A Lancet review on Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries provides the following sample definitions, reproduced in The COPE report 1999:
Danish definition: "Intention or gross negligence leading to
fabrication of the scientific message or a false credit or emphasis
given to a scientist"
Swedish definition: "Intention[al] distortion of the research
process by fabrication of data, text, hypothesis, or methods from
another researcher's manuscript form or publication; or distortion of
the research process in other ways."
The consequences of scientific misconduct can be damaging for perpetrators and journal audiences and for any individual who exposes it.
In addition there are public health implications attached to the
promotion of medical or other interventions based on false or fabricated
research findings. Scientific misconduct can result in loss of public trust in the integrity of science.
Three percent of the 3,475 research institutions that report to the US Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Research Integrity indicate some form of scientific misconduct.
However the ORI will only investigate allegations of impropriety where
research was funded by federal grants. They routinely monitor such
research publications for red flags and their investigation is subject
to a statute of limitations. Other private organizations like the
Committee of Medical Journal Editors (COJE) can only police their own
members.
Motivation
According to David Goodstein of Caltech, there are motivators for scientists to commit misconduct, which are briefly summarised here.
Career pressure
Science is still a very strongly career-driven discipline. Scientists depend on a good reputation to receive ongoing support and funding,
and a good reputation relies largely on the publication of high-profile
scientific papers. Hence, there is a strong imperative to "publish or perish". This may motivate desperate (or fame-hungry) scientists to fabricate results.
Ease of fabrication
In many scientific fields, results are often difficult to reproduce accurately, being obscured by noise, artifacts, and other extraneous data.
That means that even if a scientist does falsify data, they can expect
to get away with it – or at least claim innocence if their results
conflict with others in the same field. There are few strongly backed
systems to investigate possible violations, attempt to press charges, or
punish deliberate misconduct. It is relatively easy to cheat although
difficult to know exactly how many scientists fabricate data.
Monetary Gain
In many scientific fields, the most lucrative options for
professionals are often selling opinions. Corporations can pay experts
to support products directly or indirectly via conferences.
Psychologists can make money by repeatedly acting as an expert witness
in custody proceedings for the same law firms.
Fabrication is making up results and recording or reporting them. This is sometimes referred to as "drylabbing".
A more minor form of fabrication is where references are included to
give arguments the appearance of widespread acceptance, but are actually
fake, or do not support the argument.
Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment,
or processes or changing or omitting data or results such that the
research is not accurately represented in the research record.
Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas,
processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. One form
is the appropriation of the ideas and results of others, and publishing
as to make it appear the author had performed all the work under which
the data was obtained. A subset is citation plagiarism – willful
or negligent failure to appropriately credit other or prior discoverers,
so as to give an improper impression of priority. This is also known
as, "citation amnesia", the "disregard syndrome" and "bibliographic
negligence".
Arguably, this is the most common type of scientific misconduct.
Sometimes it is difficult to guess whether authors intentionally ignored
a highly relevant cite or lacked knowledge of the prior work.
Discovery credit can also be inadvertently reassigned from the original
discoverer to a better-known researcher. This is a special case of the Matthew effect.
Plagiarism-fabrication – the act of taking an unrelated figure
from an unrelated publication and reproducing it exactly in a new
publication, claiming that it represents new data.
Self-plagiarism – or multiple publication of the same content with different titles or in different journals is sometimes also considered misconduct; scientific journals
explicitly ask authors not to do this. It is referred to as "salami"
(i.e. many identical slices) in the jargon of medical journal editors.
According to some editors, this includes publishing the same article in a
different language.
Other types of research misconduct are also recognized:
Ghostwriting
describes when someone other than the named author(s) makes a major
contribution to the research. Typically, this is done to mask
contributions from authors with a conflict of interest.
Guest authorship is the phenomenon wherein authorship is given to someone who has not made any substantial contribution. This can be done by senior researchers who muscle their way onto the papers of inexperienced junior researchers
as well as others that stack authorship in an effort to guarantee
publication. This is much harder to prove due to a lack of consistency
in defining "authorship" or "substantial contribution".
Scientific misconduct can also occur during the peer-review process by a reviewer or editor with a conflict of interest. Reviewer-coerced citation can also inflate the perceived citation impact of a researcher's work and their reputation in the scientific community,
similar to excessive self-citation. Reviewers are expected to be
impartial and assess the quality of their work. They are expected to
declare a conflict of interest to the editors if they are colleagues or
competitors of the authors. A rarer case of scientific misconduct is
editorial misconduct,
where an editor does not declare conflicts of interest, creates
pseudonyms to review papers, gives strongly worded editorial decisions
to support reviews suggesting to add excessive citations to their own
unrelated works or to add themselves as a co-author or their name to the
title of the manuscript.
Publishing in a predatory journal, knowingly or unknowingly, was discussed as a form of potential scientific misconduct.
The peer-review process can have limitations when considering
research outside the conventional scientific paradigm: social factors
such as "groupthink" can interfere with open and fair deliberation of new research.
Sneaked references is the act of subtly embedding references
that are not present in a manuscript in the metadata of this accepted
manuscript without the original authors being capable of noticing or
correcting such modifications.
Photo manipulation
Compared
to other forms of scientific misconduct, image fraud (manipulation of
images to distort their meaning) is of particular interest since it can
frequently be detected by external parties. In 2006, the Journal of Cell Biology gained publicity for instituting tests to detect photo manipulation in papers that were being considered for publication. This was in response to the increased usage of programs such as Adobe Photoshop by scientists, which facilitate photo manipulation. Since then more publishers, including the Nature Publishing Group,
have instituted similar tests and require authors to minimize and
specify the extent of photo manipulation when a manuscript is submitted
for publication. However, there is little evidence to indicate that such
tests are applied rigorously. One Nature paper published in 2009 has subsequently been reported to contain around 20 separate instances of image fraud.
Although the type of manipulation that is allowed can depend
greatly on the type of experiment that is presented and also differ from
one journal to another, in general the following manipulations are not
allowed:
splicing together different images to represent a single experiment
showing only a very small part of the photograph so that additional information is not visible
Image manipulations are typically done on visually repetitive images such as those of blots and microscope images.
Helicopter research
Neo-colonial research or neo-colonial science, frequently described as helicopter research, parachute science or research, parasitic research, or safari study, is when researchers from wealthier countries go to a developing country, collect information, travel back to their country, analyze the data and samples, and publish the results with no or little involvement of local researchers. A 2003 study by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences found that 70% of articles in a random sample of publications about least-developed countries did not include a local research co-author.
Frequently, during this kind of research, the local colleagues might be used to provide logistics support as fixers but are not engaged for their expertise or given credit for their participation in the research. Scientific publications
resulting from parachute science frequently only contribute to the
career of the scientists from rich countries, thus limiting the
development of local science capacity (such as funded research centers) and the careers of local scientists.
This form of "colonial" science has reverberations of 19th century
scientific practices of treating non-Western participants as "others" in
order to advance colonialism—and critics call for the end of these extractivist practices in order to decolonize knowledge.
This kind of research approach reduces the quality of research because
international researchers may not ask the right questions or draw
connections to local issues. The result of this approach is that local communities are unable to leverage the research to their own advantage. Ultimately, especially for fields dealing with global issues like conservation biology which rely on local communities to implement solutions, neo-colonial science prevents institutionalization of the findings in local communities in order to address issues being studied by scientists.
Responsibilities
Authorship responsibility
All
authors of a scientific publication are expected to have made
reasonable attempts to check findings submitted to academic journals for
publication.
Simultaneous submission of scientific findings to more than one
journal or duplicate publication of findings is usually regarded as
misconduct, under what is known as the Ingelfinger rule, named after the
editor of The New England Journal of Medicine 1967–1977, Franz Ingelfinger.
Guest authorship
(where there is stated authorship in the absence of involvement, also
known as gift authorship) and ghost authorship (where the real author is
not listed as an author) are commonly regarded as forms of research
misconduct. In some cases coauthors of faked research have been accused
of inappropriate behavior or research misconduct for failing to verify
reports authored by others or by a commercial sponsor. Examples include
the case of Gerald Schatten who co-authored with Hwang Woo-Suk, the case of Professor Geoffrey Chamberlain named as guest author of papers fabricated by Malcolm Pearce, (Chamberlain was exonerated from collusion in Pearce's deception) – and the coauthors with Jan Hendrik Schön at Bell Laboratories. More recent cases include that of Charles Nemeroff, then the editor-in-chief of Neuropsychopharmacology, and a well-documented case involving the drug Actonel.
