Stations of the Cross for Children

One of the most popular hits on my blog is this little pamphlet for the Stations of the Cross for Children (and second are the Rosary Coloring Pages). My family used this version of the Stations of the Cross, and my mother remembers using it in her childhood. It’s so beautiful and moving. It’s not watered-down language for children, but aimed directly at the child in all of us. My sons want to pray them every day.
Our family always use a display flip easel with vertical pages with the Stations of the Cross prints that can purchased from CHC or Leaflet Missal Company. During our family prayers the children take turns turning the pages. They enjoy having a visual aid that is bigger than the little booklets. These images happen to be the same images in the original booklet I owned. The following files are done in color, but our version had black and white pictures.

After 3 years, I’ve revamped, reformatted, and providing a few new options for the booklets. I found some wonderful Stations images in Black and white, so for many of the files below, I’ve provided the B&W option.

Stations of the Cross cards to carry:
The newest way to print these stations is to print them double-sided on cardstock and hole-punch on the top and place on a ring. These are similar to the cards we created in My Little Advent, using 1 inch book or binder rings or larger. My children love to hole-punch, and then use a lanyard or pipe cleaners to create their own portable Stations. These are larger than the Advent cards; there are 4 per page, about 4″x5″ each.
Updated 2014: I have reformatted these so that the two sides line up exactly. But for little ones who are still learning to cut, I advise you to cut out from the text side so the text won’t be cut-off, and hole punch all through the same side, so the cards will line up evenly.
Color Cards: Stations of the Cross Cards color
Stations of the Cross Cards B&W
Print these double-sided on cardstock.
Updated 2014: I have reformatted these so that the two sides line up exactly. But for little ones who are still learning to cut, I advise you to cut out from the text side so the text won’t be cut-off, and hole punch all through the same side, so the cards will line up evenly.
Stations small booklets:

Double-sided, cut to size: This version is paginated for double-sided printing to make into a booklet. Cut to size after folding and stapling.
Color: Stations color 2-sided paginated pamphlet
Black and White: Stations B&W 2-sided paginated pamphlet
One-Sided, Landscape, Small Size:
This version is landscape form with the one station and image on each page. Print one-sided, either fold into booklet, or staple together. This will need to be cut down to size, also.
Color: Stations booklet full page one station color
Black & White: 4-stations booklet full page one station b&w

Stations, Full Page and Pamphlets:

Full Size Pamphlet, Paginated, Print Double-Sided
This version is paginated to print double-sided, but it’s not necessary to cut down the pages.
Color: Stations 2-sided paginated color full page
Black and White: Stations 2-sided paginated B&W full page
Stations to Staple, Landscape, for easy use:
Another version is one that is Landscape format, 8 1/2 x 11 size, with 2 Stations per page. This we’re using for a simple, group handout.
Color: Stations 2 per page Color
Black & White: Stations 2 per page B&W
Stations to Staple, Landscape, 1 per page, E-Book version:This version is to be printed in Landscape format, with only 1 Station per page. This could be used as an e-book version or display on a tablet to read together.
Color: Stations, one station per page, color
Black & White: Station, one station per page, b&w

Stations of the Cross Coloring Pages
My oldest son didn’t enjoy coloring, but now my younger one wants to color all the time. I have created the B&W images into coloring pages, but be aware that the black background is still there (one of these days I’ll have time to remove it) and so these will take up much ink in printing.
Stations of the Cross coloring pages
A better option is the beautiful original Stations of the Cross coloring pages from St. John the Baptist Church in Front Royal, Virginia.
Some other free images of the Stations:
Victorian images of B/W Stations of the Cross
Further Stations Aids
Beside our flip easel, we also have a Stations box inspired by Joe and Irene Starrs and and also this 4Real thread for details. It’s all so very tangible, and gives a variety for inspiration during prayer.
Stations of the Cross Box:
Station 1 Jesus is Condemned to Death — a string to represent the rope used to tie Jesus’ hands
Station 2 Jesus Carries His Cross — a small cross
Station 3 Jesus Falls the First Time — three band-aids in the box to represent Jesus’ three falls. He explained it to my toddler (almost 2 at the time) as band-aids for Jesus, who fell down and “hurt the knee”.
Station 4 Jesus Meets His Mother Mary — a plastic rosary to represent the Blessed Mother
Station 5 Simon Helps Jesus — small wooden heart painted red to represent Simon’s generous help in carrying the cross.
Station 6 Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus — Joe took a rectangular piece of white fabric (cut from one of his old undershirts, actually) and drew the face of Jesus on it
Station 7 Jesus Falls the Second Time — bandaid
Station 8 Jesus Comforts the Women of Jerusalem — a tissue for their tears
Station 9 Jesus Falls the Third Time — bandaid
Station 10 Jesus is Stripped of His Garments — a small square of purple felt to represent His purple cloak
Station 11 Jesus is Nailed to the Cross — a large nail
Station 12 Jesus Dies on the Cross — a crucifix
Station 13 Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross — a laminated holy card depicting Michelangelo’s Pieta
Station 14 Jesus is Buried — a stone to represent the stone rolled in front of the tomb

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Stations of the Cross

newadvent.org- Way of the Cross

catechistsjourney.loyolapress.com- Stations of the Cross Resources

catholic.org- Opening Prayer and Stations of the Cross with pictures. Click on First Station of the Cross.

cin.org- Stations of the Cross

ewtn.com- Stations of the Cross- opening prayer, and with pictures

hollyemotions.homestead.com- Stations of the Cross with pictures.

creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry- Stations of the Cross with audio. Friendly printer versions available.

christusrex.org- Coming to this site will lead you to experience the Way of the Cross in pictures where the “First Way of the Cross” was threaded by the Lord.

beliefnet.com- To experience the audiovisual feature "Bitter Journey: The Way of the Cross". A multimedia feature tracing Jesus' passion and death.

Activities:

4catholiceducators.com- Here are a few suggestions for group activities with your students during the lenten period.

catholicicing.com- Stations of the Cross Montessori Activity for Catholic Kids

threesidedwheel.wordpress.com- Keeping A Holy Lent: Stations of the Cross for Children

catholicicing.com- Station of the Cross Eggs
Each egg has inside of it has one heart, and one symbol for that station. You can use these as an activity for the children to match up the symbols, or you can just use them to go through the Stations of the Cross one at a time.

familyfeastandferia.wordpress.com- Stations of the Cross for Children
Color, black and white printables. Full page, pamphlet, landscape, and booklet size available.

ukbookworm.blogspot.com- Stations of the Cross: Three Part Cards
Set of Montessori style three part cards for the Stations of the Cross

loylapress.com- Stations of the Cross for Children
Download the PDF of the Stations of the Cross for Children to help you pray during Lent. Adapted for children by Catherine Odell

saintanneshelper.com- Printable Stations of the Cross

catholicinspired.com- Stations of the Cross ~ Lift-Flap Notebook Page and Mini Booklet

Coloring:

sjtb.org- Stations of the Cross Coloring Pages

supercoloring.com- Click the Stations Of The Cross coloring page to view printable version.

wheatonbible.org- Stations of the Cross Coloring Pages

familyfeastandferia.wordpress.com- Stations of the Cross for Children
Black and white printables. Full page, pamphlet, landscape, and booklet size available.

fcpeace.com- Walk With Jesus on the Way of the Cross

domestic-church.com- Stations of the Cross Children’s Liturgy
PDF version of Stations of the Cross for a Children's Liturgy prepared by Andy Figueroa of Hope Anglican Fellowship at Christ the King Reformed Episcopal Church. A moving devotion for a Good Friday service.

Crafts:

domestic-church.com- Station Shrines
Make these shrines and put your Stations of the Cross pictures in them.

thetuckerbunch.typepad.com- 14 Stations of the Cross craft

familiacatolica-org.blogspot.com- Stations of the Cross made with wooden sticks, craft for older children. Pictures of the Stations of the Cross to put inside each station provided.
*Blog is in Spanish. Go to Google Translate and cut and paste blog url to change to English.

enterundermyroof.blogspot.com- Stations of the Cross Magnets

paperdali.blogspot.com- Portable Stations of the Cross

cherishedheartsathome.blogspot.com- Stations of the Cross Box

ponderedinmyheart.typepad.com- Stations of the Cross Grottos

thegreatestfigtsofgod.blogspot.com- Stations of the Cross Box

threesidedwheel.wordpress.com- Stations of the Cross Montessori Box

familiacatolica-org.blogspot.com- Stations of the Cross with Ribbons
*Blog is in Spanish. Go to Google Translate and cut and paste blog url to change to English.

lbrummer68739.net- My Way of the Cross Circle

Games:

edubakery.com- Stations of the Cross Bingo
Multiple different bingo cards will be created when you print them out.

The following games are free, however they are only to be used for classroom and personal use. They may not be published on any websites or other electronic media, or distributed in newsletters, bulletins, or any other form or sold for profit. Reproduction or retransmission of any materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, is not permitted.

Stations of the Cross Bingo- Students play regular bingo, but they answer questions about the Stations of the Cross. The teacher asks one student at a time a question about the Stations of the Cross. The student answers the question and the class looks for the word on their bingo card. The first student who gets three in a row (up, down, across, or diagonal) on their bingo card first, wins.

20 Stations of the Cross Bingo Cards- Use these or make your own. (These cards go with the questions above.)

Stations of the Cross File Folder Game- The objective of the game is to go through all 14 Stations of the Cross by answering questions about each station.

Directions- Print out Directions, cut it out, and glue on front of file folder.

Questions- Use these or make your own.

Game Board- Print out Game Board, trim, and glue on the inside of the file folder. Make sure the directions are on the front of the file folder. Laminate or cover file folder with clear contact paper to make it last.

Spinner- Make Spinner according to directions.

Puzzles:

wordsearchfun.com- Stations of the Cross (word search)

edubakery.com- Stations of the Cross (word scramble)

domestic-church.com- Find the Lenten Message (Use the word list at the bottom of the page to fill in the blanks in the sentences. Use the number under some of the letters to find the Lenten message) & Stations of the Cross (crossword).

Worksheets:

sacredhearthouston.org- Stations of the Cross
Make a picture strip. Cut on the solid lines. Paste the two pieces together. Read your Stations of the Cross. (Grade 3)

sadlierreligion.com- Following the stations of the cross is a devotion that often takes place during the season of Lent. Complete the activity below by writing the name, in order, of each station. Then choose a station to illustrate below. Include a caption for the illustration. (Grade 6) Answers

http://catholicblogger1.blogspot.ca/2009/02/stations-of-cross.html

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History of Lent

FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS

What are the origins of Lent? Did the Church always have this time before Easter?

