I agree their is a God, but, I disagree about we have a spirit because of the fact of what Gods word say abotu the matter.
One Question, Many Answers
Is there life after death? is a question that has perplexed mankind for millenniums. "Even theologians are embarrassed when faced with [it]," says Hans Küng, a Catholic scholar. Over the ages, people in every society have pondered the subject, and there is no shortage of proposed answers.
Many nominal Christians believe in heaven and hell. Hindus, on the other hand, believe in reincarnation. Commenting on the Muslim view, Amir Muawiyah, an assistant at an Islamic religious center, says: "We believe there will be a day of judgment after death, when you go before God, Allah, which will be just like walking into court." According to Islamic belief, Allah will then assess each one's life course and consign a person to paradise or to hellfire.
In Sri Lanka, both Buddhists and Catholics leave the doors and windows wide open when a death occurs in their household. An oil lamp is lit, and the casket is placed with the feet of the deceased facing the front door. They believe that these measures facilitate the exit of the spirit, or soul, of the deceased from the house.
Australian Aborigines, says Ronald M. Berndt of the University of Western Australia, believe that "human beings are spiritually indestructible." Certain African tribes believe that after death ordinary people become ghosts, whereas prominent individuals become ancestor spirits, who will be honored and petitioned as invisible leaders of the community.
In some lands, beliefs regarding supposed souls of the dead are a blend of local tradition and nominal Christianity. For example, among many Catholics and Protestants in West Africa, it is customary to cover mirrors when someone dies so that no one might look and see the dead person's spirit. Then, 40 days after the death of the loved one, family and friends celebrate the soul's ascension to heaven.
A Common Theme
Answers to the question about what happens when we die are as diverse as the customs and beliefs of the people giving them. Yet, most religions agree on one fundamental idea: Something inside a person-a soul, a spirit, a ghost-is immortal and continues living after death.
Belief in the immortality of the soul is all but universal in Christendom's thousands of religions and sects. It is an official doctrine in Judaism too. In Hinduism this belief is the very foundation of the teaching of reincarnation. Muslims believe that the soul comes into being with the body but lives on after the body dies. Other faiths-African animism, Shinto, and even Buddhism-teach variations on this same theme.
Some take the opposite view, that conscious life ends at death. To them, the idea that emotional and intellectual life continues in an impersonal, shadowy soul separate from the body seems beyond reason. The 20th-century Spanish writer and scholar Miguel de Unamuno writes: "To believe in the immortality of the soul is to wish that the soul may be immortal, but to wish it with such force that this volition shall trample reason under foot and pass beyond it." Among those who refused to believe in personal immortality are the noted ancient philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus, the physician Hippocrates, the Scottish philosopher David Hume, the Arabian scholar Averroës, and India's first prime minister after independence, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Immortality of the Soul-The Birth of the Doctrine
"No subject connected with his psychic life has so engrossed the mind of man as that of his condition after death."-"ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS."
A 70-YEAR-OLD scholar and teacher is accused of impiety and of corrupting young minds by his teaching. Even though he presents a brilliant defense at his trial, a biased jury finds him guilty and sentences him to death. Just hours before his execution, the aged teacher presents to the pupils gathered around him a series of arguments to affirm that the soul is immortal and that death is not to be feared.
The condemned man is none other than Socrates, renowned Greek philosopher of the fifth century B.C.E. His student Plato recorded these incidents in the essays Apology and Phaedo. Socrates and Plato are credited with being among the first to advance the idea that the soul is immortal. But they were not the originators of this teaching.
As we shall see, the roots of the idea of human immortality reach into much earlier times. Socrates and Plato, however, polished the concept and transformed it into a philosophical teaching, thus making it more appealing to the cultured classes of their day and beyond.
From Pythagoras to the Pyramids
The Greeks prior to Socrates and Plato also believed that the soul lived on after death. Pythagoras, the famous Greek mathematician of the sixth century B.C.E., held that the soul was immortal and subject to transmigration. Before him, Thales of Miletus, thought to be the earliest known Greek philosopher, felt that an immortal soul existed not only in men, animals, and plants but also in such objects as magnets, since they can move iron. The ancient Greeks claimed that the souls of the dead were ferried across the river Styx to a vast underground realm called the netherworld. There, judges sentenced the souls either to torment in a high-walled prison or to bliss in Elysium.