Authors are expected to keep all study data for later examination
even after publication. The failure to keep data may be regarded as
misconduct. Some scientific journals require that authors provide
information to allow readers to determine whether the authors might have
commercial or non-commercial conflicts of interest. Authors are also
commonly required to provide information about ethical aspects of
research, particularly where research involves human or animal
participants or use of biological material. Provision of incorrect
information to journals may be regarded as misconduct. Financial
pressures on universities have encouraged this type of misconduct. The
majority of recent cases of alleged misconduct involving undisclosed
conflicts of interest or failure of the authors to have seen scientific
data involve collaborative research between scientists and biotechnology
companies.
Research institution responsibility
In
general, defining whether an individual is guilty of misconduct
requires a detailed investigation by the individual's employing academic
institution. Such investigations require detailed and rigorous
processes and can be extremely costly. Furthermore, the more senior the
individual under suspicion, the more likely it is that conflicts of
interest will compromise the investigation. In many countries (with the
notable exception of the United States) acquisition of funds on the
basis of fraudulent data is not a legal offence and there is
consequently no regulator to oversee investigations into alleged
research misconduct. Universities therefore have few incentives to
investigate allegations in a robust manner, or act on the findings of
such investigations if they vindicate the allegation.
Well publicised cases illustrate the potential role that senior
academics in research institutions play in concealing scientific
misconduct. A King's College (London) internal investigation showed
research findings from one of their researchers to be 'at best
unreliable, and in many cases spurious' but the college took no action, such as retracting relevant published research or preventing further episodes from occurring.
In a more recent case
an internal investigation at the National Centre for Cell Science
(NCCS), Pune determined that there was evidence of misconduct by Gopal Kundu,
but an external committee was then organised which dismissed the
allegation, and the NCCS issued a memorandum exonerating the authors of
all charges of misconduct. Undeterred by the NCCS exoneration, the
relevant journal (Journal of Biological Chemistry) withdrew the paper based on its own analysis.
Scientific peer responsibility
Some
academics believe that scientific colleagues who suspect scientific
misconduct should consider taking informal action themselves, or
reporting their concerns.
This question is of great importance since much research suggests that
it is very difficult for people to act or come forward when they see
unacceptable behavior, unless they have help from their organizations. A
"User-friendly Guide" and the existence of a confidential organizational ombudsman may help people who are uncertain about what to do, or afraid of bad consequences for their speaking up.
Responsibility of journals
Journals
are responsible for safeguarding the research record and hence have a
critical role in dealing with suspected misconduct. This is recognised
by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which has issued clear guidelines on the form (e.g. retraction) that concerns over the research record should take.
The COPE guidelines state that journal editors should consider
retracting a publication if they have clear evidence that the findings
are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication)
or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error). Retraction
is also appropriate in cases of redundant publication, plagiarism and
unethical research.
Journal editors should consider issuing an expression of concern
if they receive inconclusive evidence of research or publication
misconduct by the authors, there is evidence that the findings are
unreliable but the authors' institution will not investigate the case,
they believe that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to
the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial
or conclusive, or an investigation is underway but a judgement will not
be available for a considerable time.
Journal editors should consider issuing a correction if a small
portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading
(especially because of honest error), or the author / contributor list
is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who
does not meet authorship criteria has been included).
Evidence emerged in 2012 that journals learning of cases where there
is strong evidence of possible misconduct, with issues potentially
affecting a large portion of the findings, frequently fail to issue an
expression of concern or correspond with the host institution so that an
investigation can be undertaken. In one case, Nature allowed a corrigendum
to be published despite clear evidence of image fraud. Subsequent
retraction of the paper required the actions of an independent
whistleblower.
The cases of Joachim Boldt and Yoshitaka Fujii in anaesthesiology
focussed attention on the role that journals play in perpetuating
scientific fraud as well as how they can deal with it. In the Boldt
case, the editors-in-chief of 18 specialist journals (generally
anesthesia and intensive care) made a joint statement regarding 88
published clinical trials conducted without Ethics Committee approval.
In the Fujii case, involving nearly 200 papers, the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia,
which published 24 of Fujii's papers, has accepted that its handling of
the issue was inadequate. Following publication of a letter to the
editor from Kranke and colleagues in April 2000,
along with a non-specific response from Dr. Fujii, there was no
follow-up on the allegation of data manipulation and no request for an
institutional review of Dr. Fujii's research. Anesthesia & Analgesia
went on to publish 11 additional manuscripts by Dr. Fujii following the
2000 allegations of research fraud, with Editor Steven Shafer stating
in March 2012 that subsequent submissions to the journal by Dr. Fujii
should not have been published without first vetting the allegations of
fraud. In April 2012 Shafer led a group of editors to write a joint
statement,
in the form of an ultimatum made available to the public, to a large
number of academic institutions where Fujii had been employed, offering
these institutions the chance to attest to the integrity of the bulk of
the allegedly fraudulent papers.
Consequences of scientific misconduct
Consequences for science
The
consequences of scientific fraud vary based on the severity of the
fraud, the level of notice it receives, and how long it goes undetected.
For cases of fabricated evidence, the consequences can be
wide-ranging, with others working to confirm (or refute) the false
finding, or with research agendas being distorted to address the
fraudulent evidence. The Piltdown Man
fraud is a case in point: The significance of the bona-fide fossils
that were being found was muted for decades because they disagreed with
Piltdown Man and the preconceived notions that those faked fossils
supported. In addition, the prominent paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward
spent time at Piltdown each year until he died, trying to find more
Piltdown Man remains. The misdirection of resources kept others from
taking the real fossils more seriously and delayed the reaching of a
correct understanding of human evolution. (The Taung Child,
which should have been the death knell for the view that the human
brain evolved first, was instead treated very critically because of its
disagreement with the Piltdown Man evidence.)
In the case of Prof. Don Poldermans,
the misconduct occurred in reports of trials of treatment to prevent
death and myocardial infarction in patients undergoing operations. The trial reports were relied upon to issue guidelines that applied for many years across North America and Europe.
In the case of Dr Alfred Steinschneider, two decades and tens of
millions of research dollars were lost trying to find the elusive link
between infant sleep apnea, which Steinschneider said he had observed
and recorded in his laboratory, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), of which he stated it was a precursor. The cover was blown in 1994, 22 years after Steinschneider's 1972 Pediatrics paper claiming such an association, when Waneta Hoyt,
the mother of the patients in the paper, was arrested, indicted and
convicted on five counts of second-degree murder for the smothering
deaths of her five children.
While that in itself was bad enough, the paper, presumably written as
an attempt to save infants' lives, ironically was ultimately used as a
defense by parents suspected in multiple deaths of their own children in
cases of Münchausen syndrome by proxy. The 1972 Pediatrics paper was cited in 404 papers in the interim and is still listed on PubMed without comment.
Consequences for those who expose misconduct
The
potentially severe consequences for individuals who are found to have
engaged in misconduct also reflect on the institutions that host or
employ them and also on the participants in any peer review process that
has allowed the publication of questionable research. This means that a
range of actors in any case may have a motivation to suppress any
evidence or suggestion of misconduct. Persons who expose such cases,
commonly called whistleblowers, find themselves open to retaliation by a number of different means.
These negative consequences for exposers of misconduct have driven the
development of whistle blowers charters – designed to protect those who
raise concerns (for more details refer to retaliation (law)).
Regulatory Violations and Consequences (example)
Title 10 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) Part 50.5, Deliberate Misconduct of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
regulations, addresses the prohibition of certain activities by
individual involved in NRC-licensed activities. 10 CFR 50.5 is designed
to ensure the safety and integrity of nuclear operations. 10 CFR Part 50.9, Completeness and Accuracy of Information,
focuses on the requirements for providing information and data to the
NRC. The intent of 10 CFR 50.5 is to deter and penalize intentional
wrongdoing (i.e., violations). 10 CFR 50.9 is crucial in maintaining
transparency and reliability in the nuclear
industry, which effectively emphasizes honesty and integrity in
maintaining the safety and security of nuclear operations. Providing
false or misleading information or data to the NRC is therefore a
violation of 10 CFR 50.9.
Violation of any of these rules can lead to severe penalties, including termination, fines and criminal prosecution. It can also result in the revocation
of licenses or certifications, thereby barring individuals or entities
from participating in any NRC-licensed activities in the future.