Lent is a special time of prayer, penance, sacrifice and good works in preparation of the celebration of Easter. In the desire to renew the liturgical practices of the Church, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican Council II stated, "The two elements which are especially characteristic of Lent -- the recalling of baptism or the preparation for it, and penance -- should be given greater emphasis in the liturgy and in liturgical catechesis. It is by means of them that the Church prepares the faithful for the celebration of Easter, while they hear God's word more frequently and devote more time to prayer" (no. 109). The word Lent itself is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words lencten, meaning "Spring," and lenctentid, which literally means not only "Springtide" but also was the word for "March," the month in which the majority of Lent falls.
Since the earliest times of the Church, there is evidence of some kind of Lenten preparation for Easter. For instance, St. Irenaeus (d. 203) wrote to Pope St. Victor I, commenting on the celebration of Easter and the differences between practices in the East and the West: "The dispute is not only about the day, but also about the actual character of the fast. Some think that they ought to fast for one day, some for two, others for still more; some make their 'day' last 40 hours on end. Such variation in the observance did not originate in our own day, but very much earlier, in the time of our forefathers" (Eusebius, History of the Church, V, 24). When Rufinus translated this passage from Greek into Latin, the punctuation made between "40" and "hours" made the meaning to appear to be "40 days, twenty-four hours a day." The importance of the passage, nevertheless, remains that since the time of "our forefathers" -- always an expression for the apostles -- a 40-day period of Lenten preparation existed. However, the actual practices and duration of Lent were still not homogenous throughout the Church.
Lent becomes more regularized after the legalization of Christianity in A.D. 313. The Council of Nicea (325), in its disciplinary canons, noted that two provincial synods should be held each year, "one before the 40 days of Lent." St. Athanasius (d. 373) in this "Festal Letters" implored his congregation to make a 40-day fast prior to the more intense fasting of Holy Week. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) in his Catechectical Lectures, which are the paradigm for our current RCIA programs, had 18 pre-baptismal instructions given to the catechumens during Lent. St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) in his series of "Festal Letters" also noted the practices and duration of Lent, emphasizing the 40-day period of fasting. Finally, Pope St. Leo (d. 461) preached that the faithful must "fulfill with their fasts the Apostolic institution of the 40 days," again noting the apostolic origins of Lent. One can safely conclude that by the end of the fourth century, the 40-day period of Easter preparation known as Lent existed, and that prayer and fasting constituted its primary spiritual exercises.
Of course, the number "40" has always had special spiritual significance regarding preparation. On Mount Sinai, preparing to receive the Ten Commandments, "Moses stayed there with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights, without eating any food or drinking any water" (Ex 34:28). Elijah walked "40 days and 40 nights" to the mountain of the Lord, Mount Horeb (another name for Sinai) (I Kgs 19:8). Most importantly, Jesus fasted and prayed for "40 days and 40 nights" in the desert before He began His public ministry (Mt 4:2).
Once the 40 days of Lent were established, the next development concerned how much fasting was to be done. In Jerusalem, for instance, people fasted for 40 days, Monday through Friday, but not on Saturday or Sunday, thereby making Lent last for eight weeks. In Rome and in the West, people fasted for six weeks, Monday through Saturday, thereby making Lent last for six weeks. Eventually, the practice prevailed of fasting for six days a week over the course of six weeks, and Ash Wednesday was instituted to bring the number of fast days before Easter to 40. The rules of fasting varied. First, some areas of the Church abstained from all forms of meat and animal products, while others made exceptions for food like fish. For example, Pope St. Gregory (d. 604), writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury, issued the following rule: "We abstain from flesh, meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese and eggs."

Nevertheless, I was always taught, "If you gave something up for the Lord, tough it out. Don't act like a Pharisee looking for a loophole."

Second, the general rule was for a person to have one meal a day, in the evening or at 3 p.m.
These Lenten fasting rules also evolved. Eventually, a smaller repast was allowed during the day to keep up one's strength from manual labor. Eating fish was allowed, and later eating meat was also allowed through the week except on Ash Wednesday and Friday. Dispensations were given for eating dairy products if a pious work was performed, and eventually this rule was relaxed totally. (However, the abstinence from even dairy products led to the practice of blessing Easter eggs and eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday.)
Over the years, modifications have been made to the Lenten observances, making our practices not only simple but also easy. Ash Wednesday still marks the beginning of Lent, which lasts for 40 days, not including Sundays. The present fasting and abstinence laws are very simple: On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the faithful fast (having only one full meal a day and smaller snacks to keep up one's strength) and abstain from meat; on the other Fridays of Lent, the faithful abstain from meat. People are still encouraged "to give up something" for Lent as a sacrifice. (An interesting note is that technically on Sundays and solemnities like St. Joseph's Day (March 19) and the Annunciation (March 25), one is exempt and can partake of whatever has been offered up for Lent.
Nevertheless, I was always taught, "If you gave something up for the Lord, tough it out. Don't act like a Pharisee looking for a loophole." Moreover, an emphasis must be placed on performing spiritual works, like attending the Stations of the Cross, attending Mass, making a weekly holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, taking time for personal prayer and spiritual reading and most especially making a good confession and receiving sacramental absolution. Although the practices may have evolved over the centuries, the focus remains the same: to repent of sin, to renew our faith and to prepare to celebrate joyfully the mysteries of our salvation.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/history-of-lent.html

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Understanding Islam and Muslims

By: Islamic Texts Society Source: Islamic Affairs Department-Embassy of Saudi Arabia

Posted on June 1, 2005August 19, 2015

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Category: Articles, Faith | Topic: iman (faith and belief), islam, muslims | Values: kindness, knowledge | Views: 7,045,767

Contents

What is Islam ?

Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world’s population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith.

A Moroccan in prayer

Muslims praying in Jerusalem outside The Dome of the Rock

Who are the Muslims?

One billion people from a vast range of races, nationalities and cultures across the globe – from the southern Philippines to Nigeria – are united by their common Islamic faith. About 18% live in the Arab world; the world’s largest Muslim community is in Indonesia; substantial parts of Asia and most of Africa are Muslim, while significant minorities are to be found in the Soviet Union, China, North and South America, and Europe.

What do Muslims believe?

Muslims believe in One, Unique, Incomparable God; in the Angels created by Him; in the prophets through whom His revelations were brought to mankind; in the Day of Judgement and individual accountability for actions; in God’s complete authority over human destiny and in life after death. Muslims believe in a chain of prophets starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus, peace be upon them. But God’s final message to man, a reconfirmation of the eternal message and a summing-up of all that has gone before was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through Gabriel.

How does someone become a Muslim?

Simply by saying ‘there is no god apart from God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.’ By this declaration the believer announces his or her faith in all God’s messengers, and the scriptures they brought.

What does Islam mean?

The Arabic word ‘Islam’ simply means ‘submission’, and derives from a word meaning ‘peace’. In a religious context it means complete submission to the will of God. ‘Mohammedanism’ is thus a misnomer because it suggests that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. ‘Allah’ is the Arabic name for God, which is used by Arab Muslims and Christians alike.

Why does Islam often seem strange?

Islam may seem exotic or even extreme in the modern world. Perhaps this is because religion does not dominate everyday life in the West today, whereas Muslims have religion always uppermost in their minds, and make no division between secular and sacred. They believe that the Divine Law, the Shari’a, should be taken very seriously, which is why issues related to religion are still so important.

Do Islam and Christianity have different origins?

No. Together with Judaism, they go back to the prophet and patriarch Abraham, and their three prophets are directly descended from his sons, Muhammad from the elder son Ishmael, and Moses and Jesus from the younger son Isaac. Abraham established the settlement which today is the city of Makkah, and built the Ka’ba towards which all Muslims turn when they pray.

What is the Ka’ba?

The Ka`ba is the place of worship which God commanded Abraham and Ishmael to build over four thousand years ago. The building was constructed of stone on what many believe was the original site of a sanctuary established by Adam. God commanded Abraham to summon all mankind to visit this place, and when pilgrims go there today they say ‘At Thy service, O Lord’, in response to Abraham’s summons.

Who is Muhammad?

Muhammad, was born in Makkah in the year 570, at a time when Christianity was not yet fully established in Europe. Since his father died before his birth, and his mother shortly afterwards, he was raised by his uncle from the respected tribe of Quraysh. As he grew up, he became known for his truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, so that he was sought after for his ability to arbitrate in disputes. The historians describe him as calm and meditative.
Muhammad was of a deeply religious nature, and had long detested the decadence of his society. It became his habit to meditate from time to time in the Cave of Hira near the summit of Jabal al-Nur, the ‘Mountain of Light’ near Makkah.

How did Muhammad become a prophet and a messenger of God?

At the age of 40, while engaged in a meditative retreat, Muhammad received his first revelation from God through the Angel Gabriel. This revelation, which continued for twenty-three years, is known as the Quran.

The Mountain of Light where Gabriel came to Prophet Muhammad.

As soon as he began to recite the words he heard from Gabriel, and to preach the truth which God had revealed to him, he and his small group of followers suffered bitter persecution, which grew so fierce that in the year 622 God gave them the command to emigrate. This event, the Hijra, ‘migration’, in which they left Makkah for the city of Madinah some 260 miles to the north, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.
After several years, the Prophet and his followers were able to return to Makkah, where they forgave their enemies and established Islam definitively. Before the Prophet died at the age of 63, the greater part of Arabia was Muslim, and within a century of his death Islam had spread to Spain in the West and as far East as China.

The Prophet’s Mosque, Madinah, the dome indicates the place where his house stood and where he is buried.

How did the spread of Islam affect the world?

Among the reasons for the rapid and peaceful spread of Islam was the simplicity of its doctrine – Islam calls for faith in only One God worthy of worship. It also repeatedly instructs man to use his powers of intelligence and observation.

Hui Shen Mosque, China, Built in the 7th Century. Taj Mahal, India.

Within a few years, great civilizations and universities were flourishing, for according to the Prophet, ‘seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim man and woman’. The synthesis of Eastern and Western ideas and of new thought with old, brought about great advances in medicine, mathematics, physics, astronomy, geography, architecture, art, literature, and history. Many crucial systems such as algebra, the Arabic numerals, and also the concept of the zero (vital to the advancement of mathematics), were transmitted to medieval Europe from Islam. Sophisticated instruments which were to make possible the European voyages of discovery were developed, including the astrolabe, the quadrant and good navigational maps.

What is the Qur’an?

The Quran is a record of the exact words revealed by God through the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. It was memorized by Muhammad and then dictated to his Companions, and written down by scribes, who cross-checked it during his lifetime. Not one word of its 114 chapters, Suras, has been changed over the centuries, so that the Quran is in every detail the unique and miraculous text which was revealed to Muhammad fourteen centuries ago.

