Afterlife: Encyclopedia II - Afterlife - Afterlife as a belief

Afterlife - Afterlife as a belief

Many people believe in an afterlife. It is generally described as a non-verifiable and non-falsifiable belief within a religion, because it is generally accepted as beyond the experiential knowledge or casual accessibility of most people (see esoteric knowledge). As a result, the popular mind relies on various sources for concepts about afterlife, arranged below in presumed order of reliability:

• Testimony of individuals who claim experiential knowledge of facets of afterlife
  • by having died and then been sent back to this life (near-death experiences)
  • by having visited the afterlife during a period of unconsciousness (out-of-body experiences)
  • by having seen the afterlife during a revelatory vision
  • by a unique personal gift of remembering an afterlife (before-life) existence
  • by having communicated with (or received a message from) someone who has passed over (after death communication or electronic voice phenomena)
• Testimony of individuals who are presumed to have special insights into the afterlife
  • holy ones
  • miracle workers
  • spectacular converts
• Claimed testimony of visitors from the afterlife
  • God
  • Angels
  • Spirits
• Human intuitions of goodness assumed to emanate from the afterlife
• Speculation and extrapolation
• Concoction

While there is information available from all of the above sources, a preponderance of concoctions, speculations, and extrapolations have arguably historically characterized formal descriptions of afterlife. Religious traditions have historically formalized and codified ideas about afterlife in widely divergent forms. Though the onset of the information age is bringing to light increasing consistency and uniformity of beliefs about afterlife from across and without religious boundaries, most afterlife conceptions continue to follow traditional descriptions, often viewed as rationally weak by skeptics who -- particularly atheists and agnostics of a secular humanist mindset -- may hold that we entirely cease to exist. However, it should be pointed out that not all atheists and agnostics necessarily rule out the existence of an afterlife. For example, many Buddhists neither confirm nor deny the existence of the supernatural (gods, demons, heavens, hells, etc.), while simultaneously embracing the concept of rebirth.

For those who do believe in an afterlife, the various conceptions about it differ in their answer to the following questions:

• Is the afterlife a normal life, or a different type of existence?
• Are afterlife conditions a consequence of good and bad actions during life?
• Is afterlife eternal?
• Is it possible to reincarnate as a human or other form of life?
• What happens at the moment of death?
• Are ghosts and other undead a proof of an afterlife?

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Afterlife as a belief", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki