When we die, we are either going to heaven or to hell. How many times we have heard that growing up? For some, probably quite often. Obviously, it depends on the family and your environment growing up. Some families are not religious. Some families, like mine, are deeply religious. They are devoted Christians. There is nothing wrong with that. Growing up as a kid, I thought it was such thing as a heaven and hell. All the good people to heaven. All the bad people go to hell. I was domesticated to believe that if someone commit suicide, they will go to hell because they have betrayed God. I thought these things were true growing up because that is what I was told by my family and my surroundings. Over the past seven to eight months, I do not listen and follow things because I simply was told this by people. I do my own investigation and research. I want to educate myself. It is not just with this particular subject, but with almost everything and everyone. I am student of my current life, the life before my existence and my afterlife. But right now I am going to talk about whether heaven and hell actually exist in the afterlife when we die? It is such thing as an eternal hell and eternal heaven?
According to Pew Research Center's 2014 Religious Landscape, 72% Americans, who are Christians, believe in heaven. Heaven is a place “where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded." At the same time, 58% believe in hell. Hell is define as a place “where people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished.” Those are high percentages. This was seven years ago, so I don't know if the percentages have increase or decrease over time. My guess is the the percentages are right around the same with maybe a slight increase or decrease.
My main sources came from articles from Bart Ehrman, who is known for his books deflating the assumptions of Christians Scripture. I also watch some interviews from people who are Christians like Richard Swinbune and Eleonore Stump about whether heaven and hell exist.
Heaven and hell was not taught in the Old Testament or by Jesus. In the beginning, Ancient Jews believe that when we die, neither our breath or our souls leaves our body. Our bodies just lies in the grave and we are completely vanished and unconscious. There was no afterlife, according to the Ancient Jews back then. People thought that was unfair. Bad things should happen to only bad people. Death was looked at as bad and horrific event. People began to question why should this happen to good people? Death should happen only to the bad.
Over time, the viewpoint began to change. It is evil people here in this world, and they goes against God and want to hurt his people, according to the Ancient Jews. God is the ruler of the world, but relinquish control of the world at one point, according to one of Bart Ehrman's articles. But God will soon be back and destroy everything and everyone who opposes him, and reward the ones that was doing right with the Kingdom of God, paradise on earth. It was not only for the ones that were alive, but for the ones that were dead at the time. They will be raise from the dead and be welcome to the Kingdom of God. God will also bring back the bad from the dead, see their evilness and God will eradicate them permanently.
The idea of God rewarding the good and completely annihilating the people that opposes him was a dominated view during the Jewish thoughts of the days of Jesus. Jesus had some tweaks of the idea of God's Kingdom. For Jesus, earth paradise will come for the ones that fully dedicates on loving God through thick and thin, and giving back true love to everyone, especially the poor.
Jesus never believe in hell as a place of eternal punishment. Jesus view of punishment was excluding the bad people from the kingdom and wiping them away into some dumping ground on the planet. He just throws them away. Yes, people get punished but he does not talk about eternal punishment. Another example is when he talks about separating good grains and tossing the weeds into fiery furnace. The burns are not eternal hell.
The thought of eternal punishment came later after Jesus death. Jesus never talked about that with his people. It also started because Christians began to believe our souls are immortal. It was a lot of assumptions that was going on.
If God loves his children, why he will eternally punish his children for only numerous years of sinful act if our souls are immortal? I never understood that logic. We all make mistakes and most of it try to learn from it and grow/evolve. God is not going to eternally punish us from our past mistakes. If that's the case, we will all be wipe out after death and suffer eternal punishment. God knows we will screw up sometimes.
But God knows the bad people in this world. God will evaporate those people some way, somehow. He will do it when we least expect it. It does not always mean death. The guy I think about is Derek Chauvin. Their evilness will soon be expose and they will be evaporate from our earth. They won't be eternally punish though. They will be just out of sight, out of mind for the time being. That is my own personal viewpoint.
So does heaven and hell actually exist? Me personally, I believe heaven and hell is in your state of consciousness. I believe we are in heaven right now. But I also believe we are in hell right now. It is more a psychological myth than an actual place. It is right between our eyes when we look in the mirror. It is in your mind. We can make life our own personal heaven or our own personal hell.
Where do we go after we die? The great philosopher, Socrates, thought when we die, we go in a long, everlasting deep sleep; or we will be in happier place and deal with no more pain. In Hinduism, life is one continuous cycle. They call it Samsara, and the souls are known as atman. They believe when we die, our souls leaves our bodies to reborn in another form. The timeline of the rebirth will be determine of the goods of the person's soul. Not everyone is reborn back to a human being. Only the upper levels will be bless with that. The lower levels, the evil people, will have a longer timeline of rebirth as sign of punishment, and they will form into an animal or insect, not a human being. Out of all the religions, I thought this one was the most interesting one.
I am a person who is deep with his faith. I respect everyone's faith, belief and whoever God/Creator they pray to everyday. I find these things fascinating. Obviously, I am not ready to die. I have a long life to live. I like to educate myself about these things because I believe we live in an illusion as people when it comes to this kind of stuff. It normally starts with our parents, and it begins never ending cycle of domestication within our environment. I am not going to believe everything I read, but it is something to think about. Lets be more open minded and do our research when it comes to this kind of stuff. I can't tell you where we will be after death. I wish I can. It is scary feeling sometimes, but we will not know until our time comes.
Sources
A Guide to Death and the Afterlife in Hinduism | Cake Blog (joincake.com)
Shimron, Yonat. “Bart Ehrman on Why Everything You’ve Been Told about Heaven and Hell Is Wrong.” Religion News Service, 27 Mar. 2020, religionnews.com/2020/03/26/bart-ehrman-on-why-everything-youve-been-told-about-heaven-and-hell-is-wrong.
Ehrman, Bart. “What Jesus Really Said About Heaven and Hell.” Time, 8 May 2020, time.com/5822598/jesus-really-said-heaven-hell.
Murphy, Caryle. “Most Americans Believe in Heaven … and Hell.” Pew Research Center, 10 Nov. 2015, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/10/most-americans-believe-in-heaven-and-hell.
“Eleonore Stump - Do Heaven and Hell Really Exist?” YouTube, 8 Aug. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=azvb_P1ymmM.
“Richard Swinburne - Do Heaven and Hell Really Exist?” YouTube, 5 Dec. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CWNc_8fOPk&t=391s.
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