This opening chapter of The Quran, the Fatiha, is central in Islamic prayer. It contains the essence of The Quran and is recited during every prayer.

What is the Qur’an about?

The Quran, the last revealed Word of God, is the prime source of every Muslim’s faith and practice. It deals with all the subjects which concern us as human beings: wisdom, doctrine, worship, and law, but its basic theme is the relationship between God and His creatures. At the same time it provides guidelines for a just society, proper human conduct and an equitable economic system.

Are there any other sacred sources?

Yes, the sunna, the practice and example of the Prophet, is the second authority for Muslims. A hadith is a reliably transmitted report of what the Prophet said, did, or approved. Belief in the sunna is part of the Islamic faith.

Examples of the Prophet’s sayings

The Prophet said:
‘God has no mercy on one who has no mercy for others.’
‘None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.’
‘He who eats his fill while his neighbor goes without food is not a believer. ‘
‘The truthful and trusty businessman is associated with the prophets the saints, and the martyrs.’
‘Powerful is not he who knocks the other down, indeed powerful is he who controls himself in a fit of anger. ‘
‘God does not judge according to your bodies and appearances but He scans your hearts and looks into your deeds.’
‘A man walking along a path felt very thirsty. Reaching a well he descended into it, drank his fill and came up. Then he saw a dog with its tongue hanging out, trying to lick up mud to quench its thirst. The man saw that the dog was feeling the same thirst as he had felt so he went down into the well again and filled his shoe with water and gave the dog a drink. God forgave his sins for this action.’ The Prophet was asked: ‘Messenger of God, are we rewarded for kindness towards animals?’ He said, ‘There is a reward for kindness to every living thing.’
From the hadith collections of Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi and Bayhaqi

What are the Five Pillars of Islam ?

They are the framework of the Muslim life: faith, prayer, concern for the needy, self-purification, and the pilgrimage to Makkah for those who are able.

FAITH

There is no god worthy of worship except God and Muhammad is His messenger. This declaration of faith is called the Shahada, a simple formula which all the faithful pronounce. In Arabic, the first part is la ilaha illa Llah – ‘there is no god except God’; ilaha (god) can refer to anything which we may be tempted to put in place of God – wealth, power, and the like. Then comes illa Llah: ‘except God’, the source of all Creation. The second part of the Shahada is Muhammadun rasulu’Llah: ‘Muhammad is the messenger of God.’ A message of guidance has come through a man like ourselves.

The Shahada inscribed over entrance to Ottoman Topkapi Palace (the museum contains a mantle worn by the Prophet, among other treasures), Istanbul.

PRAYER

Salat is the name for the obligatory prayers which are performed five times a day, and are a direct link between the worshipper and God. There is no hierarchical authority in Islam, and no priests, so the prayers are led by a learned person who knows the Quran, chosen by the congregation. These five prayers contain verses from the Quran, and are said in Arabic, the language of the Revelation, but personal supplication can be offered in one’s own language.
Prayers are said at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and nightfall, and thus determine the rhythm of the entire day. Although it is preferable to worship together in a mosque, a Muslim may pray almost anywhere, such as in fields, offices, factories and universities. Visitors to the Muslim world are struck by the centrality of prayers in daily life.
A translation of the Call to Prayer is:
God is most great. God is most great.
God is most great. God is most great.
I testify that there is no god except God.
I testify that there is no god except God.
I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
Come to prayer! Come to prayer!
Come to success (in this life and the Hereafter)!
Come to success!
God is most great. God is most great.
There is no god except God.

Courtyard of Great Mosque, Herat, Afghanistan.

THE ZAKAT

One of the most important principles of Islam is that all things belong to God, and that wealth is therefore held by human beings in trust. The word zakat means both ‘purification’ and ‘growth’. Our possessions are purified by setting aside a proportion for those in need, and, like the pruning of plants, this cutting back balances and encourages new growth.
Each Muslim calculates his or her own zakat individually. For most purposes this involves the payment each year of two and a half percent of one’s capital.

Zakat keeps the money flowing within a society, Cairo.

A pious person may also give as much as he or she pleases as sadaqa, and does so preferably in secret. Although this word can be translated as ‘voluntary charity’ it has a wider meaning. The Prophet said ‘even meeting your brother with a cheerful face is charity.’
The Prophet said: ‘Charity is a necessity for every Muslim. ‘ He was asked: ‘What if a person has nothing?’ The Prophet replied: ‘He should work with his own hands for his benefit and then give something out of such earnings in charity.’ The Companions asked: ‘What if he is not able to work?’ The Prophet said: ‘He should help poor and needy persons.’ The Companions further asked ‘What if he cannot do even that?’ The Prophet said ‘He should urge others to do good.’ The Companions said ‘What if he lacks that also?’ The Prophet said ‘He should check himself from doing evil. That is also charity.’

THE FAST

Every year in the month of Ramadan, all Muslims fast from first light until sundown, abstaining from food, drink, and sexual relations. Those who are sick, elderly, or on a journey, and women who are pregnant or nursing are permitted to break the fast and make up an equal number of days later in the year. If they are physically unable to do this, they must feed a needy person for every day missed. Children begin to fast (and to observe the prayer) from puberty, although many start earlier.
Although the fast is most beneficial to the health, it is regarded principally as a method of self purification. By cutting oneself off from worldly comforts, even for a short time, a fasting person gains true sympathy with those who go hungry as well as growth in one’s spiritual life.

PILGRIMAGE (Hajj)

The annual pilgrimage to Makkah – the Hajj – is an obligation only for those who are physically and financially able to perform it. Nevertheless, about two million people go to Makkah each year from every corner of the globe providing a unique opportunity for those of different nations to meet one another. Although Makkah is always filled with visitors, the annual Hajj begins in the twelfth month of the Islamic year (which is lunar, not solar, so that Hajj and Ramadan fall sometimes in summer, sometimes in winter). Pilgrims wear special clothes: simple garments which strip away distinctions of class and culture, so that all stand equal before God.

Pilgrims praying at the mosque in Makkah.

The rites of the Hajj, which are of Abrahamic origin, include circling the Ka’ba seven times, and going seven times between the mountains of Safa and Marwa as did Hagar during her search for water. Then the pilgrims stand together on the wide plain of Arafa and join in prayers for God’s forgiveness, in what is often thought of as a preview of the Last Judgment.
In previous centuries the Hajj was an arduous undertaking. Today, however, Saudi Arabia provides millions of people with water, modern transport, and the most up-to-date health facilities.

Pilgrim tents during Hajj.

The close of the Hajj is marked by a festival, the Eid al-Adha, which is celebrated with prayers and the exchange of gifts in Muslim communities everywhere. This, and the Eid al-Fitr, a feast-day commemorating the end of Ramadan, are the main festivals of the Muslim calendar.

Does Islam tolerate other beliefs?

The Quran says: God forbids you not, with regards to those who fight you not for [your] faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them; for God loveth those who are just. (Quran, 60-8)
It is one function of Islamic law to protect the privileged status of minorities, and this is why non-Muslim places of worship have flourished all over the Islamic world. History provides many examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faiths: when the caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in the year 634, Islam granted freedom of worship to all religious communities in the city.
Islamic law also permits non-Muslim minorities to set up their own courts, which implement family laws drawn up by the minorities themselves.
The Patriarch invited him to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but he preferred to pray outside its gates, saying that if he accepted, later generations of Muslims might use his action as an excuse to turn it into a mosque. Above is the mosque built on the spot where Omar did pray.

What do Muslims think about Jesus?

Muslims respect and revere Jesus, and await his Second Coming. They consider him one of the greatest of God’s messengers to mankind. A Muslim never refers to him simply as ‘Jesus’, but always adds the phrase ‘upon him be peace’. The Quran confirms his virgin birth (a chapter of the Quran is entitled ‘Mary’), and Mary is considered the purest woman in all creation. The Quran describes the Annunciation as follows:
‘Behold!’ the Angel said, ‘God has chosen you, and purified you, and chosen you above the women of all nations. O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name shall be the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, honored in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near to God. He shall speak to the people from his cradle and in maturity, and shall be of the righteous.’
She said: ‘O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?’ He said: ‘Even so; God creates what He will. When He decrees a thing, He says to it, “Be!” and it is.’ (Quran, 3:42-7)
Jesus was born miraculously through the same power which had brought Adam into being without a father:
Truly, the likeness of Jesus with God is as the likeness of Adam. He created him of dust, and then said to him, ‘Be!’ and he was. (Quran, 3:59)
During his prophetic mission Jesus performed many miracles. The Quran tells us that he said:
I have come to you with a sign from your Lord: I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it and it becomes a bird by God’s leave. And I heal the blind, and the lepers and I raise the dead by God’s leave. (Quran, 3:49)
Neither Muhammad nor Jesus came to change the basic doctrine of the belief in One God, brought by earlier prophets, but to confirm and renew it. In the Quran Jesus is reported as saying that he came:
To attest the law which was before me. And to make lawful to you part of what was forbidden you; I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, so fear God and obey Me. (Quran, 3:5O)
The Prophet Muhammad said:
Whoever believes there is no god but God, alone without partner, that Muhammad is His messenger, that Jesus is the servant and messenger of God, His word breathed into Mary and a spirit emanating from Him, and that Paradise and Hell are true, shall be received by God into Heaven. (Hadith from Bukhari)

Why is the family so important to Muslims?

The family is the foundation of Islamic society. The peace and security offered by a stable family unit is greatly valued, and seen as essential for the spiritual growth of its members. A harmonious social order is created by the existence of extended families; children are treasured, and rarely leave home until the time they marry.

What about Muslim women?

Islam sees a woman, whether single or married, as an individual in her own right, with the right to own and dispose of her property and earnings. A marriage dowry is given by the groom to the bride for her own personal use, and she keeps her own family name rather than taking her husband’s.
Both men and women are expected to dress in a way which is modest and dignified; the traditions of female dress found in some Muslim countries are often the expression of local customs.
The Messenger of God said:
‘The most perfect in faith amongst believers is he who is best in manner and kindest to his wife.’

Can a Muslim have more than one wife?

The religion of Islam was revealed for all societies and all times and so accommodates widely differing social requirements. Circumstances may warrant the taking of another wife but the right is granted, according to the Quran, only on condition that the husband is scrupulously fair.

Is Islamic marriage like Christian marriage?

A Muslim marriage is not a ‘sacrament’, but a simple, legal agreement in which either partner is free to include conditions. Marriage customs thus vary widely from country to country. As a result, divorce is not common, although it is not forbidden as a last resort. According to Islam, no Muslim girl can be forced to marry against her will: her parents will simply suggest young men they think may be suitable.

