How do religious beliefs shape our understanding of death?
PRINT PAGE
How do religious beliefs shape our understanding of death?
Most people in their seventies, eighties and nineties grew up during a time when belief in religion and church attendance was common. This was not everyone, but it was regarded as a normal thing. This article addresses the way religious beliefs, Christianity in particular, shape our understanding of dying and how we engage with our approaching death in our later years.
We know that death can happen at any age, but once we move into our seventies and eighties, we know our days are numbered as we say, even though from our birth, our days are actually numbered. Everyone in their later years faces impending death - there’s no escaping this part of the cycle of life. It is still common though, for people to act as if they will live forever, while at the same time, we are all aware that this life as we know it here on earth will end.
Many people do not take responsibility in preparing for their own death. It’s as if there is a fear that death will come sooner if we talk about it and prepare for it. Instead, we might simply make our will and tuck it away in the bottom drawer, justifying that this is all we need to do and that the family will look after all the temporal arrangements and clean up after we have passed. If we have had a religious upbringing, we might hand over our power to the church or the priest to manage the ‘spiritual’ side of dying. Depending on a carte blanche at the last moment in the form of the Last Rites is irresponsible, if we haven’t prepared for our own death. The belief that all our sins will be absolved, our slate wiped clean and a direct path to Heaven guaranteed is naïve and ill considered; almost like the medieval practice of buying indulgences from the church to assure a speedy path to Heaven regardless of the way life has been lived.
If we are not willing to talk about our own death with family and/or friends, prepare to close down the business of our life and make all our final arrangements as much as we are able, we are being irresponsible. I know people who refuse to have that conversation and avoid any talk of death or dying when it refers to themselves.
We need to confront that part of us that refuses to go there and call out the energy that wants to keep us in denial of our own inevitable death. Making detailed preparations for our death frees us from the worry and anxiety about unfinished business and leaves the way clear for a calm and even a joyful passing when that time comes which it inevitably will for us all.
In hospitals and aged care facilities, it is common for patients and residents who are close to death to be given life sustaining treatments, simply to maintain a heartbeat and keep them alive. Death is to be avoided at all costs and may even be seen as a failure if a patient dies. Just because medical science can keep a human body alive, it doesn’t always mean that this is the wisest course of action.
When an unnecessarily prolonged life means someone is lying in a bed, uncomfortable, in pain, unaware of what is happening around them, unable to recognise family or even unconscious, how is that living? It is purely existing. There comes a time in everyone’s life to let nature take its course without interference.
The core belief of Christianity is around salvation, meaning that when you die, if you have followed the religion’s teachings, you will go to Heaven and be saved from going to Hell. This place of ‘eternal damnation’ is described as a place where you are separated forever from God. Different denominations within Christian churches have varying descriptions of what Hell is like – commonly a place where the devil lives, where he and his minions torture you in its flames forever. This was the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church for almost its entire history and for some, this is still their belief. Some churches discount the fire and brimstone story but still see Hell as a real place where you are separated from God. So, the doctrine preached by the church is that you need to get to Heaven where you will spend eternity with God and the angels. The church also promises that you will be reunited with your loved ones who have passed before you. These are still the most common religious beliefs about what happens to you after death.
To ensure you go to Heaven and not to Hell, the Christian doctrine teaches that Jesus came to save us and redeem us from sin. He suffered and died on the cross for our sins then rose again, that is, he came back to life. We have been redeemed through his death on our behalf, but this is only possible for those who accept Jesus as their Saviour and give their lives to him. Those who don’t accept this don’t go to Heaven. Their Soul instead goes either to Hell or some other place where they are separated from God, but not to Heaven. For Catholics, this other place is called purgatory, a holding place where you supposedly undergo a process of purification which can be fast-tracked if relatives or others on earth have said enough prayers for you to be admitted to Heaven.
The strong emphasis on our sinfulness is found in all Christian denominations, amplified in sermons, biblical texts and hymns. The whole raison d'être of Christianity is to save our Souls. Jesus died in our place because we are sinful, and he is not. This can beget a feeling of guilt and indebtedness, a feeling that we can never do enough to atone for the evil that we are and for the fact that Jesus died because of us. Even if we accept the Lord as our Saviour, said to guarantee us a place in Heaven, we never lose the feeling of being indebted and unworthy sinners. Even if we hope we have been ‘saved’, the fear of the punishment that might be awaiting us may still lurk in the back of our minds.
-
Some Christians are confident they will go to Heaven, meet up with loved ones who have previously passed and together they will spend eternity with Jesus.