Data issues
Exposure of fraudulent data
With the advancement of the internet, there are now several tools available to aid in the detection of plagiarism and multiple publication within biomedical literature. One tool developed in 2006 by researchers in Dr. Harold Garner's laboratory at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas is Déjà vu,
an open-access database containing several thousand instances of
duplicate publication. All of the entries in the database were
discovered through the use of text data mining algorithm eTBLAST, also created in Dr. Garner's laboratory. The creation of Déjà vu
and the subsequent classification of several hundred articles contained
therein have ignited much discussion in the scientific community
concerning issues such as ethical behavior, journal standards, and intellectual copyright. Studies within this database have been published in journals such as Nature and Science, among others.
Other tools which may be used to detect fraudulent data include error analysis.
Measurements generally have a small amount of error, and repeated
measurements of the same item will generally result in slight
differences in readings. These differences can be analyzed, and follow
certain known mathematical and statistical properties. Should a set of
data appear to be too faithful to the hypothesis, i.e., the amount of
error that would normally be in such measurements does not appear, a
conclusion can be drawn that the data may have been forged. Error
analysis alone is typically not sufficient to prove that data have been
falsified or fabricated, but it may provide the supporting evidence
necessary to confirm suspicions of misconduct.
Data sharing
Kirby Lee and Lisa Bero
suggest, "Although reviewing raw data can be difficult, time-consuming
and expensive, having such a policy would hold authors more accountable
for the accuracy of their data and potentially reduce scientific fraud
or misconduct."
Underreporting
The vast majority of cases of scientific misconduct may not be reported. The number of article retractions in 2022 was nearly 5,500, but Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, co-founders of Retraction Watch, estimate that at least 100,000 retractions should occur every year, with only about one in five being due to "honest error".
The claims in Wakefield's paper were widely reported, leading to a sharp drop in vaccination rates in the UK and Ireland and outbreaks of mumps and measles. Promotion of the claimed link continues to fuel the anti-vaccination movement.
In 2011 Diederik Stapel, a highly regarded Dutch social psychologist was discovered to have fabricated data in dozens of studies on human behaviour. He has been called "the biggest con man in academic science".
In 2020, Sapan Desai and his coauthors published two papers in the prestigious medical journals The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine, early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The papers were based on a very large dataset published by Surgisphere, a company owned by Desai. The dataset was exposed as a fabrication, and the papers were soon retracted.
In 2024, Eliezer Masliah, head of the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging,
was suspected of having manipulated and inappropriately reused images
in over 100 scientific papers spanning several decades, including those
that were used by the FDA to greenlight testing for the experimental
drug prasinezumab as a treatment for Parkinson's.
Solutions
Changing research assessment
Since 2012, the Declaration on Research Assessment
(DORA), from San Francisco, gathered many institutions, publishers, and
individuals committing to improving the metrics used to assess research
and to stop focusing on the journal impact factor.
The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's stream of consciousness or identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, which carries with it one's personal identity.
In some views, this continued existence takes place in a spiritual realm, while in others, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again in a process referred to as reincarnation,
likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this
latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again
continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism, and metaphysics.
Some belief systems, such as those in the Abrahamic tradition, hold that the dead go to a specific place (e.g., paradise or hell) after death, as determined by their god, based on their actions and beliefs during life. In contrast, in systems of reincarnation, such as those of the Indian religions, the nature of the continued existence is determined directly by the actions of the individual in the ended life.
Different metaphysical models
Theistimmortalists
generally believe some afterlife awaits people when they die. Members
of some generally non-theistic religions believe in an afterlife without
reference to a deity.
Religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and various pagan belief systems, believe in the soul's existence in another world, while others, like many forms of Hinduism and Buddhism,
believe in reincarnation. In both cases, these religions hold that
one's status in the afterlife is determined by their conduct during
life.
Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious concept that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each death. This concept is also known as rebirth or transmigration and is part of the Saṃsāra/karma doctrine of cyclic existence. Samsara refers to the process in which souls (jivas)
go through a sequence of human and animal forms. Traditional Hinduism
teaches that each life helps the soul (jivas) learn until the soul
becomes purified to the point of liberation. All major Indian religions, namely Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism have their own interpretations of the idea of reincarnation. The human idea of reincarnation is found in many diverse ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by historic Greek figures, such as Pythagoras and Plato. It is a common belief of various ancient and modern religions, such as Spiritism, theosophy, and Eckankar. It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world, in places such as Australia, East Asia, Siberia, and South America.
The twelve nidanas in Buddhist artworkAztec mask depicting transformation and rebirth
Although the majority of denominations within the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within
these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the
mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Kabbalah, the Cathars, Alawites, the Druze, and the Rosicrucians. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of scholarly research. Unity Church and its founder Charles Fillmore teach reincarnation.
Rosicrucians speak of a life review period occurring immediately after death and before entering the afterlife's planes of existence (before the silver cord is broken), followed by a judgment, more akin to a final review or end report over one's life.
In Hinduism, heaven is termed Svarga loka. There are seven positive regions and seven negative regions to which the soul can go after death. After completing its stay in the respective region, the soul is subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its karma. This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves Moksha or Nirvana.
Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the
tangible world (heaven, hell, or other) is referred to as otherworld.
Hell, in many religious and folkloric traditions, is a place of torment and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell as an eternal destination, while religions with a cyclic history
often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations.
Typically, these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under
the Earth's surface and often include entrances to hell from the land of
the living. Other afterlife destinations include purgatory and limbo.
Traditions that do not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment or reward merely describe hell as an abode of the dead, the grave, a neutral place (for example, Sheol or Hades) located under the surface of Earth.
Judgment of the Dead in DuatThis detail scene based from the Papyrus of ani shows a heart being weighed on the scale of Maat against the feather of truth, by the jackal-headed Anubis. The ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods,
records the result. If the heart is lighter than the feather, a persion
is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If not, they are eaten by the
waiting Ammit. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead.
The afterlife played an important role in Ancient Egyptian religion, and its belief system is one of the earliest known in recorded history. When the body died, parts of its soul known as ka (body double) and the ba (personality) would go to the Kingdom of the Dead. While the soul dwelt in the Fields of Aaru, Osiris
demanded work as restitution for the protection he provided. Statues
were placed in the tombs to serve as substitutes for the deceased.
Arriving at one's reward in afterlife was a demanding ordeal,
requiring a sin-free heart and the ability to recite the spells,
passwords, and formulae of the Book of the Dead. In the Hall of Two Truths, the deceased's heart was weighed against the Shu feather of truth and justice taken from the headdress of the goddess Ma'at. If the heart was lighter than the feather, they could pass on, but if it were heavier they would be devoured by the demon Ammit.
Egyptians also believed that being mummified and put in a sarcophagus
(an ancient Egyptian "coffin" carved with complex symbols and designs,
as well as pictures and hieroglyphs) was the only way to have an
afterlife. What are referred to as the Coffin Texts,
are inscribed on a coffin and serve as a guide for the challenges in
the afterlife. The Coffin texts are more or less a duplication of the Pyramid Texts, which would serve as a guide for Egyptian pharaohs or queens in the afterlife. Only if the corpse had been properly embalmed and entombed in a mastaba, could the dead live again
in the Fields of Yalu and accompany the Sun on its daily ride. Due to
the dangers the afterlife posed, the Book of the Dead was placed in the
tomb with the body as well as food, jewelry, and 'curses'. They also
used the "opening of the mouth".
Ancient Egyptian civilization was based on religion. The belief
in the rebirth after death became the driving force behind funeral
practices; for them, death was a temporary interruption rather than
complete cessation of life. Eternal life could be ensured by means like
piety to the gods, preservation of the physical form through mummification, and the provision of statuary and other funerary equipment. Each human consisted of the physical body, the ka, the ba, and the akh.
The Name and Shadow were also living entities. To enjoy the afterlife,
all these elements had to be sustained and protected from harm.
On 30 March 2010, a spokesman for the Egyptian Culture Ministry
claimed it had unearthed a large red granite door in Luxor with
inscriptions by User, a powerful adviser to the 18th Dynasty Queen Hatshepsut who ruled between 1479 BC and 1458 BC, the longest of any woman. It believes the false door is a 'door to the Afterlife'. According to the archaeologists, the door was reused in a structure in Roman Egypt.
The Greek god Hades is known in Greek mythology as the king of the underworld, a place where souls live after death. The Greek god Hermes,
the messenger of the gods, would take the dead soul of a person to the
underworld (sometimes called Hades or the House of Hades). Hermes would
leave the soul on the banks of the River Styx, the river between life and death.
Charon,
also known as the ferry-man, would take the soul across the river to
Hades, if the soul had gold: upon burial, the family of the dead soul
would put coins under the deceased's tongue. Once crossed, the soul
would be judged by Aeacus, Rhadamanthus and King Minos. The soul would be sent to Elysium, Tartarus, or Asphodel Fields.