How do Muslims treat the elderly?

In the Islamic world there are no old people’s homes. The strain of caring for one’s parents in this most difficult time of their lives is considered an honor and blessing, and an opportunity for great spiritual growth. God asks that we not only pray for our parents, but act with limitless compassion, remembering that when we were helpless children they preferred us to themselves. Mothers are particularly honored: the Prophet taught that ‘Paradise lies at the feet of mothers’. When they reach old age, Muslim parents are treated mercifully, with the same kindness and selflessness.
In Islam, serving one’s parents is a duty second only to prayer, and it is their right to expect it. It is considered despicable to express any irritation when, through no fault of their own, the old become difficult.
The Quran says: Your Lord has commanded that you worship none but Him, and be kind to parents. If either or both of them reach old age with you, do not say ‘uff to them or chide them, but speak to them in terms of honor and kindness. Treat them with humility, and say, ‘My Lord! Have mercy on them, for they did care for me when I was little’. (17:23-4)

How do Muslims view death?

Like Jews and Christians, Muslims believe that the present life is only a trial preparation for the next realm of existence. Basic articles of faith include: the Day of Judgment, resurrection, Heaven and Hell. When a Muslim dies, he or she is washed, usually by a family member, wrapped in a clean white cloth, and buried with a simple prayer preferably the same day. Muslims consider this one of the final services they can do for their relatives, and an opportunity to remember their own brief existence here on earth. The Prophet taught that three things can continue to help a person even after death; charity which he had given, knowledge which he had taught and prayers on their behalf by a righteous child.

What does Islam say about war?

Like Christianity, Islam permits fighting in self-defense, in defense of religion, or on the part of those who have been expelled forcibly from their homes. It lays down strict rules of combat which include prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees and livestock. As Muslims see it, injustice would be triumphant in the world if good men were not prepared to risk their lives in a righteous cause. The Quran says:
Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. God does not love transgressors. (2:190)
If they seek peace, then seek you peace. And trust in God for He is the One that heareth and knoweth all things. (8:61)
War, therefore, is the last resort, and is subject to the rigorous conditions laid down by the sacred law. The term jihad literally means ‘struggle’, and Muslims believe that there are two kinds of jihad. The other ‘jihad’ is the inner struggle which everyone wages against egotistic desires, for the sake of attaining inner peace.

What about food?

Although much simpler than the dietary law followed by Jews and the early Christians, the code which Muslims observe forbids the consumption of pig meat or any kind of intoxicating drink. The Prophet taught that ‘your body has rights over you’, and the consumption of wholesome food and the leading of a healthy lifestyle are seen as religious obligations.
The Prophet said: ‘Ask God for certainty [of faith] and well-being; for after certainty, no one is given any gift better than health!’

How does Islam guarantee human rights?

Freedom of conscience is laid down by the Quran itself: ‘There is no compulsion in religion’. (2:256)
The life and property of all citizens in an Islamic state are considered sacred whether a person is Muslim or not.
Racism is incomprehensible to Muslims, for the Quran speaks of human equality in the following terms:
O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honored of you in God’s sight is the greatest of you in piety. God is All-Knowing, All Aware (49-13)

University Mosque of Al Azhar – a center of learning since 969 AD

Mosque in Iran. Mosque in Mali.

Islam in the United States

It is almost impossible to generalize about American Muslims: converts, immigrants, factory workers, doctors; all are making their own contribution to America’s future. This complex community is unified by a common faith, underpinned by a countrywide network of a thousand mosques.
Muslims were early arrivals in North America. By the eighteenth century there were many thousands of them, working as slaves on plantations. These early communities, cut off from their heritage and families, inevitably lost their Islamic identity as time went by. Today many Afro-American Muslims play an important role in the Islamic community.

Mosque in New Mexico, U.S.A.

The nineteenth century, however, saw the beginnings of an influx of Arab Muslims, most of whom settled in the major industrial centers where they worshipped in hired rooms. The early twentieth century witnessed the arrival of several hundred thousand Muslims from Eastern Europe: the first Albanian mosque was opened in Maine in 1915; others soon followed, and a group of Polish Muslims opened a mosque in Brooklyn in 1928.
In 1947 the Washington Islamic Center was founded during the term of President Truman, and several nationwide organizations were set up in the fifties. The same period saw the establishment of other communities whose lives were in many ways modeled after Islam. More recently, numerous members of these groups have entered the fold of Muslim orthodoxy. Today there are about five million Muslims in America.

The Islamic Cultural Center, Washington DC.

The Muslim World

The Muslim population of the world is around one billion. 30% of Muslims live in the Indian subcontinent, 20% in Sub-Saharan Africa, 17% in Southeast Asia, 18% in the Arab World, 10% in the Soviet Union and China. Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan comprise 10% of the non-Arab Middle East. Although there are Muslim minorities in almost every area, including Latin America and Australia, they are most numerous in the Soviet Union, India, and central Africa. There are 5 million Muslims in the United States.
O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honored of you in God’s sight is the greatest of you in piety. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware. (Quran, 49:13)

Acknowledgments

This page was incorporated from the book, Understanding Islam and the Muslims, prepared by The Islamic Affairs Department, The Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington DC., Consultants The Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge, UK, 1989.
http://www.islamicity.org/8304/understanding-islam-and-muslims/

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How to get to heaven - what are the ideas from the different religions?

Question: "How to get to heaven - what are the ideas from the different religions?"

Answer: There appear to be five major categories regarding how to get to heaven in the world’s religions. Most believe that hard work and wisdom will lead to ultimate fulfillment, whether that is unity with god (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Baha’i) or freedom and independence (Scientology, Jainism). Others, like Unitarianism and Wicca, teach the afterlife is whatever you want it to be, and salvation is a non-issue because the sin nature doesn’t exist. A few believe either the afterlife doesn’t exist or it’s too unknowable to consider.

Derivatives of the worship of the Christian-Judeo God generally hold that faith in God and/or Jesus and the accomplishment of various deeds, including baptism or door-to-door evangelism, will ensure the worshiper will go to heaven. Only Christianity teaches that salvation is a free gift of God through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8–9), and no amount of work or effort is necessary or possible to get to heaven.

Atheism: Most atheists believe there is no heaven—no afterlife at all. Upon death, people simply cease to exist. Others attempt to define the afterlife using quantum mechanics and other scientific methods.

Baha’i: Like many other religions, Baha’i doesn’t teach that man was born with a sin nature or that man needs saving from evil. Man simply needs saving from his erroneous beliefs of how the world works and how he is to interact with the world. God sent messengers to explain to people how to come to this knowledge: Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and Baha’u’llah. These prophets progressively revealed the nature of God to the world. Upon death, a person’s soul continues its spiritual journey, perhaps through the states known as heaven and hell, until it comes to a final resting point, united with god.

Buddhism: Buddhism also believes that heaven, or “Nirvana,” is to be rejoined in spirit with god. Reaching Nirvana, a transcendental, blissful, spiritual state, requires following the Eightfold Path. This includes understanding the universe, and acting, speaking, and living in the right manner and with the right intentions. Mastering these and the other of the eight paths will return a worshipper’s spirit to god.

Chinese Religion: Chinese Religion is not an organized church, but an amalgamation of different religions and beliefs including Taoism and Buddhism. Upon death, worshipers are judged. The good are sent either to a Buddhist paradise or a Tao dwelling place. The bad are sent to hell for a period of time and then reincarnated.

Christianity: Christianity is the only religion that teaches man can do nothing to earn or pay his way into heaven. Man, a slave to the sin nature he was born with, must completely rely on the grace of God in applying Jesus Christ’s sacrifice to the sins of the believer. People are saved by faith in the death and resurrection of Christ. Upon death, the spirits of Christians go to heaven, while the spirits of unbelievers go to a temporary holding place called hell. At the final judgment, unbelievers are separated from God for eternity in the lake of fire.

Confucianism: Confucianism concentrates on appropriate behavior in life, not a future heaven. The afterlife is unknowable, so all effort should be made to make this life the best it can be, to honor ancestors, and to respect elders.

Eastern Orthodox: Orthodoxy is a Christian-Judeo derivative that reinterprets key Scripture verses in such a way that works become essential to reach heaven. Orthodoxy teaches that faith in Jesus is necessary for salvation, but where Christianity teaches that becoming more Christlike is the result of Christ’s influence in a believer’s life, Orthodoxy teaches that it is a part of the salvation process. If that process (called theosis) is not performed appropriately, a worshiper can lose his/her salvation. After death, the devout live in an intermediate state where this theosis can be completed. Those who have belief but did not accomplish sufficient progress in theosis are sent to a temporary “direful condition” and will go to hell unless the living devout pray and complete acts of mercy on their behalf. After final judgment, the devout are sent to heaven and the others to hell. Heaven and hell are not locations, but reactions to being in the presence of God, as there is nowhere that He is not present. For Christ-followers, God’s presence is paradise, but for the unsaved, being with God is eternal torment.

Hinduism: Hinduism is similar to Buddhism in some ways. Salvation (or moksha) is reached when the worshiper is freed from the cycle of reincarnation, and his spirit becomes one with god. One becomes free by ridding oneself of bad karma—the effect of evil action or evil intent. This can be done in three different ways: through selfless devotion to and service of a particular god, through understanding the nature of the universe, or by mastering the actions needed to fully appease the gods.

In Hinduism, with over a million different gods, there are differences of opinion regarding the nature of salvation. The Advaita school teaches salvation occurs when one can strip away the false self and make the soul indistinguishable from that of god. The dualist insists that one’s soul always retains its own identity even as it is joined with god.

Islam: Islam is a take-off on the Christian/Judeo God. Muslims believe salvation comes to those who obey Allah sufficiently that good deeds outweigh the bad. Muslims hope that repeating what Muhammad did and said will be enough to get to heaven, but they also recite extra prayers, fast, go on pilgrimages, and perform good works in hope of tipping the scales. Martyrdom in service to Allah is the only work guaranteed to send a worshiper to paradise.

Jainism: Jainism came to be in India about the same time as Hinduism and is very similar. One must hold the right belief, have the right knowledge, and act in the right manner. Only then can a soul be cleansed of karma. But in Jainism, there is no creator. There is no higher god to reach or lend aid. Salvation is man as master of his own destiny, liberated and perfect, filled with infinite perception, knowledge, bliss, and power.