-
Some Christians still have doubts, fearing the ‘Day of Judgement’ where they will have to account to God for all their past wrongdoings. Although they are told Jesus died for their sins, their lived experience of being told that they are unworthy sinners takes precedence.
-
Some people may have doubts about the doctrine of Heaven or Hell but maintain their connection with church just in case it’s true.
-
Some people who have refuted religious beliefs during their lifetime, fear the unknown of death as it draws closer.
-
Some people, often under pressure from a visiting priest or a well-meaning family member, make a death bed conversion and renounce their sinful ways.
-
If a person is Catholic, a priest may perform the Last Rites when death is imminent. This ritual is meant to prepare the Soul for the afterlife.
The emphasis the church places on our fate after we die is a central theme of Christian preaching. The fear of going to Hell, threatened by generations of priests and reinforced over centuries by artists’ images of terrified sinners falling into the flames of Hell has had many people in dread and even terror of death e.g. The Michelangelo painting of The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel graphically displays the fate that is said to await us. This threat has given the church enormous power over people for almost two thousand years and while today this belief is no longer so widely held, there are still many, particularly older people who have had decades of this indoctrination for their entire lives and have unquestioningly believed and accepted the lies they have been taught around the subject of dying and death.
Convinced of beliefs that we are sinners, awaiting God’s judgement, can keep us in a pattern of guilt and unworthiness, unwilling or fearful of facing death in our elder years - a heavy burden to be carrying at the end of our life.
Is there another perspective we can take on death, apart from the common narratives we have been told - narratives that either have us going to Heaven, Hell or some other place where we exist eternally or that there is nothing after death, or that we don’t know what happens after we die?
Yes, we can take a look at the teachings from the Ageless Wisdom which will answer all our questions and show us that there is no mystery about death and that there is a purpose or a reason for everything that happens.
The Ageless Wisdom teaches that God is not an external, separate and distant being ‘up there’ somewhere, living in Heaven as most religions insist. God is not vengeful or judgemental.
God is love. God is one with us, as close as our breath,
in us and all around us. God is everywhere.
There is nowhere that God is not.
"It seems ridiculous that we have the living truth of all things within us, and yet we allow an outer-source, those intellectualised re-interpreted scriptures, to tell us who we are, who we are supposed to be and be like, and what and how to be with and in the eyes of God, when by Universal and Energetic Law, that living truth, that is, the light of God, emanates from within and thus who we are, naturally reveals itself. God is immanent not transcendent."
Serge Benhayon The Way of Initiation, ed 1, p 356
This is exactly what Jesus taught - the same Ageless Wisdom that has always been there, era after era, though it was not called Ageless Wisdom at the time. Jesus taught that God is not outside of us. He said, “The kingdom of God is within you.”[1]
In other words, God is inside you and all around you. This might pose a problem if we think of God as a physical being, which clearly, he is not. God is an energetic being, a vibration. We are also that, a divine energetic being in a human body. We are made of the same particles as the stars, and therefore we are universal beings. We are far more than human.
In the biblical book of Romans, we find another teaching of the Ageless Wisdom – that nothing can separate us from God as we are one with Him. God is love.
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."[2]
What happens to us after we die is not unknown even though this is commonly believed to be the case. We only have one life. This does not mean that our life here and now on earth is the only life we will have. It means that our Soul has one life with many reappearances, all different - in other words, we die and come back in a new human body for another period on earth before dying again and returning again. This is the true-life cycle and death is simply one part of it.
Everything in the universe is part of a cycle as is the cycle of life for us and for the planet on which we live. We die, we are born again, and we live a certain number of years on the earth where we are given opportunities to learn lessons that assist us to return to where we originally came from. This is the cycle of reincarnation and while this may not be a familiar or a popular concept, it is nevertheless true.
The teachings of reincarnation bring us to responsibility for the way we have lived. If we embrace the teaching that we are responsible for the energetic quality of all our interactions, and we live our lives dedicated to living the love and wisdom of God, with no perfection called for, we can embrace our elder years feeling at-one with God, settled with inner harmony and joyful obedience to our inner knowing.
We came from the stars and to the stars we will all one day return to be in Oneness with God.
"When we are ready to grow up on the subject of death, we will return to know that no two deaths are the same; every case has its own path leading to the point of passing over as well as what is to be post ‘death’ … which, of course, is no ‘death’ but the love and beauty of continuation."
Serge Benhayon Teachings & Revelations, Volume V, ed 1, p 180
References:
Filed under
Death, Religion, Responsibility