The Elysian Fields were for the ones that lived pure lives. It
consisted of green fields, valleys and mountains, everyone there was
peaceful and contented, and the Sun always shone there. Tartarus was for
the people that blasphemed against the gods or were rebellious and
consciously evil.
In Tartarus, the soul would be punished by being burned in lava or
stretched on racks. The Asphodel Fields were for a varied selection of
human souls including those whose sins equaled their goodness, those who
were indecisive in their lives, and those who were not judged.
Some heroes of Greek legend are allowed to visit the underworld.
The Romans had a similar belief system about the afterlife, with Hades
becoming known as Pluto. In the ancient Greek myth about the Labours of Heracles, the hero Heracles had to travel to the underworld to capture Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog, as one of his tasks.
In Book VI of Virgil's Aeneid, the hero, Aeneas,
travels to the underworld to see his father. By the River Styx, he sees
the souls of those not given a proper burial, forced to wait by the
river until someone buries them. While down there, along with the dead,
he is shown the place where the wrongly convicted reside, the fields of sorrow
where those who committed suicide and now regret it reside, including
Aeneas' former lover, the warriors and shades, Tartarus (where the
titans and powerful non-mortal enemies of the Olympians reside) where he
can hear the groans of the imprisoned, the palace of Pluto, and the fields of Elysium where the descendants of the divine and bravest heroes reside. He sees the river of forgetfulness, Lethe,
which the dead must drink to forget their life and begin anew. Lastly,
his father shows him all of the future heroes of Rome who will live if
Aeneas fulfills his destiny in founding the city.
Other eschatological views populate the ancient-Greek worldview. For instance, Plato argued for reincarnation in several dialogues, including the Timaeus.
The Poetic and Prose Eddas,
the oldest sources for information on the Norse concept of the
afterlife, vary in their description of the several realms that are
described as falling under this topic. The most well-known are:
Valhalla: (lit. "Hall of the Slain" i.e. "the Chosen Ones") Half the warriors who die in battle join the god Odin who rules over a majestic hall called Valhalla in Asgard.
Fólkvangr: lit.'Field of the Host' The other half join the goddess Freyja in a great meadow known as Fólkvangr.
Niflhel:
(lit. "The Dark" or "Misty Hel"). Niflhel is believed to be a place of
punishment, where the oathbreakers and other wicked people go.
Hel: lit.'The Covered Hall'. Hel was the daughter of god Loki and her kingdom was located in downward and northward. Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning tells of evil men going to Niflhel via Hel.
Sheol, in the Hebrew Bible, is a place of darkness (Job 10:21–22)
to which all the dead go—both the righteous and the
unrighteous—regardless of the moral choices made in life (Genesis 35:37;
Book of Ezekiel 32; Isaiah 16; Job 30:23), a place of stillness (Psalm 88:13, 94:17; Ecclesiastes 9:10), at the longest possible distance from Heaven (Job 11:8; Amos 9:2; Psalm 139:8).
The inhabitants of Sheol were the "shades" (rephaim),
entities without personality or strength. Under some circumstances,
they were thought to be able to be contacted by the living (as the Witch of Endor contacts the shade of Samuel for Saul), but such practices were forbidden (Deuteronomy 18:10).
Whereas the Hebrew Bible appears to describe Sheol as the permanent place of the dead, in the Second Temple period
(roughly 500 BC – 70 AD), a more diverse set of ideas developed. In
some texts, Sheol is considered to be the home of both the righteous and
the wicked, separated into respective compartments; in others, it was
considered a place of punishment, meant for the wicked dead alone. When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek in ancient Alexandria around 200 BC, the word "Hades" (the Greek underworld) was substituted for Sheol. This is reflected in the New Testament where Hades is both the underworld of the dead and the personification of the evil it represents.
World to Come
The Talmud
offers several thoughts relating to the afterlife. After death, the
soul is brought for judgment. Those who have led pristine lives
immediately enter the Olam Haba or world to come.
Most do not enter the world to come immediately but experience a period
of reflection on their earthly actions and are made aware of what they
have done wrong. Some view this period as "re-schooling", with the soul
gaining wisdom as one's errors are reviewed. Others view this period as
spiritual discomfort caused by past wrongs. At the end of this period,
not longer than one year, the soul then takes its place in the world to
come. Although discomforts are made part of certain Jewish conceptions
of the afterlife, the concept of eternal damnation is not a tenet of the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul
is reserved for a far smaller group of malicious and evil leaders whose
very evil deeds go way beyond norms or who lead large groups of people
to utmost evil. This is also part of Maimonides' 13 principles of faith.
Maimonides describes the Olam Haba
in spiritual terms, relegating the prophesied physical resurrection to
the status of a future miracle unrelated to the afterlife or the Messianic era.
According to Maimonides, an afterlife continues for the soul of every
human being: soul now separated from the body in which it was "housed"
during its earthly existence.
The Zohar describes Gehenna not as a place of punishment for the wicked but as a place of spiritual purification for souls.
Reincarnation in Jewish tradition
Although there is no reference to reincarnation in the Talmud or any prior writings,
according to rabbis such as Avraham Arieh Trugman, reincarnation is
recognized as being part and parcel of Jewish tradition. Trugman
explains that it is through oral tradition that the meanings of the
Torah, its commandments, and stories are known and understood. The
classic work of Jewish mysticism,
the Zohar, is quoted liberally in all Jewish learning; in the Zohar,
the idea of reincarnation is mentioned repeatedly. Trugman states that
in the last five centuries, the concept of reincarnation, which until
then had been a much-hidden tradition within Judaism, was given open
exposure.
Shraga Simmons
commented that within the Bible itself, the idea [of reincarnation] is
intimated in Deut. 25:5–10, Deut. 33:6 and Isaiah 22:14, 65:6.
Yirmiyahu Ullman wrote that reincarnation is an "ancient,
mainstream belief in Judaism". The Zohar makes frequent and lengthy
references to reincarnation. Onkelos,
a righteous convert and authoritative commentator of the same period,
explained the verse, "Let Reuben live and not die ..." (Deuteronomy
33:6) to mean that Reuben should merit the World to Come directly and
not have to die again as a result of being reincarnated. Torah scholar,
commentator and kabbalist, Nachmanides
(Ramban 1195–1270), attributed Job's suffering to reincarnation, as
hinted in Job's saying "God does all these things twice or three times
with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit to... the light of the
living' (Job 33:29–30)."
Reincarnation, called gilgul, became popular in folk belief and is found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews.
Among a few kabbalists, it was posited that some human souls could end
up being reincarnated into non-human bodies. These ideas were found in
several Kabbalistic works from the 13th century and among many mystics
in the late 16th century. Martin Buber's early collection of stories of the Baal Shem Tov's life includes several that refer to people reincarnating in successive lives.
Among well-known (generally non-kabbalist or anti-kabbalist) rabbis who rejected the idea of reincarnation are Saadia Gaon, David Kimhi, Hasdai Crescas, Yedayah Bedershi (early 14th century), Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud, the Rosh and Leon de Modena. Saadia Gaon, in Emunoth ve-Deoth (Hebrew: "beliefs and opinions"), concludes Section VI with a refutation of the doctrine of metempsychosis
(reincarnation). While rebutting reincarnation, Saadia Gaon further
states that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish
beliefs. By no means do all Jews today believe in reincarnation, but
belief in reincarnation is not uncommon among many Jews, including
Orthodox.
Other well-known rabbis who are reincarnationists include Yonassan Gershom, Abraham Isaac Kook, Talmud scholar Adin Steinsaltz, DovBer Pinson, David M. Wexelman, Zalman Schachter,
and many others. Reincarnation is cited by authoritative Biblical
commentators, including Ramban (Nachmanides), Menachem Recanti, and
Rabbenu Bachya.
Among the many volumes of Yitzchak Luria, most of which come down
from the pen of his primary disciple, Chaim Vital, are insights
explaining issues related to reincarnation. His Shaar HaGilgulim ("The Gates of Reincarnation") is a book devoted exclusively to the subject of reincarnation in Judaism.
Rabbi Naftali Silberberg of The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute
notes that "Many ideas that originate in other religions and belief
systems have been popularized in the media and are taken for granted by
unassuming Jews."
When questioned by the Sadducees about the resurrection of the dead
(in a context relating to who one's spouse would be if one had been
married several times in life), Jesus said that marriage would be
irrelevant after the resurrection as the resurrected will be like the angels in Heaven.