Jehovah’s Witnesses: The teachings of the Watchtower Society lead us to categorize the Jehovah’s Witnesses as a cult of Christianity that misinterprets the book of Revelation. Similar to Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses teach different levels of heaven. The anointed are 144,000 who receive salvation by the blood of Christ and will rule with Him in paradise. They are the bride of Christ. For all others, Jesus’ sacrifice only freed them from Adam’s curse of original sin, and “faith” is merely the opportunity to earn their way to heaven. They must learn about Kingdom history, keep the laws of Jehovah, and be loyal to “God’s government”—the 144,000 leaders, 9,000 of whom are currently on the earth. They must also spread the news about the Kingdom, including door-to-door proselytizing. Upon death, they will be resurrected during the millennial kingdom where they must continue a devout life. Only afterwards are they given the opportunity to formally accept Christ and live for eternity under the rule of the 144,000.

Judaism: Jews believe that, as individuals and as a nation, they can be reconciled to God. Through sin (individually or collectively) they can lose their salvation, but they can also earn it back through repentance, good deeds, and a life of devotion.

Mormonism: Mormons believe their religion to be a derivative of Judeo/Christianity, but their reliance on extra-grace works belies this. They also have a different view of heaven. To reach the second heaven under “general salvation,” one must accept Christ (either in this life or the next) and be baptized or be baptized by proxy through a living relative. To reach the highest heaven, one must believe in God and Jesus, repent of sins, be baptized in the church, be a member of the LDS church, receive the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, obey the Mormon “Word of Wisdom” and all God’s commandments, and complete certain temple rituals including marriage. This “individual salvation” leads to the worshiper and his/her spouse becoming gods and giving birth to spirit children who return to Earth as the souls of the living.

Roman Catholicism: Roman Catholics originally believed only those in the Roman Catholic Church could be saved. Joining the church was a long process of classes, rituals, and baptism. People who had already been baptized but were not members of the Roman Catholic Church had different requirements and may even already be considered Christians. Baptism is “normatively” required for salvation, but this can include “baptism of blood” (i.e.: martyrdom) or “baptism of desire” (wanting to be baptized really badly). From the catechism: “Those who die for the faith, those who are catechumens, and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, are saved even if they have not been baptized.” Despite the changes through the years, baptism (or the desire for baptism) is still required for salvation.

According to Catholicism, upon death, the souls of those who rejected Christ are sent to hell. The souls of those who accepted Christ and performed sufficient acts to be purified of sin go to heaven. Those who died in faith but did not complete the steps to be purified are sent to purgatory where they undergo temporary, painful punishment until their souls are cleansed. Purification by torment may be lessened by suffering during life and the offerings and prayers of others on the sinner’s behalf. Once purification is complete, the soul may go to heaven.

Scientology: Scientology is similar to Eastern religions in that salvation is achieved through knowledge of self and the universe. The “thetan” (Scientology’s answer to the soul) travels through several different lifetimes, attempting to expel painful and traumatic images that cause a person to act fearfully and irrationally. Once a Scientologist is “cleared” of these harmful images and becomes an “operating thetan,” he/she is able to control thought, life, matter, energy, space, and time.

Shinto: The afterlife in Shinto was originally a dire, Hades-like realm. Matters of the afterlife have now been transferred to Buddhism. This salvation is dependent on penance and avoiding impurity or pollution of the soul. Then one’s soul can join those of its ancestors.

Sikhism: Sikhism was created in reaction to the conflict between Hinduism and Islam, and carries on many of Hinduism’s influences—although Sikhs are monotheistic. “Evil” is merely human selfishness. Salvation is attained by living an honest life and meditating on god. If good works are performed sufficiently, the worshipper is released from the cycle of reincarnation and becomes one with god.

Taoism: Like several other Eastern religions (Shinto, Chinese folk religions, Sikhism), Taoism adopted many of its afterlife principles from Buddhism. Initially, Taoists didn’t concern themselves with worries of the afterlife and, instead, concentrated on creating a utopian society. Salvation was reached by aligning with the cosmos and receiving aid from supernatural immortals who resided on mountains, islands, and other places on Earth. The result was immortality. Eventually, Taoists abandoned the quest for immortality and took on the afterlife teachings of Buddhism.

Unitarian-Universalism: Unitarians are allowed to and encouraged to believe anything they like about the afterlife and how to get there. Although, in general, they believe people should seek enlightenment in this life and not worry too much about the afterlife.

Wicca: Wiccans believe many different things about the afterlife, but most seem to agree that there is no need for salvation. People either live in harmony with the Goddess by caring for her physical manifestation—the earth—or they don’t, and their bad karma is returned to them three-fold. Some believe souls are reincarnated until they learn all their life lessons and become one with the Goddess. Some are so committed to following one’s individual path that they believe individuals determine what will happen when they die; if worshippers think they’re going to be reincarnated or sent to hell or joined with the goddess, they will be. Others refuse to contemplate the afterlife at all. Either way, they don’t believe in sin or anything they need saving from.

Zoroastrianism: Zoroastrianism may be the first religion that stated that the afterlife was dependent upon one’s actions in life. There is no reincarnation, just a simple judgment four days after death. After a sufficient amount of time in hell, however, even the condemned can go to heaven. To be judged righteous, one can use knowledge or devotion, but the most effective way is through action.

http://www.gotquestions.org/how-to-get-to-heaven.html

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Why so many people–including scientists–suddenly believe in an afterlife

Heaven is hot again, and hell is colder than ever

Brian Bethune

May 7, 2013

ShutterStock

Death, it seems, is no longer Shakespeare’s undiscovered country, the one “from whose bourn no traveller returns.” Not according to contemporary bestseller lists. Dreams and visions of the afterlife have been constants across human history, and the near-death experiences (now known as NDEs) of those whose lives were saved by medical advances have established, for millions, a credible means by which someone could peek into the next world. Lately a fair-sized pack of witnesses claim to have actually entered into the afterlife before coming back again to write mega-selling accounts of what they saw and felt there. Afterlife speculation has become a vibrant part of the zeitgeist, the result of trends that include developments in neuroscience that have inspired new ideas about human consciousness, the ongoing evolution of theology, both popular and expert, and the hopes and fears of an aging population. Heaven is hot again. And hell is colder than ever.

Recent polls across the developed world are starting to tell an intriguing tale. In the U.S., religion central for the West, belief in heaven has held steady, even ticking upwards on occasion, over the past two decades. Belief in hell is also high, but even Americans show a gap between the two articles of faith—81 per cent believed in the former in 2011, as opposed to 71 per cent accepting the latter. Elsewhere in the Western world the gap between heaven and hell believers is more of a gulf—a 2010 Canadian poll found more than half of us think there is a heaven, while fewer than a third acknowledge hell. What’s more, monotheism’s two destinations are no longer all that are on offer. In December a survey of the 1970 British Cohort group—9,000 people, currently 42 years old—found half believed in an afterlife, while only 31 per cent believed in God. No one has yet delved deeply into beliefs about the new afterlife—the cohort surveyors didn’t ask for details—but reincarnation, in an newly multicultural West, is one suggested factor. So too is belief in what one academic called “an unreligious afterlife,” the natural continuation of human consciousness after physical death.

While most of the current bestselling accounts of afterlife experiences are recognizably Christian—at least in outline—signs of changing beliefs can be found in them too. Nor are the new travellers—who include a four-year-old boy and a middle-aged neurosurgeon—what religious skeptics would think of as the usual suspects. Colton Burpo, now 13, “died” 10 years ago from a ruptured appendix, and spent three minutes of earthly time in heaven—some of it in Jesus’s lap, some of it speaking with a miscarried sister whose existence he had never been told about—before being pulled back to Earth by his surgical team. Since 2010, when his father, Todd, a Nebraska minister, published his account of what Colton told him, Heaven is for Real has sold more than 7.5 million copies. If Colton’s story sounds like a contemporary take on an ancient Christian motif—“unless you become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3)—the same can’t be said about Eben Alexander’s post-religious cosmic experience.

It is Alexander’s provocatively named Proof of Heaven, released in November, that wrenched afterlife visitation literature out of its below-the-radar religious publishing niche and into the spotlight. Alexander’s professional stature—as a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon, a man expected to know what is possible and what is not for human consciousness—ensured him of extensive media coverage, including on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday, massive sales (it remains No. 1 on the New York Times paperback non-fiction bestseller list), and often venomous responses from fellow scientists.

Alexander woke one day in 2008 with an intense headache. “Within hours, my entire cortex—the part of the brain that controls thought and emotion and that in essence makes us human—had shut down,” he writes. Doctors finally determined that “E. coli bacteria had penetrated my cerebrospinal fluid and were eating my brain.” For seven days he was in a deep coma, during which time, often guided by a beautiful girl riding a giant butterfly, he flew around the “invisible, spiritual side of existence.” And there he encountered God, whom Alexander frequently refers to as Om, the sound he recalls as “being associated with that omniscient, omnipotent and unconditionally loving God.”

He eventually recovered, a medical miracle in itself, Alexander writes. But he was an entirely different man, no longer a neuroscientist like other neuroscientists. “I know that many of my peers hold—as I myself did—to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us. But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it.”

Not according to most of his fellow neuroscientists, whose reactions made the predictable Christian wariness—no angels, no Jesus, and a God named Om left Toronto pastor Tim Challies to sum up Proof of Heaven as “more New Age-y than the rest, close to non-Western religion”—seem welcoming. Oliver Sacks called Alexander’s claims “not just unscientific but anti-scientific.” Others opposed dogma with dogma: Alexander was correct that by current neurological understanding what happened to him was impossible if his cortex was shut down—therefore, they said, it wasn’t shut down, no matter what his medical records say. Many skeptics referenced British psychologist Susan Blackmore’s 1993 book, Dying to Live, which dismisses NDEs as a result of chemical changes associated with dying brains, as the last word.

For their part, non-materialist neuroscientists, like University of Montreal professor Mario Beauregard, have long critiqued Blackmore and point out that brain research was in its infancy 20 years ago. Blackmore argued that a lack of oxygen (or anoxia) during the dying process might induce abnormal firing of neurons in the part of the brain that controls vision, leading to the illusion of seeing a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Beauregard cites objections by Dutch cardiologist Pim Van Lommel that if anoxia (lack of oxygen) was central to NDEs, far more cardiac arrest patients would report such an experience. What’s more, as pointed out by Dr. Sam Parnia, whose resuscitation techniques have doubled his New York hospital’s cardiac-arrest-recovery rate, some NDE patients were not terminal during their experiences, meaning their oxygen levels were normal. In fact, Parnia notes, dropping oxygen levels are associated with “acute confusional state,” something at odds with the lucid consciousness reported by NDE people.