In Iran, or Persia, to the east, a prophet named Zoroaster appeared on the scene in the seventh century B.C.E. He introduced a way of worship that came to be known as Zoroastrianism. This was the religion of the Persian Empire, which dominated the world scene before Greece became a major power. The Zoroastrian scriptures say: "In Immortality shall the soul of the Righteous be ever in Joy, but in torment the soul of the Liar shall surely be. And these Laws hath Ahura Mazda [meaning, "a wise god"] ordained through His sovereign authority."
The teaching of the immortality of the soul was also a part of the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion. Ancient tribes of Iran, for example, cared for the souls of the departed by offering them food and clothing to benefit them in the underworld.
Belief in life after death was central to Egyptian religion. The Egyptians held that the soul of the dead person would be judged by Osiris, the chief god of the underworld. For example, a papyrus document claimed to be from the 14th century B.C.E. shows Anubis, god of the dead, leading the soul of the scribe Hunefer before Osiris. On a pair of scales, the heart of the scribe, representing his conscience, is weighed against the feather that the goddess of truth and justice wears on her head. Thoth, another god, records the results. Since Hunefer's heart is not heavy with guilt, it weighs less than the feather, and Hunefer is allowed to enter the realm of Osiris and receive immortality. The papyrus also shows a female monster standing by the scales, ready to devour the deceased if the heart fails the test. The Egyptians also mummified their dead and preserved the bodies of pharaohs in impressive pyramids, since they thought that the survival of the soul depended on preserving the body.
Various ancient civilizations, then, held one teaching in common-the immortality of the soul. Did they get this teaching from the same source?
The Point of Origin
"In the ancient world," says the book The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, "Egypt, Persia, and Greece felt the influence of the Babylonian religion." This book goes on to explain: "In view of the early contact between Egypt and Babylonia, as revealed by the El-Amarna tablets, there were certainly abundant opportunities for the infusion of Babylonian views and customs into Egyptian cults. In Persia, the Mithra cult reveals the unmistakable influence of Babylonian conceptions . . . The strong admixture of Semitic elements both in early Greek mythology and in Grecian cults is now so generally admitted by scholars as to require no further comment. These Semitic elements are to a large extent more specifically Babylonian."
But does not the Babylonian view of what happens after death differ considerably from that of the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Greeks? Consider, for example, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. Its aging hero, Gilgamesh, haunted by the reality of death, sets out in search of immortality but fails to find it. A wine maiden he meets during his journey even encourages him to make the most of this life, for he will not find the unending life he seeks. The message of the whole epic is that death is inevitable and the hope of immortality is an illusion. Would this indicate that the Babylonians did not believe in the Hereafter?
Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A., wrote: "Neither the people nor the leaders of religious thought [of Babylonia] ever faced the possibility of the total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death [in their view] was a passage to another kind of life, and the denial of immortality merely emphasized the impossibility of escaping the change in existence brought about by death." Yes, the Babylonians also believed that life of some kind, in some form, continued after death. They expressed this by burying objects with the dead for their use in the Hereafter.
Clearly, the teaching of the immortality of the soul goes back to ancient Babylon. According to the Bible, a book bearing the stamp of accurate history, the city of Babel, or Babylon, was founded by Nimrod, a great-grandson of Noah. After the global Flood in Noah's day, there was only one language and one religion. By founding the city and constructing a tower there, Nimrod started another religion. The Bible record shows that after the confusion of languages at Babel, the unsuccessful tower builders scattered and made new beginnings, taking along their religion. (Genesis 10:6-10; 11:4-9) Babylonish religious teachings thus spread across the face of the earth.