Jesus also maintained that the time would come when the dead would hear the voice of the Son of God,
and all who were in the tombs would come out; those who have heard his
"[commandments] and believes in the one who sent [Him]" to the
"resurrection of life", but those who do not to the "resurrection of
condemnation".
The Book of Enoch describes Sheol as divided into four compartments for four types of the dead: the faithful saints who await resurrection in Paradise,
the merely virtuous who await their reward, the wicked who await
punishment, and the wicked who have already been punished and will not
be resurrected on Judgment Day. The Book of Enoch is considered apocryphal by most denominations of Christianity and all of Judaism.
The book of 2 Maccabees clearly describes the dead waiting for future resurrection and judgment, along with prayers and offerings for the deceased to alleviate their sins.
The author of the Gospel of Luke recounts the story of Lazarus and the rich man, which shows people in Hades awaiting the resurrection either in comfort or torment. The author of the Book of Revelation writes about God and the angels versus Satan and demons in an epic battle at the end of times when all souls are judged. There is mention of ghostly bodies of the prophets and the transfiguration.
Hippolytus of Rome pictures the underworld (Hades) as a place where the righteous dead, waiting in the bosom of Abraham for their resurrection, rejoice at their future prospect; the unrighteous are tormented at the sight of the "lake of unquenchable fire" into which they are destined to be cast.
Gregory of Nyssa discusses the long-before-believed possibility of purification of souls after death.
Pope Gregory I repeats the concept, articulated over a century
earlier by Gregory of Nyssa, that the saved suffer purification after
death. In connection with this, he wrote of "purgatorial flames."
The noun "purgatorium" (Latin: place of cleansing)
is used for the first time to describe a state of painful purification
of the saved afterlife. The same word in adjectival form (purgatorius -a -um, cleansing), which appears also in non-religious writing, was already used by Christians such as Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory I to refer to an after-death cleansing.
Theologians and philosophers presented various philosophies and beliefs during the Age of Enlightenment. A notable example is Emanuel Swedenborg
who wrote some 18 theological works which describe in detail the nature
of the afterlife according to his claimed spiritual experiences, the
most famous of which is Heaven and Hell. His report of life there covers a wide range of topics, such as marriage in heaven (where all angels are married), children in heaven (where they are raised by angel parents), time and space
in heaven (there are none), the after-death awakening process in the
World of Spirits (a place halfway between Heaven and Hell and where
people first wake up after death), the allowance of a free will choice
between Heaven or Hell (as opposed to being sent to either one by God),
the eternity of Hell (one could leave but would never want to), and that all angels or devils were once people on earth.
The Catholic Church
The Catholic conception of the afterlife teaches that after the body dies, the soul is judged, the righteous and free of sin enter Heaven. However, those who die in unrepented mortal sin go to hell. In the 1990s, the Catechism of the Catholic Church
defined hell not as punishment imposed on the sinner but rather as the
sinner's self-exclusion from God. Unlike other Christian groups, the
Catholic Church teaches that those who die in a state of grace but still
carry venial sin go to a place called Purgatory, where they undergo purification to enter Heaven.
Despite popular opinion, Limbo, which was elaborated upon by
theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, was never recognized as a dogma of the Catholic Church, yet, at times, it has been a very popular theological theory within the Church. Limbo is a theory that unbaptized but innocent souls, such as those of infants or virtuous individuals who lived before Jesus Christ was born, exist in neither Heaven nor Hell proper. Therefore, these souls neither merit the beatific vision nor are subjected to any punishment because they are not guilty of any personal sin although they have not received baptism, so they still bear original sin. So, they are generally seen as existing in a state of natural, but not supernatural, happiness until the end of time.
The notion of purgatory is associated mainly with the Catholic Church.
In the Catholic Church, all those who die in God's grace and friendship
but are still imperfectly purified are indeed assured of their eternal
salvation. Still, after death, they undergo purification to achieve the
holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven or the final purification
of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the
damned. The tradition of the church, by reference to specific texts of
scripture, speaks of a "cleansing fire", but it is not always called
purgatory.
The
Orthodox Church is intentionally reticent about the afterlife, as it
acknowledges the mystery, especially of things that have not yet
occurred. Beyond the second coming of Jesus, bodily resurrection, and
final judgment, all of which are affirmed in the Nicene Creed
(325 AD), Orthodoxy does not teach much else in any definitive manner.
Unlike Western forms of Christianity, however, Orthodoxy is
traditionally non-dualist and does not teach that there are two separate
literal locations of heaven and hell, but instead acknowledges that
"the 'location' of one's final destiny—heaven or hell—as being
figurative."
Instead, Orthodoxy teaches that the final judgment is one's
uniform encounter with divine love and mercy, but this encounter is
experienced multifariously depending on the extent to which one has been
transformed, partaken of divinity, and is therefore compatible or
incompatible with God. "The monadic, immutable, and ceaseless object of
eschatological encounter is therefore the love and mercy of God, his
glory which infuses the heavenly temple, and it is the subjective human
reaction which engenders multiplicity or any division of experience." For instance, St. Isaac the Syrian observes in his Ascetical Homilies
that "those who are punished in Gehenna, are scourged by the scourge of
love. ... The power of love works in two ways: it torments sinners ...
[as] bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of Heaven
by its delectability."
In this sense, the divine action is always, immutably, and uniformly
love, and if one experiences this love negatively, the experience is
then one of self-condemnation because of free will rather than
condemnation by God.
Orthodoxy therefore uses the description of Jesus' judgment in
John 3:19–21 as their model: "19 And this is the judgment: the light has
come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the
light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked
things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works
should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light,
so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in
God." As a characteristically Orthodox understanding, then, Fr. Thomas Hopko
writes, "[I]t is precisely the presence of God's mercy and love which
cause the torment of the wicked. God does not punish; he forgives... In a
word, God has mercy on all, whether all like it or not. If we like it,
it is paradise; if we do not, it is hell. Every knee will bend before
the Lord. Everything will be subject to Him. God in Christ will indeed
be 'all and in all,' with boundless mercy and unconditional pardon. But
not all will rejoice in God's gift of forgiveness, and that choice will
be judgment, the self-inflicted source of their sorrow and pain."
Moreover, Orthodoxy includes a prevalent tradition of apokatastasis, or the restoration of all things in the end. This has been taught most notably by Origen, but also many other Church fathers and Saints, including Gregory of Nyssa. The Second Council of Constantinople
(553 AD) affirmed the orthodoxy of Gregory of Nyssa while
simultaneously condemning Origen's brand of universalism because it
taught the restoration back to our pre-existent state, which Orthodoxy
does not teach. It is also a teaching of such eminent Orthodox
theologians as Olivier Clément, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, and Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev. Although apokatastasis is not a dogma of the church but instead a theologoumenon,
it is no less a teaching of the Orthodox Church than its rejection. As
Met. Kallistos Ware explains, "It is heretical to say that all must be
saved, for this is to deny free will; but, it is legitimate to hope that
all may be saved," as insisting on torment without end also denies free will.
Joseph F. Smith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
presents an elaborate vision of the afterlife. It is revealed as the
scene of an extensive missionary effort by righteous spirits in paradise
to redeem those still in darkness—a spirit prison or "hell" where the
souls of the dead remain until judgment. It is divided into two parts:
Spirit Prison and Paradise. These are also known as the Spirit World
(also Abraham's Bosom; see Luke 16:19–25). They believe that Christ
visited the spirit prison (1 Peter 3:18–20) and opened the gate for those who repent to cross over to Paradise. This is similar to the Harrowing of Hell doctrine of some mainstream Christian faiths.
Both Spirit Prison and Paradise are temporary according to Latter-day
Saint beliefs. After the resurrection, spirits are assigned
"permanently" to three degrees of heavenly glory, determined by how they
lived – Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial. (1 Cor 15:44–42;
Doctrine and Covenants, Section 76) Sons of Perdition, or those who have known and seen God and deny it, will be sent to the realm of Satan, which is called Outer Darkness, where they shall live in misery and agony forever.
However, according to the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, most persons lack the amount of knowledge to commit
the Eternal sin and are therefore incapable of becoming sons of perdition.
The Celestial Kingdom is believed to be where the righteous can
live eternally with their families. Progression does not end once one
has entered the Celestial Kingdom but extends eternally. According to
"True to the Faith" (a handbook on doctrines in the LDS faith), "The
celestial kingdom is the place prepared for those who have "received the
testimony of Jesus" and been "made perfect through Jesus the mediator
of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the
shedding of his own blood" (Doctrine and Covenants, 76:51, 69). To
inherit this gift, we must receive the ordinances of salvation, keep the
commandments, and repent of our sins."
