What Does the World Truly Believe Happens After Death?

There has been many speculation and beliefs on one question in life since before I was born, "Is there a God?”.Yet the very nature of the human soul remains a topic that divides and polarizes the world and its beliefs. However has no one speculated on another question that could further divide the division the previous question instigated?

“What happens after death?”“Where do we go?”“What do we do?”... What does the world think? In this article I will be investigating the 3 major religions around the world truly believe happens during the timeafter death, but these questions can never have a forthright answer, there will forever be a range of unfathomable questions around the world that numerous scientists may and probably have killed themselves over. Some mysteries can never be solved, the idea of what happens after death being one of them. Nonetheless nothing stops people from making up their own answers to fill the void in their brains- or hearts, if they want to, and as seen many religions have done so already over the many millenniums this ball of earth has travelled through.Quite interestingly I find that the world is quite smart and imaginative with what they come up with and how many people they catch in their web of imagination… quite amazing really…

Let’s see, Christianity holds 32% of the world population and the largest, they must have a very interesting and controversial idea about what happens to people after death. The one thing I have learned most definitely after talking to a few Christian acquaintances on this topic is that 2.2 billion people will probably never have unanimity on exactly what happens after death. Some believe you will be in sleep mode; never to wake up - which can be considered bliss to all the lazy individuals around the world, whereas others believe that after death the soul are sent to a temporary heaven/hell where they spend time and wait to be resurrected on ‘Judgment Day’where they will be sent off to their everlastingdestination

for as long as time may exist. Nevertheless one thing they all do agree on is that there IS life after death, and I guess it is nice to know that even when you die you still live… until you hear the rest. Looking into the Bible- the Holy Book for Christians it states there are two very different worlds beyond death which the soul is sent to. To put it simply the Bible clearly states a list of people who will be sent to the ‘lake of fire’ when they die and experience ‘a second death’- like the first one wasn’t enough, (Revelations 21:8 (NIV)) “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Jesus- prison doesn’t have anything on that!

However there is still hope as not everyone will be sent to that doom of destruction. Although the bible doesn’t state clearly what the reward will be for Christians after death compared to the non-believers- I wonder why- the Holy Book states “For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This in simple terms is heaven. Phew, thank… God. on the whole Christians believe everyone has a chance to go to heaven as long as you believe in God- not too much to ask if I do say so myself... better than swimming in a 'lake of fire'.

Islam is the second largest religious group in the world taking over 23.2% of the world's population and approximately 1.6 billion individuals. Muslims believe in one god and have man similar values and beliefs to Christians other than ‘Jesus Christ’ being the ‘son of god’ but rather one prophet of many. Like Christians, Muslims also have a holy book named ‘the Quran’ which is said to be the true words of God passed down to the last prophet Mohammed, which they seek  guidance from on how to live their lives according to God’s will. Muslims believe after a person has passed on from this world their soul gets collected by the ‘angel of death’ to be taken to their grave where they will spend time either in pain or comfort depending how they lived their lives on earth, in a state of waiting for ‘judgement day’ where they will stand before their Lord and be sent to their eternal destination. Now if that isn’t incentive enough, I don’t know what is. Muslims believe that the soul has to wait for a period of time in the grave before standing before God, in which the time passes swiftly and peacefully if you have lived your life according to the Quran, or agonizingly and slowly if you have not. So basically abide by the rules or suffer the consequences much like the ‘lake of fire’ if you followed the Christian belief- do you think this is how Matilda felt every time she was punished by Miss Trunchbull?

Now here is a change of scenery, for all the readers that are still with me. Atheism. For the more knowledgeable, you may have already known that they are the third largest religious group in the world, followed by 16.3% of the world’s population; approximately 1.1 billion people. This shocked me for many reason, one being my belief that Hinduism was the third largest religious group in the world. Nevertheless atheism is the complete opposite of most of the religions out there if not all as they do NOT believe in a God or creator. That being the main idea of the religion itself, atheists are well known for their philosophy of enjoying life ‘here and now’ and don’t concern themselves with thoughts of the afterlife. A nice philosophy for those who like to warm the beds of one night stands repeatedly.

So there you have it, believe in the ‘lake of fire’, wait for eternity to meet your lord OR live life and wait to find out. Either way, no matter what our age or background is we are all heading for a sobering destination- death, wherever it may take us…