Tradition has it that Nimrod died a violent death. After his death the Babylonians reasonably would have been inclined to hold him in high regard as the founder, builder, and first king of their city. Since the god Marduk (Merodach) was regarded as the founder of Babylon, some scholars have suggested that Marduk represents the deified Nimrod. If this is so, then the idea that a person has a soul that survives death must have been current at least by the time of Nimrod's death. In any case, the pages of history reveal that following the Flood, the birthplace of the teaching of the immortality of the soul was Babel, or Babylon.
How, though, did the doctrine become central to most religions of our time?
The Idea Enters Eastern Religions
"I always thought that the immortality of the soul was a universal truth that everyone accepted. So I was really surprised to learn that some great minds both of the East and of the West have passionately argued against the belief. Now I wonder how the idea of immortality came into Hindu consciousness."-A UNIVERSITY STUDENT WHO WAS RAISED A HINDU.
HOW did the idea that man has a soul that is immortal enter Hinduism and other Eastern religions? The question is of interest even to those in the West who may not be familiar with these religions, since the belief affects everyone's view of the future. Because the teaching of human immortality is a common denominator in most religions today, knowing how the concept developed can indeed promote better understanding and communication.
Ninian Smart, a professor of religious studies at the University of Lancaster in Britain, observes: "The most important centre of religious influence in Asia has been India. This is not merely because India itself has given birth to a number of faiths-Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, etc.-but because one of these, Buddhism, came to influence profoundly the culture of virtually the whole of East Asia." Many cultures influenced in this way "still regard India as their spiritual homeland," says Hindu scholar Nikhilananda. How, then, did this teaching of immortality make inroads into India and other parts of Asia?
Hinduism's Teaching of Reincarnation
In the sixth century B.C.E., while Pythagoras and his followers in Greece were advocating the theory of transmigration of souls, Hindu sages living along the banks of the Indus and Ganges rivers in India were developing the same concept. The simultaneous appearance of this belief "in the Greek world and in India can hardly have been fortuitous," says historian Arnold Toynbee. "One possible common source [of influence]," Toynbee points out, "is the Eurasian nomad society, which, in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C., had descended upon India, South-Western Asia, the steppe country along the north shore of the Black Sea, and the Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas." The migrating Eurasian tribes evidently carried with them to India the idea of transmigration.
Hinduism had begun in India much earlier, with the arrival of the Aryans about 1500 B.C.E. From the very start, Hinduism held the belief that the soul was different from the body and that the soul survived death. Hindus thus practiced ancestor worship and laid out food for the souls of their dead to consume. Centuries later when the idea of the transmigration of souls reached India, it must have appealed to the Hindu sages grappling with the universal problem of evil and suffering among humans. Combining this with what is called the law of Karma, the law of cause and effect, Hindu sages developed the theory of reincarnation whereby merits and demerits in one life are rewarded or punished in the next.
But there was one other concept that influenced Hinduism's teaching about the soul. "It seems to be true that at the very time when the theory of transmigration and karma was formed, or even earlier," says the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, "another concept . . . was gradually taking shape in a small intellectual circle in N. India-the philosophic concept of the Brahman-Atman [the supreme and eternal Brahman, the ultimate reality]." This idea was combined with the theory of reincarnation to define the ultimate goal of Hindus-liberation from the cycle of transmigration in order to be one with the ultimate reality. This, Hindus believe, is achieved by striving for socially acceptable behavior and special Hindu knowledge.
Hindu wise men thus shaped the idea of the transmigration of souls into the doctrine of reincarnation by combining it with the law of Karma and the concept of Brahman. Octavio Paz, a Nobel Prize winning poet and a former Mexican ambassador to India, writes: "As Hinduism spread, so did an idea . . . that is pivotal to Brahmanism, Buddhism, and other Asian religions: metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls across successive existences."
The doctrine of reincarnation is the mainstay of present-day Hinduism. Hindu philosopher Nikhilananda says: "That the attainment of immortality is not the prerogative of a chosen few, but the birthright of all, is the conviction of every good Hindu."