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses occasionally use terms such as "afterlife" to refer to any hope for the dead, but they understand Ecclesiastes 9:5 to preclude belief in an immortal soul. Individuals judged by God to be wicked, such as in the Great Flood or at Armageddon,
are given no hope of an afterlife. However, they believe that after
Armageddon, there will be a bodily resurrection of "both righteous and
unrighteous" dead (but not the "wicked"). Survivors of Armageddon and
those who are resurrected are then to restore the Earth to a paradise
gradually. After Armageddon, unrepentant sinners are punished with eternal death (non-existence).
Seventh-day Adventists
Creation and Death Equation
The Seventh-day Adventist Church's beliefs regarding the afterlife
differ from those of other Christian churches. Rather than ascend to
Heaven or descend to Hell, Adventists believe the dead "remain
unconscious until the return of Christ in judgement". The concept that
the dead remain dead until resurrection is one of the fundamental
beliefs of Seventh-day Adventism.
Adventists believe that death is an unconscious state (a "sleep"). This
is based on Matt. 9:24; Mark 5:39; John 11:11–14; 1 Cor. 15:51, 52; 1
Thess. 4:13–17; 2 Peter 3:4; Eccl. 9:5, 6, 10. At death, all
consciousness ends. The dead person does not know anything and does not
do anything.
They believe that death is a decreation, or an undoing of what was
created. This is described in Ecclesiastes 12:7: "When a person dies,
the body turns to dust again, and the spirit goes back to God, who gave
it." The spirit of every person who dies—whether saved or
unsaved—returns to God at death. The spirit that returns to God at death
is the breath of life.
Islam
The Quran (the holy book of Islam) emphasizes the insignificance of worldly life (ḥayāt ad-dunyā usually translated as "this world") vis-a-vis the hereafter.
A central doctrine of Islamic faith is the Judgement Day (al-yawm al-ākhir, also known by other names), on which the world will come to an end and God will raise all mankind (as well as the jinn)
from the dead and evaluate their worldly actions. The resurrected will
be judged according to their deeds, records of which are kept on two
books compiled for every human being—one for their good deeds and one
for their evil ones.
Having been judged, the resurrected will cross the bridge of As-Sirāt
over the pit of hell; when the condemned attempt to they will be made
to fall off into hellfire below, while the righteous will have no
trouble and continue on to their eternal abode of heaven.
Afterlife in Islam actually begins before the Last Day. After death, humans will be questioned about their faith by two angels, Munkar and Nakīr. Those who die as martyrs go immediately to paradise. Others who have died and been buried will receive a taste of their eternal reward from the al-qabr or "the grave" (compare the Jewish concept of Sheol). Those bound for hell will suffer "Punishment of the Grave", while those bound for heaven will find the grave "peaceful and blessed".
Islamic scripture—the Quran and hadith (reports of the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad who is believed to have visited heaven and hell during his Isra and Mi'raj journey) – give vivid descriptions of the pleasures of paradise (Jannah) and sufferings of hell (Jahannam). The gardens of Jannah have cool shade,[Quran 36:56–57] adorned couchs and cushions, rich carpets spread out, cups[88:10–16] full of wine,[ 52:23] and every meat[ 52:22] and fruit[ 36:56–57]. Men will be provided with perpetually youthful, beautiful ḥūr, "untouched beforehand by man or jinn",[74][ 55:56] with large, beautiful eyes[ 37:48]. (In recent years some have argued that the term ḥūr refers both to pure men and pure women, and/or that Quranic references to "immortal boys" (56:17, 76:19) or "young men" (52:24) (ghilmān, wildān, and suqāh) who serve wine and meals to the blessed, are the male equivalents of hur.)
In contrast, those in Jahannam will dwell in a land infested with thousands of serpents and scorpions; be "burnt" by "scorching fire" [ 88:1-7] and when "their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for fresh skins" to repeat the process forever [ 4:56]; they will have nothing to drink but "boiling water and running sores"[ 78:21–30]; their cries of remorse and pleading for forgiveness will be in vain[ 26:96–106].
Traditionally Jannah and Jahannam are thought to have different levels. Eight gates and eight levels in Jannah, where the higher the level the better it is and the happier you are. Jahannam possess seven layers. Each layer more horrible than the one above.
The Quran teaches that the purpose of Man's creation is to worship God and God alone. Those it describes as being punished in hell are "most typically" unbelievers, including those who worship others besides Allah[ 10:24], those who deny the divine origin of the Quran [ 74:16–26], or the coming of Judgement Day[ 25:11–14].
Straightforward crimes/sins against other people are also grounds for going to hell: the murder of a believer[ 4:93][ 3:21], usury (Q.2:275)[ 2:275], devouring the property of an orphan [ 4:10], and slander [Quran 104], particularly of a chaste woman[ 24:23].
However, it is a common belief among Muslims that whatever crimes/sins
Muslims may have committed, their punishment in hell will be temporary.
Only unbelievers will reside in hell permanently. Thus Jahannam combines both the concept of an eternal hell (for unbelievers), and what is known in Christian Catholicism as purgatory (for believers eventually destined for heaven after punishment for their sins).
The common belief holds that Jahannam coexists with the temporal world.
Mainstream Islam teaches the continued existence of the soul and a
transformed physical existence after death. The resurrection that will
take place on the Last Day is physical, and is explained by suggesting
that God will re-create the decayed body ("Have they not realized that
Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth, can ˹easily˺ re-create
them?" [ 17:99]).
Ahmadiyya
Ahmadi Muslims believe that the afterlife is not material but of a spiritual nature. According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya,
the soul will give birth to another rarer entity and will resemble the
life on this earth in the sense that this entity will bear a similar
relationship to the soul as the soul bears relationship with the human
existence on earth. On earth, if a person leads a righteous life and
submits to the will of God, his or her tastes become attuned to enjoying
spiritual pleasures as opposed to carnal desires. With this, an
"embryonic soul" begins to take shape. Different tastes are said to be
born which a person given to carnal passions finds no enjoyment. For
example, sacrifice of one's own rights over that of others becomes
enjoyable, or that forgiveness becomes second nature. In such a state a
person finds contentment and peace at heart and at this stage, according
to Ahmadiyya beliefs, it can be said that a soul within the soul has
begun to take shape.
The Sufi Muslim scholar Ibn 'Arabi defined Barzakh
as the intermediate realm or "isthmus". It is between the world of
corporeal bodies and the world of spirits, and is a means of contact
between the two worlds. Without it, there would be no contact between
the two and both would cease to exist. He described it as simple and
luminous, like the world of spirits, but also able to take on many
different forms just like the world of corporeal bodies can. In broader
terms Barzakh, "is anything that separates two things". It has been
called the dream world in which the dreamer is in both life and death.
The teachings of the Baháʼí Faith
state that the nature of the afterlife is beyond the understanding of
those living, just as an unborn fetus cannot understand the nature of
the world outside of the womb. The Baháʼí writings state that the soul is immortal and after death it will continue to progress until it finally attains God's presence.
In Baháʼí belief, souls in the afterlife will continue to retain their
individuality and consciousness and will be able to recognize and
communicate spiritually with other souls whom they have made deep
profound friendships with, such as their spouses.
The Baháʼí scriptures also state there are distinctions between
souls in the afterlife, and that souls will recognize the worth of their
own deeds and understand the consequences of their actions. It is
explained that those souls that have turned toward God will experience
gladness, while those who have lived in error will become aware of the
opportunities they have lost. Also, in the Baháʼí view, souls will be
able to recognize the accomplishments of the souls that have reached the
same level as themselves, but not those that have achieved a rank
higher than them.
Early Indian religions were characterized by the belief in an afterlife, Ancestor worship, and related rites. These concepts started to significantly change after the period of the Upanishads.
Afterlife in Buddhism consists of intermediated spirit realm that's
beyond spatial means, which includes the six realms of existence, the 31
planes of existence, Naraka, Tengoku and the pure land after achieving enlightenment. Ancestor worship,
and links to one's ancestors, was once an important component of early
Buddhism, but became less relevant already before the formation of the
different Buddhist streams. The concepts and importance of afterlife
vary among modern Buddhist teachings.
Buddhists maintain that rebirth takes place without an unchanging self or soul passing from one form to another. The type of rebirth will be conditioned by the moral tone of the person's actions (kamma or karma).
For example, if a person has committed harmful actions by body, speech
and mind based on greed, hate and delusion, would have his/her rebirth
in a lower realm, i.e. an animal, a hungry ghost
or a hell realm, is to be expected. On the other hand, where a person
has performed skillful actions based on generosity, loving-kindness (metta), compassion and wisdom, rebirth in a happy realm, i.e. human or one of the many heavenly realms, can be expected.
