The Encyclopedia of World Religions

8 S Afro-Brazilian religions

and beautiful Earth where they all will live joy ously forever. The same themes—an individual judgment after death, then a general resurrection and new Heaven and Earth at the end of the world—can be found in the Western family of monotheist (believing in one God) religions besides Zoro astrianism: J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , and I SLAM . In the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament to Chris tians) there is little reference to the afterlife until the last few centuries B . C . E ., after the Jews had encountered Zoroastrian or similar concepts dur ing their exile in Babylon. Modern Judaism has not emphasized the afterlife as much as some other religions. It is more concerned with the good life in this world and the survival of the Jewish people. Many Jews acknowledge, how ever, that the righteous continue for all time to live in the presence of God. Jews have held dif fering emphases, some stressing the immortal ity (undying nature) of the soul and its reward or punishment after death; others believe in the RESURRECTION of the body; a few have believed in reincarnation; still others have just emphasized life in this world. Christianity, influenced by both Jewish beliefs and Greek concepts of the immortality of the soul, has given great importance to heaven as a place of eternal reward and happiness, and hell as a place of eternal punishment for the wicked. In R OMAN C ATHOLICISM there is a third state, purgatory, where those neither ready for heaven nor bad enough for hell can suffer temporary punishment to purge away their sins and finally enter heaven. Christian ity traditionally speaks of an individual judgment of the soul at the time of death, and then a bodily resurrection of all the dead at the end of the world with a final judgment. Islam affirms a day of judg ment, when the righteous will be assigned to a paradise filled with wonderful delights, and there is a more vaguely described place of punishment for the wicked. In the East, H INDUISM emphasizes reincarna tion based on KARMA , or cause and effect; for every thought, word, and deed there is a consequence. One can be reincarnated as an animal, human, or

Afro-Brazilian religions See A FRICAN -A MERICAN RELIGIONS ; B RAZIL , NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN .

afterlife in world religions Belief in continu ing life after death. Most religions hold that there exists an afterlife. The way in which this afterlife is pictured varies greatly among the world’s reli gions. Some envision a shadowy other world or one similar to this one; some see eternal reward or punishment in HEAVEN or HELL ; some believe in REINCARNATION (or coming back to be born again) in human or animal form; some envision ultimate absorption into G OD or eternal reality. Many of the world’s early religions held that the afterlife was about the same for almost every one. The Ainu of northern Japan considered it a world that was just the opposite of the present world, so that when it was day here it was night there; one alternated between the two. Native Americans often viewed the world of departed spirits as being like this one but better; it was a place where crops and the hunt were always bountiful and the weather mild. Among them, as among many primal peoples, the shaman ( see SHAMANISM ) was an important religious figure who was believed able to travel between this world and the next, bearing messages, invok ing gods and spirits, and guiding the souls ( see SOUL , CONCEPTS OF ) of the departed to their eternal home. For the ancient Egyptians ( see E GYPTIAN RELI GION ), the afterlife was very important, above all for the pharaoh as the supreme human being in charge of all others. The soul’s journey after death required elaborate preparations, such as making the body into a mummy. It was said that the soul would be weighed against a feather to see how vir tuous it was. In Z OROASTRIANISM it is believed that after death the soul crosses a bridge to the other world, which becomes a wide highway for the righteous but nar row as a razor for the wicked. The latter then fall off into hell to be temporarily punished. On the last day God will resurrect (raise up and restore to life in their bodies) all persons and create a fresh