Daniel L Dye
Philosophy B37
Professor McNellis
Research paper
In societies across the world, people have different mindsets. These mindsets expand across the world and influence thinking about life, heaven and religion. Professor McNellis, a scholar in religion stated, “Hinduism uses Gods to understand common occurrences in life.” Since, the mindset of people are vastly different, their ideas about religion and life are expected to be different. I am comparing different religion such as, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism to show how humans can have different ideas about death because of their religion.
In Patterns of Religion the Roger Schmidt states, “The importance of religion is derived in its capacity to serve human needs” (9). Schmidt goes on to contend that religion is used as a social control that controls the physical stimuli that humans receive as a result of society. Schmidt believes that religion is used as a way to invest meaning into life (9). The point cannot be argued that religion is used to help understand life better but is there one religion that a person should follow, or is religion only used as a crutch that people rely on in times of need? Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism all have different ideas about death and about what happens after death, as well as what is the necessary path to take in life in order to have a good afterlife, or rebirth after somebody dies.
In Christianity, there is no rebirth. When somebody does they do not come back. In Ecclesiastes, the bible states, “A time to be born, and a time to die” (3:2). The meaning that is meant to be grasped from this passage is that there is only one life and one death. Ecclesiastes has another passage that needs to be examined. “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing” (9:5). Meaning, there is no second life nor will we have consciousness in death. In Hebrews, the bible contends that there is only one death and one judgement, “It is...