However, the mechanism of rebirth with Kamma is not
deterministic. It depends on various levels of kamma. The most important
moment that determines where a person is reborn into is the last
thought moment. At that moment, heavy kamma would ripen if there were
performed. If not, near death kamma would ripen, and if not death kamma,
then habitual kamma would ripen. Finally if none of the above happened,
then residual kamma from previous actions can ripen. According to Theravada
Buddhism, there are 31 realms of existence that one can be reborn into.
According to these, 31 existences comprise 20 existences of supreme
deities (Brahmas); 6 existences of deities (Devas); the human existence
(Manussa); and, lastly, 4 existences of deprivation or unhappiness
(Apaya).
Pure Land Buddhism of Mahayana believes in a special place apart from the 31 planes of existence called Pure Land.
It is believed that each Buddha has their own pure land, created out of
their merits for the sake of sentient beings who recall them mindfully
to be able to be reborn in their pure land and train to become a Buddha
there. Thus the main practice of pure land Buddhism is to chant a
Buddha's name.
In Tibetan Buddhism the Tibetan Book of the Dead
explains the intermediate state of humans between death and
reincarnation. The deceased will find the bright light of wisdom, which
shows a straightforward path to move upward and leave the cycle of
reincarnation. There are various reasons why the deceased do not follow
that light. Some had no briefing about the intermediate state in the
former life. Others only used to follow their basic instincts like
animals. And some have fear, which results from foul deeds in the former
life or from insistent haughtiness. In the intermediate state the
awareness is very flexible, so it is important to be virtuous, adopt a
positive attitude, and avoid negative ideas. Ideas which are rising from
subconsciousness can cause extreme tempers and cowing visions. In this
situation they have to understand, that these manifestations are just
reflections of the inner thoughts. No one can really hurt them, because
they have no more material body. The deceased get help from different Buddhas
who show them the path to the bright light. The ones who do not follow
the path after all will get hints for a better reincarnation. They have
to release the things and beings on which or whom they still hang from
the life before. It is recommended to choose a family where the parents
trust in the Dharma and to reincarnate with the will to care for the welfare of all beings.
There are two major views of an afterlife in Hinduism: mythical and
philosophical. The philosophies of Hinduism consider each individual
consists of three bodies: physical body compose of water and bio-matter (sthūla śarīra), an energetic/psychic/mental/subtle body (sūkṣma-śarīra) and a causal body (kāraṇa śarīra) comprising subliminal stuff i.e. mental impressions etc.
The individual is a stream of consciousness (Ātman),
which flows through all the physical changes of the body and at the
death of the physical body, flows on into another physical body. The two
components that transmigrate are the subtle body and the causal body.
The thought that occupies the mind at the time of death
determines the quality of our rebirth (antim smaraṇa), hence Hinduism
advises to be mindful of one's thoughts and cultivate positive wholesome
thoughts – mantra chanting (japa) is commonly practiced for this.
The mythical includes the philosophical but adds heaven and hell myths.
When one leaves the physical body at death he appears in the court of Yama, the God of Death, for an exit interview. The panel consists of Yama and Chitragupta
– the cosmic accountant, he has a book which consists the history of
the dead persons according to his/her mistakes the Yama decides the
punishment is and Varuna,
the cosmic intelligence officer. He is counseled about his life,
achievements and failures and is shown a mirror in which his entire life
is reflected. Philosophically, these three men are projections of one's
mind. Yama sends him to a heavenly realm (Svarga)
if he has been exceptionally benevolent and beneficent for a period of
rest and recreation. His period is limited in time by the weight of his good deeds. If he has been exceptionally malevolent and caused immense suffering to other beings, then he is sent to a hell realm (Naraka) for his sins. After one has exhausted his karma, he takes birth again to continue his spiritual evolution. However, the belief in rebirth was not a part of early Vedic religions and texts. It was later developed by rishis (sages) who challenged the idea of one's life as being simplistic.
Rebirth can take place as a god (deva),
a human (manuṣya) an animal (tiryak)—but it is generally taught that
the spiritual evolution takes place from lower to higher species. In
certain cases of traumatic death a person can take the form of a preta
or hungry ghost – and remains in an earth-bound state interminably –
until certain ceremonies are done to liberate them. This mythological
part is extensively elaborated in the Puranas, especially in the Garuda Purana.
The Upanishads are the first scriptures in Hinduism which explicitly mention the afterlife. The Bhagavad Gita,
a famous Hindu scripture, says that just as a man discards his old
clothes and wears new ones; similarly the Atman discards the old body
and takes on a new one. In Hinduism, the belief is that the body is
nothing but a shell, the consciousness inside is immutable and
indestructible and takes on different lives in a cycle of birth and
death. The end of this cycle is called mukti (Sanskrit: मुक्ति) and staying finally with the ultimate reality forever is moksha (Sanskrit: मोक्ष) or liberation.
The (diverse) views of modern Hinduism in part differ significantly from the Historical Vedic religion.
Jainism
Jainism
also believes in the afterlife. They believe that the soul takes on a
body form based on previous karmas or actions performed by that soul
through eternity. Jains believe the soul is eternal and that the freedom
from the cycle of reincarnation is the means to attain eternal bliss.
Sikhism
The essential doctrine of Sikhism
is to experience the divine through simple living, meditation, and
contemplation while being alive. Sikhism also has the belief of being in
union with God while living. Accounts of afterlife are considered to be
aimed at the popular prevailing views of the time so as to provide a
referential framework without necessarily establishing a belief in the
afterlife. Thus while it is also acknowledged that living the life of a
householder is above the metaphysical truth, Sikhism can be considered
agnostic to the question of an afterlife. Some scholars also interpret
the mention of reincarnation to be naturalistic akin to the biogeochemical cycles.
But if one analyses the Sikh Scriptures carefully, one may find
that on many occasions the afterlife and the existence of heaven and
hell are mentioned and criticised in Guru Granth Sahib and in Dasam Granth
as non-true man made ideas, so from that it can be concluded that
Sikhism does not believe in the existence of heaven and hell; however,
heaven and hell are created to temporarily reward and punish, and one
will then take birth again until one merges in God. According to the
Sikh scriptures, the human form is the closet form to God if the Guru is
read and understood,
and the best opportunity for a human being to attain salvation and
merge back with God and fully understand Him. Sikh Gurus said that
nothing dies, nothing is born, everything is ever present, and it just
changes forms. Like standing in front of a wardrobe, you pick up a dress
and wear it and then you discard it. You wear another one. Thus, in the
view of Sikhism, your soul is never born and never dies. Your soul is a
part of God and hence lives forever.
In Gnostic teachings humans contain a divine spark within them said to have been trapped in their bodies by the creator of the material universe known as the Demiurge.
It was believed that this spark could be released from the material
world and enter into the heavenly spiritual world beyond it if special
knowledge or gnosis was attained. The Cathars, for example, viewed reincarnation as a trap made by Satan, who tricked angels
from the heavenly realm into entering the physical bodies of humans.
They viewed the purpose of life as a way to escape the constant cycle of
spiritual incarnations by letting go of worldly attachments.
It is common for families to participate in ceremonies for children at a shrine, yet have a Buddhist funeral at the time of death. In old Japanese legends, it is often claimed that the dead go to a place called yomi
(黄泉), a gloomy underground realm with a river separating the living
from the dead mentioned in the legend of Izanami and Izanagi. This yomi very closely resembles the Greek Hades; however, later myths include notions of resurrection and even Elysium-like descriptions such as in the legend of Ōkuninushi and Susanoo. Shinto tends to hold negative views on death and corpses as a source of pollution called kegare. However, death is also viewed as a path towards apotheosis in Shintoism as can be evidenced by how legendary individuals become enshrined after death. Perhaps the most famous would be Emperor Ōjin who was enshrined as Hachiman the God of War after his death.
Spiritualism
The spirit world, according to spiritualism, is the world or realm inhabited by spirits, both good or evil of various spiritual manifestations. This spirit world is regarded as an external environment for spirits. The Spiritualism religious movement in the nineteenth century espoused a belief in an afterlife where individual's awareness persists beyond death.
Taoism
Taoism
views life as an illusion and death as a transformation into
immortality. Taoists believe that immortality of the soul can be
achieved by living a virtuous life in harmony with the Tao. They are taught not to fear death, as it is simply part of nature.
