Good Essay About Afterlife

Where do we get when we die? What happens to us after death? Is there such thing as the afterlife? These questions naturally puzzled humans of all ages the most. These issues were also among the first ones to which any religion or the belief system offered its answers. Indeed, while seemingly possessing little to no practical value to humans in their Earth life, the issue of the afterlife was always a vital subject of discussions because it touches the most important and highest of the human feelings such as love, hatred, freedom, fear, and hope. Of all these, hope mostly holds the principle power.
All the cultures shared one belief in common that after death the life does not end. Be it Hindus, Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians, all of them believed that death is not the final destination. When speaking of ancient Greece and Rome, the influence of the abovementioned feelings ends with hope because after death, there is not much that a being can do as its life becomes powerless and meaningless. In Ancient Egypt and especially India the concepts of afterlife held more weight, and that's why they incorporated more options based on these strong feelings. The concept of opposites runs through these cultures' views – the general relationship here is that the life after death is defined by the way of life before death. Love, hope, and sympathy play a crucial role, because if a person exhibited them during her life, then she could hope for better life after death. The same tendency illustrates the influence of negative feelings – they were exaggerated after the decease – if a person led the “bad” way of life, then the only fate awaiting her was darkness and suffering. It is natural that in different nations the influence of these human values has been very similar – they were the ethical constraints that restrained people from misconduct and, therefore, ensured the survival of the societal groups clinging to such beliefs.
Despite seeming differences, Osiris, Mount Meru, Christian Heaven and Hell possess much in common. The only exclusion is Greek and Roman Land of the dead. In contrast to abovementioned conceptions, the Greek underworld did not offer anything pleasant and albeit it was not the place of suffering and agony like Christian Hell, it also did not possess any possibilities for prosperous life. As Achill said: "It is better to be the last living man than the king among the dead." The common element uniting Christianity with Ancient Egypt and India, the judgement after death, determined where the soul will rest. In Egypt and Christianity, the decision was ultimate and if the life path of a person was not virtuous it faced either eternal darkness not having ba and ka united or fiery suffering. In India, the mechanism was the same, but the judgement was not ultimate and after a certain amount of time the soul faced reincarnation. If the life was virtuous, then the person was sent to better worlds, the pleasant realm of Osiris, the realms of Devs or Gods in the top part of Mount Meru or Christian Heaven.
Nowadays, most people perceive religious texts literally which causes much trouble and misunderstanding. It seems that even now a large percent of Americans believe literally in Heaven and Heaven residing somewhere above and below us. The main reason of this is the level of individual psychic growth and development which determines the nature of beliefs held by an individual. These ideas in different forms will always be important to human beings as they represent the side of the world opposite to the life itself. And as long as humans will refuse to give away their lives easily the ideas of the afterlife will be firmly nested in their minds.