Christian beliefs

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Beliefs about life after
death, mainly in Christianity

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Overview:

Is there life after death? What form does it take?

Various Christian denominations and leaders have taught conflicting answers to those two questions:

	We eventually land up in Heaven, Hell, Limbo, Purgatory, Sheol, or some other place, state, or condition.
	We simply disappear and cease to exist in any form.
	Our souls separate immediately from our body and go to Heaven or Hell while our bodies remain on Earth to decay.
	We sleep for a long time after death before waking up for a final judgment?
	We are reincarnated into new bodies to live another lifetime on Earth, either as a human or animal.
	We go through a number of steps after death before we end up in our final destination?
	Infants who die go to Limbo, where they remain in an infant state forever.

Unfortunately, the Bible seems hopelessly ambiguous on matters related to life after death. This can be proven by the variety of scenarios, covering the above options and more, which have been proposed by different Christian faith groups and writers over almost two millennia.

Each group has based their beliefs on what they regard as true interpretations of key biblical passages, supported by church tradition, reason and personal experience. Most faith groups teach that their beliefs are correct, while all others are wrong. It is obvious that all or almost all of the tens of thousands of faith groups around the world are mistaken in their beliefs.

To answer the original questions:

	Just about every devout churchgoer is absolutely certain that there is life after death and that they know what form it takes. Generally, these beliefs match the teachings of their faith group.
	Any priest, priestess, pastor, minister, etc. would be happy to fill you in with the details of what their faith group teaches.
	One might try to determine the truth via prayer to God. However, a pilot study that we designed some years ago indicated that such prayer is misleading.
	Nobody really knows where the truth lies.

Topics in this section:

	Introduction
	Beliefs about the afterlife: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Limbo Conservative & liberal interpretations of Biblical passages. Beliefs of specific denominations What happens to a person immediately after death? A personal view by Cary Cook: " 'After Pascal:' thoughts on an afterlife"
	Hell: About Hell itself: Hell in the New Testament: its location, temperature & other torments How hot is Hell; it it endothermic or exothermic   Beliefs about Hell: The diversity of conservative Protestant beliefs Is punishment temporary or eternal? (Annihilationism or Traditionalism) Conflicts between secularism and conservative Christianity Beliefs by the American public according to polls
	Beliefs unique to Roman Catholics: Purgatory Limbo

Related topics elsewhere in this web site:

	Divisions within Protestant Christianity
	Inerrancy of the Bible
	Biblical inspiration
	American religious beliefs according to opinion polls
	Comparison of American Christian beliefs with those of other Christian cultures
	Salvation Beliefs of modern and ancient Christians Can non-Christians be saved?

Copyright © 2001 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2001-FEB-24
Latest update: 2009-OCT-14
Author: B.A. Robinson

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