The Cycle of Rebirth in Buddhism
Buddhism was founded in India about 500 B.C.E. According to Buddhist tradition, an Indian prince by the name of Siddhartha Gautama, who came to be known as Buddha after receiving enlightenment, founded Buddhism. Since it sprang from Hinduism, its teachings are in some ways similar to those of Hinduism. According to Buddhism, existence is a continuous cycle of rebirth and death, and as in Hinduism, each individual's status in his current life is defined by the deeds of his previous life.
But Buddhism does not define existence in terms of a personal soul that survives death. "[Buddha] saw in the human psyche only a fleeting series of discontinuous psychological states, which are held together only by desire," observed Arnold Toynbee. Yet, Buddha believed that something-some state or force-is passed on from one life to another. Dr. Walpola Rahula, a Buddhist scholar, explains:
"A being is nothing but a combination of physical and mental forces or energies. What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether with the non-functioning of the body? Buddhism says 'No.' Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world. This is the greatest force, the greatest energy in the world. According to Buddhism, this force does not stop with the non-functioning of the body, which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form, producing re-existence which is called rebirth."
The Buddhist view of the Hereafter is this: Existence is everlasting unless the individual attains the final goal of Nirvana, liberation from the cycle of rebirths. Nirvana is a state neither of eternal bliss nor of becoming one with the ultimate reality. It is simply a state of nonexistence-the "deathless place" beyond individual existence. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines "Nirvana" as "a place or state of oblivion to care, pain, or external reality." Rather than seeking immortality, Buddhists are encouraged to transcend it by achieving Nirvana.
As it spread to various places in Asia, uddhism modified its teachings to accommodate local beliefs. For example, Mahayana Buddhism, the form that is dominant in China and Japan, holds a belief in celestial bodhisattvas, or future Buddhas. Bodhisattvas put off their Nirvana for countless lives in order to serve others and help them attain it. Thus one can choose to continue in the cycle of rebirth even after attaining Nirvana.
Another adjustment that became particularly influential in China and Japan is the doctrine of the Pure Land to the West, created by Buddha Amitabha, or Amida. Those calling on the name of Buddha in faith are reborn into the Pure Land, or paradise, where conditions are more conducive to attaining the final enlightenment. What has developed from this teaching? Professor Smart, mentioned earlier, explains: "Not unnaturally, the splendours of paradise, vividly described in some of the Mahayana scriptures, came to replace nirvana in the popular imagination as the supreme goal."
Tibetan Buddhism incorporates other local elements. For example, the Tibetan book of the dead describes the fate of an individual in the intermediate state before being reborn. The dead are said to be exposed to the bright light of the ultimate reality, and those who are unable to bear the light do not gain liberation but are reborn. Clearly, Buddhism in its various forms conveys the idea of immortality.
Ancestor Worship in Japan's Shinto
Religion existed in Japan before the arrival of Buddhism in the sixth century C.E. It was a religion without a name, and it consisted of beliefs associated with morals and customs of the people. With the introduction of Buddhism, however, the need arose to distinguish the Japanese religion from the foreign one. And so the designation "Shinto," meaning "the way of the gods," sprang up.
What belief did the original Shinto hold about the Hereafter? With the advent of the wetland cultivation of rice, "wetland agriculture necessitated well-organized and stable communities," explains the Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, "and agricultural rites-which later played such an important role in Shinto-were developed." Fear of departed souls led these ancient people to conceive rites of appeasing them. This developed into a worship of ancestral spirits.
According to Shinto belief, a "departed" soul still has its personality but is stained because of death. When the bereaved perform memorial rites, the soul is purified to the point of removing all malice, and it takes on a peaceful and benevolent character. In time, the ancestral spirit rises to the position of an ancestral deity, or guardian. As it coexisted with Buddhism, Shinto incorporated certain Buddhist teachings, including the doctrine of paradise. Thus, we find that belief in immortality is fundamental to Shinto.
Immortality in Taoism, Ancestor Worship in Confucianism
Taoism was founded by Lao-tzu, who is said to have lived in China in the sixth century B.C.E. The goal in life, according to Taoism, is to harmonize human activity with Tao-the way of nature. Taoist thinking concerning immortality can be summed up this way: Tao is the governing principle of the universe. Tao has no beginning and no end. By living in accord with Tao, an individual participates in it and becomes eternal.