Two decades of research and medical advances have moved near-death experiences from rare events to common occurrences. In his book Erasing Death, Parnia cites a 30-year-old Japanese woman as the current record holder (in terms of time) for someone who was found dead and restored to life. She “may have been dead up to 10 hours,” Parnia says, but after six hours’ work, doctors got her heart started and brought her back to health: “she had a baby in the last year.” Now that patients who have been clinically dead for hours can be brought back to life, says Parnia, the question of the continuation of human consciousness is a live scientific issue.

And it’s not only the remarkable extension of the time patients can now spend suspended between life and death, but the sheer number of individuals involved, that has made NDEs so contentious among researchers. Those whose NDEs also involved an out-of-body experience raise the stakes further.

Materialist skeptics are not troubled by accounts of tunnels of light or angelic beings. Perhaps the dying brain hypothesis doesn’t fully explain them, but there are other possibilities. Too much carbon dioxide in the blood perhaps or, as a recent study from the University of Kentucky posits, NDEs are really an instance of a sleep disorder, rapid eye movement (REM) intrusion. In that disorder, a person’s mind can wake up before his body, and both hallucinations and the sensation of being physically detached from the body can occur. Cardiac arrest could trigger a REM intrusion in the brain stem—the region that controls the most basic functions of the body and which can operate independently from the (now dead) higher brain. The resulting NDE would actually be a dream.

But that hypothesis still cannot account for people who report seeing, during their out-of-body experiences, what they could not have. Most commonly that’s an overhead view of their frantic medical teams. Parnia reports a 2001 case, in which a Dutch patient’s dentures were removed during cardiac arrest. When his nurses couldn’t find the dentures later, the patient was able to remind them where they were. Perhaps the most famous corroborated case, cited by Beauregard, is that of a migrant worker named Maria, whose story was documented by her critical care social worker, Kimberly Clark. The day after she had been resuscitated after cardiac arrest, Maria told Clark how she had been able to look down from the ceiling and left the OR. She found herself outside the hospital and spotted a tennis shoe on the ledge of the north side of the building’s third floor. She described it in detail. Maria, not surprisingly, wanted to know whether she had “really” seen the shoe, and asked Clark to go look.

Quite skeptical, Clark went where Maria sent her, and found the tennis shoe, just as she’d described it. “The only way she could have had such a perspective,” said Clark, “was if she had been floating right outside and at very close range to the tennis shoe.” It shouldn’t have been possible, as both Beauregard and Parnia point out. “The question becomes,” Parnia says, “how can people have conscious awareness when they’ve gone beyond the threshold of death?”

The answer to that question is not necessarily Christian, or even metaphysical at all, not for Parnia, who describes himself as “not a religious person” and not for many of his fellow NDE researchers. In a similar vein, many traditional Christians are more than a little wary of the reported experiences of the heaven travellers. For them the idea—so intolerable to materialist skeptics—that consciousness, or the soul, can and does exist outside the body is an article of faith. But some of the new afterlife, however seemingly Christian in outline, is often troubling, especially in its utter lack of judgment. All are welcome, all are heaven-bound in those accounts: there is no sign of God’s wrath for sinners. The division over the possibility of continuing human consciousness is not entirely between the religious and the secular. And the extraordinary popularity of heaven tourism—books have continued to pour down the publishing pike this year, including I Believe in Heaven by Cecil Murphy, one of the pioneers in the genre—is not entirely driven by evangelical enthusiasm.

In that regard, the storm stirred up by Proof of Heaven only obscures the wider significance of the afterlife books. The controversy over the scientific basis of Alexander’s experiences, like the skeptical poking for holes in the Burpo story—can Colton’s parents really be sure he never heard a word about his mother’s miscarriage?—can miss the cultural forest for the factual trees.

Consider the many other near-death survivors-cum-authors and their places along the continuum, from pastor’s son to neurosurgeon. There’s Mary Neal, an orthopaedic surgeon whose account of the aftermath of her drowning in Chile in 1999, To Heaven and Back, has spent two years on bestseller lists; teacher Crystal McVea, whose Waking Up in Heaven tells the story of the nine minutes that followed after she stopped breathing in 2009; The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven is about six-year-old Alex Malarkey, who met Jesus after an car accident in 2004; and Texas pastor Don Piper, whose 2004 account (co-written with Cecil Murphy) of his car crash, 90 Minutes in Heaven, is often credited with kick-starting the phenomenon.

There are elements, from key plot points to tiny details, that link their stories, starting with two obvious points. The idea that major scientists no longer dismiss the idea of continuing consciousness colours all accounts, as does the fact that, whether truth or fantasy, the experiences are necessarily culturally specific.

All overwhelming and bewildering mental states have to be sorted, defined and made comprehensible in the light of the familiar—what else do our brains have to work with? One way or another, a pastor’s child and a fallen-away Christian like Alexander will filter an NDE through the earliest Sunday school tracks laid down in their memories. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, first famous for her five stages of grief, later became a doyenne of NDEs—her lectures on her NDE patients (who turned her into a believer), first published in 1991, were reissued in 2008 to catch the current publishing wave. Even in her rather homogenous western European clientele, Kübler-Ross could see the effects of early enculturation: “I never encountered a Protestant child who saw the Virgin Mary in his last minutes, yet she was perceived by many Catholic children.”

Many of the writers share a common gaping wound, centred on lost children, a wound usually healed by simultaneously finding the child and realizing there is no blame or judgment to suffer, no forgiveness to offer or seek. Most of Colton Burpo’s account is a child’s-eye account of orthodox teaching, but its most affecting passage is when he lifts years of guilt and anxiety off his mother, Sonja, by telling her that her miscarried child had been a girl, and that she was now flourishing in heaven as God’s adopted daughter. One of Kübler-Ross’s patients, a 12-year-old girl, told her father how she was comforted during her NDE by her brother. Except that she didn’t have a brother. Her tearful father then told her about the son who had died three months before her birth.

Eben Alexander, who—unlike most NDE cases—lost all sense of personal identity during his experience, was troubled because that loss meant no relative offered him assurances of love and acceptance. Afterwards though, Alexander—an adopted child who had felt abandoned his whole life—saw a picture of his deceased natural sister, whom he had never met in life. She was the girl on the butterfly. (There is more than a trace of Kübler-Ross’s influence in Proof of Heaven. The butterfly girl stands out as one of the more psychedelic elements in an account mostly abstract and metaphysical: Kübler-Ross, however, constantly describes the human body as a cocoon, from which a metaphorical butterfly of spirit will eventually emerge.)

And the stories offer similar proofs: Colton, like Kübler-Ross’s patient, inexplicably knew of a lost sibling, whose existences their parents believed they had kept hidden, while Eben Alexander could describe precisely what his medical team and his family were doing during his seven-day coma. They are all, even the children, witnesses who experienced what they did—and came back, reluctantly—for a reason. Mary Neal was sent back with what she called “a laundry list of tasks to do,” which she still doesn’t talk about, at least not until they are accomplished: one was to help the rest of her family cope with the foretold death of her young son, which occurred 10 years later in 2009. Colton and Alex provide truth “out of the mouths of babes.” Alexander knows he is uniquely positioned among NDE subjects to challenge the materialist orthodoxies of mainstream neuroscience.

Those similarities in form pale beside the deep thematic link between the new bestsellers: the (previously) undiscovered country is a place of unconditional love. Several of the writers pause, sometimes for pages, to stress the adjective as much as the noun. None express the message more clearly than Alexander, who writes that “the only thing that truly matters” was communicated to him in three parts. He boils those down to one word—love—but the key phrase may be the third sentence of his longer version:

You are loved and cherished.

You have nothing to fear.

There is nothing you can do wrong.

That’s fodder for cynics and skeptics, of course. That an individual like any of the authors, someone of broadly Christian background coping with emotional pain, should undergo such a heaven-centred experience when in the throes of physical trauma, is broadly predictable and easy to dismiss as wish-fulfillment. The fact it has happened to a group of such similar individuals does not in itself prove the truth (or the falsity) of the experiences; what that does, though, is illuminate a culture that increasingly rejects the very notion of judgment while equating salvation with personal healing.

Most observers trace the current upsurge to Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven. Largely ignored by the non-religious world and looked at askance by many Christian commentators, 90 Minutes sold like hotcakes. And while it set the template for what was to come, what stands out about it today is its modesty. Piper was declared dead at the scene of an auto crash on Jan. 18, 1989. His body was left in place while the authorities waited for the tools needed to extract him from the wreckage. An hour and a half later, though, Piper stirred back to life, albeit to a long and excruciating recovery, involving 34 painful surgeries.

And to bear witness to where he had been in that 90 minutes. In the transcendent light, actually, just outside the “pearlescent” gates of heaven, surrounded by “perfect love” and the gathering presence—simultaneously physical and spiritual—of loved ones who had died during Piper’s lifetime. There were friends who had passed away young and were thus still youthful looking; his grandfather, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair; and his great-grandmother, still aged but now no longer with false teeth, but her own restored, no longer stooped and no longer wrinkled. Signs of age, in other words, and of the gravitas they confer, but no traces of the “ravages of living.”

All this—the approach to the pearly gates, the welcome from loved ones, the presence of unconditional love and the absence of judgment—was pregnant with accounts to come. But, as it turned out, 90 Minutes’ first-born—the genetic relationship obvious in their titles, not to mention the way Amazon bundled them together for a special low price—was the most striking outlier in recent afterlife literature, Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes in Hell. A California realtor, Wiese was sleeping peacefully on the night of Nov. 22, 1998, when God pitched him into hell at 3 a.m., so that—Wiese later decided—he could warn others of their peril. He landed abruptly in a five-by-three-metre cell, shared with two gigantic, evil, reptilian beasts who proceeded to smash him against the walls before shredding his flesh.

Yet Wiese did not die, could not die, as much as he wanted to. He continued in seemingly endless pain, tormented too by “the terrible, foul stench.” (Smell—the most evocative of senses, the one most closely tied to deep memory—is prominent in accounts of heaven as well, where it brings visitors the most comforting reminders of childhood and, when the odours arise from food, assurances of plenty.) At precisely 3:23 a.m., Jesus rescued Wiese and returned him home, where he landed, terrified, on his living room floor.

The book, published in 2006, spawned no serious imitators. In part that was due to its lack of the scientific gloss the heaven narratives bear (and the times demand)—one Christian nurse, posting on Amazon, rejected 23 Minutes because of her familiarity with NDEs. There is no explanatory traffic accident, cardiac arrest or brain-eating bacteria, nothing to indicate a hovering between life and death when the sufferer could peek through the curtain, nothing that didn’t point to a (very) bad dream.