Traditional African religions
Traditional African religions are diverse in their beliefs in an afterlife. Hunter-gatherer societies such as the Hadza have no particular belief in an afterlife, and the death of an individual is a straightforward end to their existence. Ancestor cults are found throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, including cultures like the Yombe, Beng, Yoruba and Ewe,
"[T]he belief that the dead come back into life and are reborn into
their families is given concrete expression in the personal names that
are given to children....What is reincarnated are some of the dominant
characteristics of the ancestor and not his soul. For each soul remains
distinct and each birth represents a new soul." The Yoruba, Dogon
and LoDagoa have eschatological ideas similar to Abrahamic religions,
"but in most African societies, there is a marked absence of such
clear-cut notions of heaven and hell, although there are notions of God
judging the soul after death." In some societies like the Mende, multiple beliefs coexist. The Mende believe that people die twice: once during the process of joining the secret society,
and again during biological death after which they become ancestors.
However, some Mende also believe that after people are created by God
they live ten consecutive lives, each in progressively descending
worlds. One cross-cultural theme is that the ancestors are part of the world of the living, interacting with it regularly.
Unitarian Universalism
Some Unitarian Universalists believe in universalism: that all souls will ultimately be saved and that there are no torments of hell. Unitarian Universalists differ widely in their theology hence there is no exact same stance on the issue.
Although Unitarians historically believed in a literal hell, and
Universalists historically believed that everyone goes to heaven, modern
Unitarian Universalists can be categorized into those believing in a
heaven, reincarnation and oblivion. Most Unitarian Universalists believe
that heaven and hell are symbolic places of consciousness and the faith
is largely focused on the worldly life rather than any possible
afterlife.
Wicca
The Wiccan afterlife is most commonly described as The Summerland.
Here, souls rest, recuperate from life, and reflect on the experiences
they had during their lives. After a period of rest, the souls are
reincarnated, and the memory of their previous lives is erased. Many
Wiccans see The Summerland as a place to reflect on their life actions.
It is not a place of reward, but rather the end of a life journey at an
end point of incarnations.
Zoroastrianism states that the urvan,
the disembodied spirit, lingers on earth for three days before
departing downward to the kingdom of the dead that is ruled by Yima. For the three days that it rests on Earth, righteous souls sit at the head of their body, chanting the Ustavaiti Gathas with joy, while a wicked person sits at the feet of the corpse, wails and recites the Yasna.
Zoroastrianism states that for the righteous souls, a beautiful maiden,
which is the personification of the soul's good thoughts, words and
deeds, appears. For a wicked person, a very old, ugly, naked hag
appears. After three nights, the soul of the wicked is taken by the
demon Vizaresa (Vīzarəša), to Chinvat bridge, and is made to go to darkness (hell).
Yima
is believed to have been the first king on earth to rule, as well as
the first man to die. Inside of Yima's realm, the spirits live a shadowy
existence, and are dependent on their own descendants which are still
living on Earth. Their descendants are to satisfy their hunger and
clothe them, through rituals done on earth.
Rituals which are done on the first three days are vital and
important, as they protect the soul from evil powers and give it
strength to reach the underworld. After three days, the soul crosses Chinvat bridge which is the Final Judgment of the soul. Rashnu and Sraosha are present at the final judgment. The list is expanded sometimes, and include Vahman and Ormazd. Rashnu is the yazata
who holds the scales of justice. If the good deeds of the person
outweigh the bad, the soul is worthy of paradise. If the bad deeds
outweigh the good, the bridge narrows down to the width of a blade-edge,
and a horrid hag pulls the soul in her arms, and takes it down to hell
with her.
Misvan Gatu is the "place of the mixed ones" where the souls lead
a gray existence, lacking both joy and sorrow. A soul goes here if
his/her good deeds and bad deeds are equal, and Rashnu's scale is equal.
The Society for Psychical Research
was founded in 1882 with the express intention of investigating
phenomena relating to Spiritualism and the afterlife. Its members
continue to conduct scientific research on the paranormal to this day.
Some of the earliest attempts to apply scientific methods
to the study of phenomena relating to an afterlife were conducted by
this organization. Its earliest members included noted scientists like William Crookes, and philosophers such as Henry Sidgwick and William James.
A study conducted in 1901 by physician Duncan MacDougall sought to measure the weight lost by a human when the soul "departed the body" upon death.
MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul
was material, tangible and thus measurable. Although MacDougall's
results varied considerably from "21 grams", for some people this figure
has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's mass. The title of the 2003 movie 21 Grams
is a reference to MacDougall's findings. His results have never been
reproduced, and are generally regarded either as meaningless or
considered to have had little if any scientific merit.
Frank Tipler has argued that physics can explain immortality, although such arguments are not falsifiable and, in Karl Popper's views, they do not qualify as science.
After 25 years of parapsychological research Susan Blackmore came to the conclusion that, according to her experiences, there is not enough empirical evidence for many of these cases.
Mediumship
Mediums purportedly act as a vessel for communications from spirits in other realms. Mediumship is not specific to one culture or religion; it can be identified in several belief systems, most notably Spiritualism.
While the practice gained popularity in Europe and North America in the
19th century, evidence of mediumship dates back thousands of years in
Asia. Mediums who claim to have contact with deceased people include Tyler Henry and Pascal Voggenhuber.
Past life regression is a method that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations.
The technique used during past-life regression involves the subject
answering a series of questions while hypnotized to reveal identity and
events of alleged past lives, a method similar to that used in recovered memory therapy
and one that, similarly, often misrepresents memory as a faithful
recording of previous events rather than a constructed set of
recollections.
However, medical experts and practitioners do not agree that the
past life memories gained from past life regressions are truly from past
lives; experts generally regard claims of recovered memories of past
lives as fantasies or delusions or a type of confabulation, because the use of hypnosis and suggestive questions can tend to leave the subject particularly likely to hold distorted or false memories.
Philosophy
Modern philosophy
There is a view based on the philosophical question of personal identity, termed open individualism by Daniel Kolak,
that concludes that individual conscious experience is illusory, and
because consciousness continues after death in all conscious beings, you do not die. This position has allegedly been supported by physicists such as Erwin Schrödinger and Freeman Dyson.
Certain problems arise with the idea of a particular person continuing after death. Peter van Inwagen, in his argument regarding resurrection, notes that the materialist must have some sort of physical continuity. John Hick also raises questions regarding personal identity in his book, Death and Eternal Life,
using an example of a person ceasing to exist in one place while an
exact replica appears in another. If the replica had all the same
experiences, traits, and physical appearances of the first person, we
would all attribute the same identity to the second, according to Hick.
Process philosophy
In the panentheistic model of process philosophy and theology the writers Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne rejected the idea that the universe was made of substance,
instead saying reality is composed of living experiences (occasions of
experience). According to Hartshorne people do not experience subjective
(or personal) immortality in the afterlife, but they do have objective
immortality because their experiences live on forever in God, who
contains all that was. However other process philosophers such as David Ray Griffin have written that people may have subjective experience after death.
Science
Psychological
proposals for the origin of a belief in an afterlife include cognitive
disposition, cultural learning, and as an intuitive religious idea. Fear of death or death anxiety is hypothesized to be a primary motivator for afterlife beliefs. Jamin Halberstadt finds that one function of religion is to alleviate death anxiety via afterlife beliefs. There also is research about afterlife beliefs from an evolutionary perspective, i.e. in the context of group selection.
In 2008, a large-scale study conducted by the University of
Southampton involving 2,060 patients from 15 hospitals in the United
Kingdom, United States and Austria was launched. The AWARE (AWAreness
during REsuscitation) study examined the broad range of mental
experiences in relation to death. In a large study, researchers also
tested the validity of conscious experiences for the first time using
objective markers, to determine whether claims of awareness compatible
with out-of-body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory
events.
The results revealed that 40% of those who survived a cardiac arrest
were aware during the time that they were clinically dead and before
their hearts were restarted. One patient also had a verified out-of-body
experience (over 80% of patients did not survive their cardiac arrest
or were too sick to be interviewed), but his cardiac arrest occurred in a
room without markers. Dr. Parnia in the interview stated, "The evidence
thus far suggests that in the first few minutes after death,
consciousness is not annihilated." The AWARE study drew the following primary conclusions:
In some cases of cardiac arrest, memories of visual awareness
compatible with so called out-of-body experiences may correspond with
actual events.
A number of NDErs may have vivid death experiences, but do not
recall them due to the effects of brain injury or sedative drugs on
memory circuits.
The recalled experience surrounding death merits a genuine investigation without prejudice.
Studies have also been done on the widely reported phenomenon of near death experiences
(NDE). Experiencers commonly report being transported to a different
"realm" or "plane of existence" and they have been shown to display a
lasting positive aftereffect on most experiencers.
