“How different religions view the Afterlife” by  Victor Zammit, 2001. 

https://www.victorzammit.com/articles/religions3.html

Victor James Zammit was Australian psychology and lawyer. He is known as the author of the book ”Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife.” In his article, “How different religions view the afterlife,” Victor J. Zammit gives a straight-to-point summary of Christianity, Buddism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Spiritualism about the afterlife. The article is straightforward to read and understand. All the religions mentioned above confirm in their way the idea of the afterlife. Here is the summary of the teachings of these different religions. In Christianity, the soul of a person who dies goes immediately to one of the three places: heaven, hell, or purgatory. Purgatory is a temporary state, but heaven and hell are the permanent states of the human soul. The Buddhist idea of the afterlife is very different from Christian doctrine. The goal of every Buddhist is to achieve a nirvana state. Nirvana means extinction. Nirvana can be achieved through overcoming passions and desires because they trap human beings in the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation. The author Zannit writes:  “Following death, according to Tibetan Buddhism, the spirit of the departed goes through a process lasting forty-nine days that is divided into three stages called “bardos.” At the conclusion of the bardo, the person either enters nirvana or returns to earth for rebirth.” The idea of the afterlife in Judaism and Islam is similar to the Christian concept of the afterlife. Both Jews and Muslims believe that righteous people’s souls go to heaven and of the bad to a place of punishment. Muslims also believe in purgatory; Jews, on the other hand, according to Zannit’s: “Orthodox Jews can believe that demons of their own creation torment the souls of the wicked or that wicked souls are simply destroyed at death, ceasing to exist.”In Hinduism, the teaching of the afterlife is very elaborated. Let us first define important terms. Atman means the deep self of an individual human being. Brahma is an unchanging godhead like the divinity or god. Samsara is an unhappy world of death and rebirth. What keeps the people trapped in the samsara is the law of karma. Good deeds return as a reward and evil deeds as a punishment. Moksha is the state in which the individual self is released from the samsara to become one with Brahma, the main spirit, like a drop of water joining the ocean. Finally, Spiritism or Spiritualism does not base its teaching on faith or believes but on empirical evidence. According to the author of the article: “Spiritualism/Spiritism is the only religion which is based on evidence and direct experience.” Through the actual experiments, spiritualism claims to prove that human consciousness survives physical death and that those who survive can communicate with those who are physically on earth in several ways. This communication can be made through at least twenty different empirically validated processes. These processes include mental, physical, and direct voice mediumship, telepathy, xenoglossy, Electronic Voice Phenomena, Instrumental Trans-communication, Apparitions, Ouija Board, Death Bed Visions, and Poltergeists. Professor’s Zannit presentation of the teaching about the afterlife of major world religions helps college students like myself. His explanation is concise but gives essential points. After reading the material, I learned that almost all of the mentioned religions teach about the idea of purification and atonement. In one religion, it is called purgatory; in another religion, it is called rebirth and reincarnation until the final goal of blessedness, happiness, or illumination is achieved. It is very obvious that the author has an extreme interest in the topic of the afterlife. Suppose I could be anxious to know and ask the professor what doctrine he supports or did his studies and research change his view about this question. I think my studies and learning experience with this question only helped me to grow in my knowledge.  

Conclusion

All my life, I have been thinking about what would happen to me after physical death. Growing up in the Christian religion, I figured out that my life would not end after physical life. My religion affirms that the body dies, but the soul survives. According to my religion, my soul will continue to exist after the death of the body. Before the research that I did for the last three weeks, I have never been so deeply focused on the other sources about the afterlife. This assignment was a good chance to learn more about the issues I was interested in during my life. In my research, I found much interesting information that I did not know, with the exception of what my religion told me before.
In my research, I have learned a great deal about the afterlife. The most interesting part of the research was the point of view of philosophy and psychology. These disciplines, if you would compare them to a religion, are mot biased, but they base their conclusions on the evidence collected through scientific research.
I was very surprised to learn that not only religions but also sciences such as psychology and philosophy study the afterlife question. These sciences do not have faith or belief like religions have based their conclusions on experiments or scientific data. I believe every person who sincerely searches for any existential question such as life after death must consider not only religious perspectives but also scientific views as well.
The most important thing for me to learn was that all major religions teach very similar doctrines about life after physical death. Almost all of them teach about a purification process before the human soul can reach a beatitude. It seems to me that all common elements in different religions are pointing to an objective reality that happens to every person who dies regardless of race or ethnicity and faith. Human nature is the same for all people. We are all born in the same way, grow, develop, and all die. If the earthly reality or destiny happens to all people here in this life maybe, the same thing also happens to all in the afterlife. I still do not have all the answers to my questions. I believe every human being has a desire to live forever and also should always explore these questions. My research should interest all broad audiences since we all at one moment will die, and we need to think about what will be the next. I will finish my writings with a memorable positive philosophical thought better to be than not to be.