But Wiese’s book also went nowhere because hell no longer possesses the power it once held in Christianity. That’s particularly remarkable within an American religious milieu that was always attentive to warnings of hellfire. In 1741 Jonathan Edwards delivered what is often called the most famous sermon in American history, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” It is beautifully composed, rigorously logical (in terms of Calvinist theology) and frankly terrifying: “Men are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked.” Edwards was interrupted often during the sermon by congregants moaning and crying out, “What shall I do to be saved?” It’s doubtful he’d receive the same reaction today. Many modern Christians struggle to reconcile a loving God with one who would condemn the majority of humankind to eternal torment.

Within Roman Catholicism, notes Smith College world religion professor Carol Zaleski, the last three pontiffs, including Pope Francis, have all been supportive of the late Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who taught that Catholics have a duty to hope and pray for an empty hell, for the salvation of all. Even those Protestant traditions that have historically been more attuned to the gulf between the elect and the damned have seen vigorous theological debate about the afterlife, and the defence of ideas that effectively weaken the severity of divine wrath. Conditional immortality, for one, says true eternal life is reserved for the saved; souls in hell will eventually—and, in this context, mercifully—be annihilated.

“Most people are no longer afraid of being seized at an unguarded moment,” judged wanting and flung into the fiery pit like Edwards’s congregants were, says Zaleski. “We are now more creatures of anxiety than of guilt.” The anxiety, as well as the interest, is surely tied to the greying of the Western world too, as our thoughts, conscious or not, increasingly turn to what’s next, whether we think that’s oblivion or some kind of afterlife. Baby boomers, by sheer force of numbers, have always driven cultural trends, from the lowering of voting and drinking ages in their youth to the politically untouchable status of retirement benefits today. It’s hardly surprising to see them favour not just the existence but the congenial nature of an afterlife.

And that is where the heaven tourists finally mesh, not just with each other, but with the larger culture. We seem to be moving inexorably from a society where organized religion dominates issues of morality—and mortality—but not to the secular promised land of reason. Rather, we are orienting ourselves to a more personal spirituality, at once vague and autonomous. Ordinary sinners increasingly don’t believe that they deserve judgment, let alone hell. Theists and atheists alike dispute any earthly authority’s right to judge, and both feel NDEs give them reason to hope for something beyond the grave. And many believers confidently expect that God isn’t judgmental either.

http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/the-heaven-boom/

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An Intellectual Look at the History of Death and Afterlife

April 18, 1991

INTRODUCTION

The idea of death and the afterlife is a topic that everyone can relate to. Whether one has allegiance towards western religion, eastern religion, or no religion at all (atheism), the idea of life after death exists in the minds of many. The common presumption is that we will eventually enter an existence with an all mighty being into a world where it is much better than the one in which we live in now. Throughout history, there has always been criticism towards any ideology of the afterlife. However, it is appropriate for man to constantly question such topics that he himself is unsure of. The idea of an afterlife began as far back in history as primitive man. These ideas created what is now a traditional ideology of heaven and hell. It was from that point on that the topic of life after death becomes an impelling and diverse interest of man.

WHERE THE IDEA OF DEATH AND THE AFTERLIFE BEGINS

The idea of death and afterlife correlates directly with religion, and its concepts have been with religious notions since the very beginnings of man. It is obviously unclear to determine to what degree early man adopted the idea of the afterlife, but nevertheless, it has been kept within historical context anyway. Thus, this how the idea of death and the afterlife may have began during the times of primitive age.

Before it is possible to explain the history of death and the afterlife, one must make clear that there are many different religions that hold this idea. However, there seems to be a fundamental similarity towards afterlife, and this is how this paper will be structured.

As it turn outs, primitive ideas began with the concept know as animism (Barnes Vol.(1), 1965). This idea is basically defined as the belief in immortality of one’s spiritual self continuing on to exist after life. According to Barnes, the creation of the supernatural being was actually brought up by the basis of man himself as oppose to an all mighty being that created the existence of life as we know it (Barnes Vol.(1), 1965). In other words, it is possible to see the analogy that the idea of entering into another life came about from the ideas and needs of man. This aspect will be covered more thoroughly next. Heaven and Hell.

The idea of good and evil sprits controlling the afterworld set the roots for what later Christianity (Barnes Vol.(1), 1965). It is possible that this point of time in which certain images began to evolve in what eventually became traditional acceptance of life after death. That is, we have obtained the notion that it is nice and lovely in heaven and only the good go there, or it is ugly and lonesome in hell and only the evil dwell there. However, it is quite often that certain questions are asked as to why such a concept was originated in the first place. The next section will discuss this aspect.

It would appear that the idea of a future life with good and evil realms was created in order to bring out order within man material life. However, this an aspect that is often highly debatable- Cullman argues that these primitive ideas were brought up on basis of hope; it explains that man is actually afraid of death, and it was used as a way of repressing this aspect (Cahn and Shatz, 1982).

DEATH AND AFTERLIFE ENTERING THE MODERN AGE

As Christianity grew, so grew the ideas of life after death. As far as an intellectual level of religion is concerned, this was right at the time of the development of rationalistic ideas. Of the many rationalists, John Locke more notable individuals of that time (Barnes Vol.(2), 1965). He accepted the idea of future life with it an enlightened form of Christianity (Barnes Vol.(2), 1965). The main advancement that this thinking idea of death was that it now laid the reasoning instead of mere dogmatic acceptance I was one of the being based on brought to the foundation of (Barnes Vol.(2) 1965). It seemed that now believing in Christianity and the afterlife, in particular, had some logical basis of acceptance.

However, as always there will be criticism towards any towards any new idea, and for this concept it was no different. These criticisms came mainly from a group of individuals known as deists (Nagee, 1987). There basic claims against individuals such as Locke was that they were in favor of an empiricist point of view (Magee, 1967). That is, it is not possible to establish grounds for a spiritual life simply because we have no sensory perception of it. Looking at it from this perspective, it is not hard to agree with these individuals. Since there is no way of truly verifying the existence of such a life, we still persist to have this negativism within ourselves. Until that day comes when we can study the afterlife through an objective way just as we do our own physical world, we can only accept this idea as a mere opinion.

IDEAS OF DEATH AND AFTERLIFE ENTERING THE CONTEMPORAY AGE

At the turn of the 19th century certain religious trends began to reoccur. As previously stated, deistism was beginning to develop, and with it came the emphasis of objective reasoning towards religion. In respects to life after death, criticisms such as unverifiable proofs were becoming increasingly more expressed. In other words, how can we experience the spiritual world when in our own physical life, that which is so highly relied on sensory perception, can not be experienced with it?

However, as religion reached the 19th century, a revival by Methodism became evident (Barnes Vol.(3), 1965). During this time spiritual grounds returned, and the idea of empiricism became deemphasized. Why then, this revival for spiritual outlook of human life? Barnes argues that the reemphasis on making ideas pertaining to future life or Godly figures gives humans more moral freedom (Barnes Vol.(3), 1965). Arguments supplied by Kierkegaard may have given a better explanation of this aspect. Summarizing his approximation argument, Kierkegaard states, and the greatest attainable certainty with respect to anything historical is merely an approximation (Cahn and Shatz, 1982). In respects to death and afterlife, it would appear that mere faith is all we can accept with something that deals with the future, and that if it is the only means of an objective measure, then why not use it. An explanation such as this is plausible and convincing enough to make one accept that attitude.

THE CONTEMPORARY IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE

Now that we have taken a brief look at how the history of afterlife, within the religious content, has evolved to modern times, we can take a look at the ideas of what it may be like with in the context of certain religions.

Western Ideas of the Afterlife

As far as contemporary Christianity is concerned the common belief in future life is that after death we will be given new and glorious bodies in heaven (Badham, 1976). However, this concept also brings along many varied arguments. First, there is the idea of resurrection into a terms as new body, and this concept is known in Christian physical continuity (Badham,1976). On a personal note towards this view, one can see that there might be some credence. The idea of entering into another totally new body may well explain the ever controversial devalue phenomena that many of us experience.

On the other end of this view is the view lies with the idea of becoming a spiritual organism equivalent to that of our own physical body (Badham, 1976).

This is the view that is probably the most widely accepted view especially since each of us holds our own unique personality and characteristics. In this respect, this

view seems much convincing at least from rationalism point of view.

Finally, there are Christian theologians who deny any existence of life after death (Badham, 1976). It is possible that these theologians felt that death is all a part of Gods process of creation, and that returning to nothingness is just something that is part of our own destiny. Bultman points out, n believing that in the hope for a future life is not merely unintelligible to modern man it is completely meaningless (Balham, 1976). It’s hard to see how these individual don’t accept any existence of an afterlife, but maybe it is these individuals that might well be the most represented view of contemporary views from western thought.

Eastern Ideas of the Afterlife

The previous idea encompassed ideas from western culture (Christianity), but it should be also noted that eastern theology had their views about the after life as well. Since there are many eastern religions, this paper will only cover the idea of contemporary Buddhism, for it is the most widely used eastern religion today. Thus, although preceding aspects of death and the afterlife will encompass western societal views, this is an appropriate time to elaborate on the eastern ideology of death and the afterlife.

Concept of life after death with Buddhism encompasses the idea of Nirvana in which pending on how one has conducted his previous life, one may be elevated to a higher life (Lafleur, 1980). For Buddhism, it appears that death is more of a rebirth process. According to Dogen, it was the accumulated amount of Karma (Good deeds) that determined where one will end up in his nest life (Lafleur, 1980). This theology must have laid moral grounds for an individual especially since he believed that these good deeds would advance him in life. It is no wonder that Japan in particular continues to hold much these ideological views, and it possible that it allows them to prosper so well.

IDEAS OF DEATH AS IT EXIST TODAY IN THE 20th CENTURY

Before continuing on with further aspects of death and the afterlife, it is important to understand the attitudes that exist today in the 20th individual in the western society. As it was previously explained, traditional ideas brought up a concept of heaven and hell. It can be argued that this belief no longer exists. That is not say that the concept of heaven hell or any idea of an afterlife, for that matter, is not kept within the individual , but instead today it appears that it is only used as a frame of reference. Kelsy, questions “where has the conviction of life after death gone.” It can be answered through the idea known as individualism (Kelsy, 1982). The term involves concentrating and centering one’s own involvement with himself. It now appears that our material and physical selves are the most important concerns for us all (Kelsy, 1982). It is not hard to accept this view especially if one were to look into contemporary man’s thoughts, for the view that most of us have of the afterlife is usually one that is quiet vague or withdrawn. According to Pittenger, a parody exist within our society, and that is unlike before in which we accepted fear or joy of the contemplation of heaven and hell now this attitude no longer exists (Pittenger, 1980).

