The question of possible postmortal existence has been present in the minds of people for a prolonged period of its presence as being with advanced abilities of the central nervous system. According to multiple pieces of research, such as that by Whitley (2017), these complications of brain structure yielded the emergence of complicated existential questions already in the Paleolithic era. For example, early burials of humans are evident of symbolic behavior, which is a sign of religious thinking. In turn, the burials prove that people believed in a certain prolongation of life after death, even in these distant times. Thus, such a question accompanied the human population throughout its history. As a result, various answers developed, which could be seen in an astonishing number of religions nowadays and in the past. A modern person with knowledge of different doctrines about the nature of the afterlife is tempted to choose their position deliberately. As such, I share the somewhat gnostic understanding of religion as a whole and do not view life after death as an immanent attribute of existence.
In my opinion, adhering to the beliefs of one religion about the nature of the afterlife’s actuality is slightly narrow and intellectually slothful. There are numerous faiths with their rights and wrongs, benefits and disadvantages, determined by the society’s culture in which they were formed. If human knowledge about death and life after it is so fractured, then there is hardly one straightforward answer or fragments of truth disseminated throughout all the religions. Disbelief in the concept of heaven or some other kind of afterlife should also be considered. I believe that life after death is possible but is not a necessary outcome of one’s life. Precisely, I think that people and their judgment of this matter determine their fate after their demise. If someone believes in heaven or hell as their afterlife, it would be afterward; if someone supposes the cycle of rebirth, it may be so. If a person does not believe in such kind of life, they will cease to exist as conscious beings at the moment of their death. Thus, in my judgment, the dominant beliefs of a person during their life reflect the possibility and nature of their futurity, corresponding to the realities of the surrounding world.
Thus, the issues of judgment, heaven, and hell are relatively insignificant in my understanding. First of all, those are elements of Abrahamic religions in their majority, not relatable to the majority of other world beliefs. For example, I cannot sincerely accept the concept of an omnibenevolent God. It seems like an anthropocentric view, which I do not support after all, since people do not fit the role of prevailing beings in the Universe. Secondly, I suppose hell and heaven, although more frequently represented in religions of the world, are merely metaphors concerning the existence of the material world rather than the afterlife. They serve as simple to understand ideas of consequences of human moral choices during life. Then, hell is within a soul which suffers from the guilt of wrongdoings, while heaven presents the state of internal happiness because one accepts themselves and their past actions and fate. Thus, the issues of popular afterlife beliefs are not entirely relatable to my comprehension of the afterlife.
To conclude, the existence of life after death is a question of personal belief or absence of it for each living human, which could not be treated with certainty. I do not share an idea of preference to one religion, be it an Abrahamic one with its notions of heaven, hell, and judgment, or some else. Culture and life experience determine the possible afterlife of a person so that multiple variants are viable.
Reference
Whitley, D. (2017). The origins of religion in the Paleolithic. Time and Mind, 10(3), 326–328. Web.