘repent’ and accept the ‘right belief’ (in Jesus or Muhammad, etc.) sooner than later lest they die in ‘ignorance’. Some souls however go to ‘heaven’ immediately upon death – like those of religious martyrs, religious warriors (e.g., those who died while engaged in a Jihad against Kafirs), saints, Popes, and so on. These exceptional souls are not put to sleep but enter the gates of heaven immediately upon death to enjoy the pleasures of food and drink in that realm.
For the other, ordinary souls, however, when the Day of Judgement arrives, the Archangel Gabriel blows a trumpet<rref>This view is adhered to very strongly in the Islamic tradition.</ref>. The graves overturn and the bodies of the dead are all resurrected from the remains, or specifically, from the tailbone in the Islamic tradition.
Angels come to take these resurrected human beings up towards a place of judgment where everyone is eventually sent either to an eternal heaven or to an eternal hell. Due to the fundamental importance of the belief in resurrection, Abrahamic religions have insisted on the burial of the dead. They believed that if the body was destroyed, such as through cremation, the dead person’s soul did not have any chance to resurrect and lost his chance of eternal life (or damnation)[2].
In this eternal heaven, they enjoy various kinds of pleasure for all time to come. Christianity gives some descriptions of a heaven with pearly gates of entrances to admit the true believers. The description makes it appear that heaven is like a theme park with various pleasures for its inhabitants. The Islamic heaven, per the Koran, is a garden with underground watering streams, over-ground rivers of wine, fruit-laden trees, couches to recline, and huge teams of pretty female attendants and handsome male attendants. This would have enticed the Arabs who lived their entire lives in bleak deserts. Post-Koranic Islamic literature takes the objectification of female attendants to erotic, even pornographic levels. Each Muslim male in heaven enjoys sex with 72 Houries while being served wine etc. by handsome young men. On the other hand, Muslim women do not have these privileges but are stuck with their earthy husband, who now has unlimited sexual prowess to please the Houries and also his wives(s) who in turn get to lord over these sexual female attendants of their husband. Essentially, the Islamic heaven permits what is forbidden on this earth. What is sin here is a Divine reward in heaven.
In hell, the ‘sinners’ who were non-believers during their worldly existence are made to serve endless brutal tortures like being skinned, roasted over a fire, broiled in boiling water, and so on[3]. In Islamic belief, even believers who have committed certain sins like suicide are damned to an eternal hell. If a Muslim were to commit suicide by stabbing himself, he would be condemned to stab himself eternally in hell after the day of judgment.
A Christian Saint even wrote that one of the rewards of a believer will be watching the unbelievers being tortured in hell, and feel glad that he had not erred like them. Numerous church hymnals right down to our times have the worshippers sing how blessed they were to believe in the only true god and how damned the infidels and pagans were. Similar statements are found in hundreds in the Koran, wherein ‘idol-worshippers’ and those who ‘reject’ Allah and his prophets are condemned to everlasting hell where they will be roasted perpetually in an oven along with their ‘stones’ (=idols) and forced to consume the bitter fruit from the tree of Zakkhum there. Allah has condemned the ‘unbelievers’ not only after their death but has also exhorted Muslims to persecute and slaughter them even in this world. ‘Infidels’ are prevented by the Koran from even entering or passing through the holy cities of Mecca and Medina because the ‘polytheists are unclean’ (Surah 9 of the Koran)– divinely ordained untouchability, so to speak.
References[edit]
- ↑ For example, the Koran says that the faces of Christians and Jews will become that of Apes and Pigs after the Day of Judgement.
- ↑ In recent decades however, cremation is becoming an extremely preferred choice for funeral among Christians and Jews and therefore some institutions like the Catholic church have come up with a compromise. For instance, cremation is considered permissible provided the ashes are blessed by a Catholic priest. As an interesting side note, Islamist terror organizations like ISIS prefer to cremate their captives (Muslim or otherwise) in the belief that thereby, their enemies will lose their chance to live an eternal life. Likewise, Islamist suicide bombers are known to cover their private organs in metallic cups in the hope that at least these will be resurrected intact to enable them to enjoy sexual pleasures in heaven.
- ↑ In some branches of Christianity however, hell is not a permanent residence but just a purgatory. The ‘sinners’, after suffering horrific tortures and being purified as a result are then sent to heaven.