In their attempt to be at one with nature, Taoists in time became especially interested in its agelessness and resilience. They speculated that perhaps by living in harmony with Tao, or nature's way, one could somehow tap into the secrets of nature and become immune to physical harm, disease, and even death.
Taoists started to experiment with meditation, breathing exercises, and diet, which supposedly could delay bodily decay and death. Soon legends began to circulate about immortals who could fly on clouds and appear and disappear at will and who lived on sacred mountains or remote islands for countless years, sustained by dew or magical fruits. Chinese history reports that in 219 B.C.E., the emperor Ch'in Shih Huang Ti sent a fleet of ships with 3,000 boys and girls to find the legendary island of P'eng-lai, the abode of the immortals, in order to bring back the herb of immortality. Needless to say, they did not return with the elixir.
The quest for eternal life led Taoists to experiment with concocting immortality pills by alchemy. In the Taoist view, life results when the opposing yin and yang (female and male) forces combine. Thus, by fusing lead (dark, or yin) and mercury (bright, or yang), the alchemists were imitating the process of nature, and they thought that the product would be an immortality pill.
By the seventh century C.E., Buddhism made inroads into Chinese religious life. The result was an amalgam embracing elements of Buddhism, spiritism, and ancestor worship. "Both Buddhism and Taoism," says Professor Smart, "gave shape and substance to beliefs about an after-life which were rather sketchy in ancient Chinese ancestor-worship."
Confucius, China's other prominent sage of the sixth century B.C.E., whose philosophy became the basis for Confucianism, did not comment extensively on the Hereafter. Rather, he stressed the importance of moral goodness and socially acceptable behavior. But he had a favorable attitude toward ancestor worship and placed great emphasis on the observance of the rites and ceremonies relating to the spirits of departed ancestors.
Other Eastern Religions
Jainism was founded in India in the sixth century B.C.E. Its founder, Mahavira, taught that all living things have eternal souls and that salvation of the soul from the bondage of Karma is possible only through extreme self-denial and self-discipline and a rigid application of nonviolence toward all creatures. Jains hold these beliefs to this day.
India is also the birthplace of Sikhism, a religion practiced by 19 million people. This religion had its start in the 16th century when Guru Nanak decided to fuse the best of Hinduism and Islam and form a united religion. Sikhism adopted the Hindu beliefs of immortality of the soul, reincarnation, and Karma.
Clearly, the belief that life continues after the body dies is an integral part of most Eastern religions.
There is, however, a book that contains truthful answers to important questions about life and death. It is the oldest book ever written, parts of it being composed some 3,500 years ago. The first part of this book was written a few centuries before the earliest hymns of the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, were formulated and about a thousand years before Buddha, Mahavira, and Confucius walked the earth. This book was completed in 98 C.E., more than 500 years before Muhammad founded Islam. This unique source of superior wisdom is the Bible.
The Bible contains the most accurate ancient history of any book in existence. The history recorded in the Bible goes back to the beginning of the human family and explains how we came to be here on earth. It even takes us back to the time before humans were created. Such a book can indeed give us insight into how man was made and what the soul is.
"The man came to be a living soul."-GENESIS 2:7.For example, Genesis 2:7 states: "Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul." Note that Adam did not have a soul; he was a soul-just as someone who becomes a doctor is a doctor. The word "soul," then, can describe a whole person.
This understanding is supported throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, where we find such phrases as "in case a soul sins" (Leviticus 5:1), "any soul that will do any sort of work" (Leviticus 23:30), "in case a man is found kidnapping a soul" (Deuteronomy 24:7), "his soul got to be impatient" (Judges 16:16), "how long will you men keep irritating my soul?" (Job 19:2), and "my soul has been sleepless from grief."-Psalm 119:28.
There is no indication in these passages that the soul is some shadowy entity that lives on after death. "To say in our terms that the 'soul' of the loved one has departed to be with the Lord or to speak of the 'immortal soul' would simply not be understandable in the culture of the OT [Old Testament]," says The Dictionary of Bible and Religion.