Cultural Conceptions of the After-Life

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the Indian cultures, such as the Aztecs, Inca and the Maya, believed in an immortal soul, had ceremonies and beliefs which helped them reconcile themselves to it and believed that the body merely became undead and it took on the influences of the unseen powers. The author points out that the Greek philosophers strongly influenced the early apostate Christian thinkers who accepted the immortal soul teaching into their doctrine, even though it had no biblical basis; therefore, in the Christian/Catholic conception of death, Jesus frequently spoke of everlasting life. The paper relates that Judaism holds that man has an immortal soul that survives the death of his body; when an individual dies, his soul still lived on in another realm, while his body lay in the grave to await the physical resurrection of all the dead here on earth.

From the Paper:

"The Greeks, having formulated many gods in their mythology, were also concerned with the dead and their destination. According to their myths, the one put in charge of that realm of murky darkness was the son of Cronus and brother of the gods Zeus and Poseidon. His name was Hades, and his realm was named after him. The Greeks had frightening stories of how the souls of the dead reached Hades. Charon rowed the ferry that transported those who had recently died from the land of the living to the underworld. Charon required payment for his ferry service, and the Greeks often buried their dead with a coin under the tongue to make sure they had the proper fare. Dead souls who could not pay were kept on the wrong side of the river, in a kind of no-man's land, and might return to haunt the living.) "

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