OTHER ASPECTS PERTAINING TO THE AFTERLIFE WITHIN CONTEMPORARY TIMES

Now that an ideology on death an afterlife has been established, it is important to emphasis other aspects pertaining to the idea of future life. In particular, these aspects include the nature of afterlife and how it currently affects the living individual and his society, and various accounts of real life near death experiences since it is the closest thing we can accept as an idea of the afterlife.

Effects of Afterlife on the Individual

It is accepted as an obvious truth that the future expectations of death and a possible afterlife must have some bearing on an individual as he is living in his physical world. Although, as previously stated, contemporary man no longer adheres to the true faith of life after death, it is not say that he has totally abandoned it from the framework of his mind. It is no longer important to express what is existing in the afterlife, but instead lay grounds to explain in what degree it affects contemporary man. It has been argued by both Karl Marx and Max Weber that belief in life after death does in fact create social integration (Hynson, 1979). Whether it is true or not remains to be seen on the basis of further research, but it makes clear to some extent that beliefs do adhere to degrees of positive outcomes for the individual. With in the same lines of this topic lies the belief of the common individual, and his idea towards his own destiny of afterlife. In one study, it clearly showed that individuals believe that their own afterlife is a favorable one (Dixon and Kinlaw, 1983). What then is the point of all of this? It seems that no matter what ideology contemporary society has, whether western, eastern, or individualism, there is a degree of underlying faith. It may be something that man unconsciously wants to preserve within himself. Thus, if this fact is true then there is actually no need for any objective truth in understanding the afterlife, for if one wishes to accept a belief simply on the premise that it is something that he wants to believe, then that alone may be enough to hold together idea that is fundamentally impossible to ever really figure out.

Near Death Experiences

Recently studies of near death experiences have been of great interest in science. Although right now in our day and age, there is actually no real way of certifying one type claim towards another, but studying near death experiences does have precedence towards understanding the afterlife. It is possible, however, that mere death experiences are only mere unconscious dreams based on our biased acceptance, or it may actually be the real thing. Nevertheless, it is an important topic with in contemporary theories of life after death.

In a previously published article, the author Salladay emphasizes certain actual cases of near death experiences. From her report, it clearly shows that many of the experiences are varied (Salladay, 1983). Particularly interesting were reports of out of body experiences made by some these individuals. It appears to be quite analogous to the idea of spiritual being having been separated from the physical being, and this, of course, ties in directly with dualism. Clearly, there is a relationship between it and certain religious theologies. In another report noted Jung, be talks about an individual who was unlikely to lie and in no way could have had any psychic remembrance of what happen, yet he displayed similar unconscious observations (Kelsey, 1982). There are obvious explanations for these experiences, but for now we can only speculate on certain theories that researchers have. Nevertheless, these and other such experiences nay help to develop the idea of afterlife for future societies to come.

A POSSIBLE FUTURE EXPLANATION OF AFTERLIFE

As previously discussed near death experiences seems as the only real method known to man for tapping into the spiritual unknown. However, there is still no real way of obtaining any actual evidence for the explanation of the individual’s experiences. Even with an individual’s elaboration on the experience, it is often too vague to actually make any advancements towards death studies. Recently, with technological advances, and through common physics, science may allow us to probe deeper into this aspect of life after death. This idea deals with the Electromagnetic Radiation means of permitting continuation of consciousness beyond the death of the body (Slawinski, 1987). In summarizing the main points of the paper, the method involves measuring death flashes through low intensity luminescent lights, the eventually reading it of the EEG brain waves. This method not only encompasses extreme complexity, but it is just a mere idea that is being experimented on. Still, it does seem to be steering the world towards a definite explanation for the seeming less never ending idea of death and the afterlife.

CONCLUSION

As one concludes the topic of death and the afterlife, it is quite clear that it is a topic so vast that is nearly impossible to break down. Since its very history, there have been many divergent ideas of death and afterlife that its only real path is that of having to understand a general scope of how it had evolved throughout the centuries. Death and the afterlife is a topic that even today is studied by religious theologians, philosophers, psychologist, sociologist, and even the everyday individual. Each of us has their own view as to what the afterlife might be like, and these discussion seem endless. I believe that these discussion will continue to exist even into the future- Whether or not we will be able to ever fully get a true explanation of the afterlife remains to be seen, but maybe it is an aspect that is not ours to find out.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Badham, Paul (1976). Christian Beliefs about Life After Death. Lampeter, Wales: St David Univ. College.

Barnes, H. E. (1965). An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World. 3rd revised ed. Vol. 1-3. New York: Dover Publications, Inc..

Cahn, S. M., & Shatz David. (Ed.). (1982). Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Oxford, NY: Oxford Univ. Press.

Dixon, R D., & Kinlaw, Bonnie J. H. (1983). Belief in the Existence and Nature of Life After Death: A Research Note. Omega, 13 (3), 287-292.

Hynson, L. N Jr. (1979). Belief in Life Death and Societal Integration. Omega, 9(1), 13-18.

Kelsey, M. T. (1982). Afterlife. New York: Crossroad.

LaFleur, W.R. (1980). Death and Eastern Thought. Stanford Cal: Stanford Univ. Press.

Leming, N. R. (1980). Religion and Death: A Test of Homans Thesis. Omega, 10 (4), 347-360

Magee, John B. (1967). Religion and Modern Man A Study of the Religious Meaning of Being Human. Evanston, London, NY: Harper & Row.

Pittenger, N. (1980). After Death Life in God. New York: The Seabury Press.

Salladay, S. A. (1983). In the Event of Death. Omega, 13 (1), 1-11.

Slawinski, J. (1987). Electromagnetic Radiation and the Afterlife. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 6(2), 79-93. Human Sciences Press.

LIBRARY RESEARCH PAPER

As it is with any large report, finding resources is the most time consuming part of actually doing a term paper. Since death and afterlife was a topic that was very broad, figuring out how to structure such a report was not an easy task. The topic death had so many subdivisions that for myself, I really did not know where to begin. I began with use of encyclopedia, and by reading about my topic, I was now a little more familiar with the topic. Now I was able to break it down into specific categories in which I felt was important to my report. The place where I began looking for resources was in the reference sections of either Hamilton or Sinclair libraries. Hamilton had much more resources, so I gathered the majority of it from there. The very first reference I looked was the SSCI indexes. At least for my topic, it was not very useful. However, it did give leads to some sources, and that alone was enough to allow me to gather the rest of it. Once I was able to fine some resources, I was able to use references from that source.

The two computers that helped me find my references were the UH Carl (Online Catalog), and the CD Rom system. By using these system, I was able to find my sources much quicker than if I didn’t use them. Not only were they quicker, but it gave me a large number of topics that may be related to mines. Personally, at least for this topic, I felt that UN Carl was much more useful for me I know I will have a much easier time the next time, I have to find sources for any future term paper. There are many different and useful materials in the library, and one should try to make the best use of it. It is very important to know that the library is a place where all of us should not avoid, but instead utilize. It is also very important to get familiar with computer systems in the library because not only is it easier, but in this day an age it is nearly impossible to go about finding the materials the way I did.

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/baracao/paper13.htm

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Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, by Maurycy Gottlieb (1878) Hebrew: יוֹם כִּפּוּר‎ or יום הכיפורים
Observed by	Jews, Samaritans, some Christian groups
Type	Jewish
Significance	Atonement for personal and national sins, fate of each person is sealed for the upcoming year
Observances	Fasting, prayer, abstaining from physical pleasures, refraining from work
Date	10th day of Tishrei
2015 date	sunset, September 22 – nightfall, September 23. Karaite: currently unknown, as the day is based on the observed new moon.
2016 date	sunset, October 11 – nightfall, October 12. Karaite: currently unknown, as the day is based on the observed new moon.
Related to	Rosh Hashanah, which precedes Yom Kippur

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QUOTE:

No doubt in keeping with Catholics love of mysteries, (e.g. the Holy Trinity with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit being three distinct persons yet one “substance, essence or nature”), in the Roman Catholic Church Lent is now 44 days in total. Starting on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Thursday rather than Easter Eve, and hence lasts 38 days excluding Sundays.
My personal tradition, as a good Catholic lad, for more years than I can recall, is to give up coffee for Lent. Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I still hold-off until Easter morning. I’m not a terribly big consumer of coffee, but it is still a bit of a chore. I remember one year at Lent I was working in a very coffee-rich office environment and had increased my intake. The caffeine withdrawal headache lasted two weeks.
At Yom Kippur Jews traditionally greet each other with “Have an easy fast”, or some variation thereof. We Catholics are just a little too much into the suffering aspect of Lent to dare wish one another an “easy Lent” – that would defeat the purpose!
Actually in recent years an emphasis has been put on doing positive things during Lent rather than just giving up something you enjoy. Community work or just a “daily good deed” seems like better preparation for Easter than going without Jelly-Belly jelly-beans or M&Ms.

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ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH - HOLY SEE

Overview
St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
Pope (Francis) Hierarchy Theology Liturgy Sacraments Eucharist Virgin Mary History Criticism
Organisation Holy See College of Cardinals Ecumenical Councils Episcopal polity Latin Church Eastern Catholic Churches Canon Law
Background Christianity History Catholicism Apostolic succession Four Marks of the Church Ten Commandments Crucifixion / Resurrection / Ascension of Jesus Assumption of Mary
Theology Trinity (Father Son Holy Spirit) Apologetics Divine grace Sacraments Purgatory Salvation Original sin Saints Dogma Virgin Mary (Mariology Immaculate Conception)
Liturgy and worship Catholic liturgy Prayer Eucharist Liturgy of the Hours Liturgical year Biblical canon Bible
Rites Roman Armenian Alexandrian Byzantine Antiochian West Syrian East Syrian
Controversies Antipope Criticism Sex and gender roles sexual morality Sex abuse cases
Other topics Art Ecumenism Evolution Health care Monasticism Music Science Social teaching Role in civilization

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Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
Classification	Christian
Polity	Episcopal^[1]
Structure	Catholic hierarchy^[2]^[3]
Head	Pope Francis as Bishop of Rome
Jurisdictions	Holy See Patriarchates: 9 Archdioceses: 640 Regular dioceses: 2,851
Churches sui iuris	Latin Church (Western) Eastern Catholic Churches: 23
Region	Worldwide
Founder	Jesus Christ, according to Catholic tradition
Origin	1st century Jerusalem, Judea, Roman Empire
Members	1.254 billion^[4]
Clergy	5,100 bishops 413,000 priests
Website	Holy See

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Sunday, February 7, 2016

Canada Military News: Hell is out and Heaven is in Afterlife and what religions and non believe/Hell is out Heaven is in/ - for those who believe/Lent/Understand Islam and Allah/Yom Kippur/Stations of the Cross/Many folks are helping those in need in their communities this year for Lent