Is belief in afterlife essential for religious practice?

Most religions including mono-theistic religions like Christianity, though they reject reincarnation, believe in some form of after-life. Christianity believes that after death the person would go to heaven which is God’s Kingdom, depending on his unwavering faith in God or to hell in the case of unrepentant sinners decided by God and there is no repetition of life on earth.

In Hinduism the soul is responsible for continuation of life after death until Moksha could be attained by adopting a moral life according to the principles of the Bakthi-marga. In the Holy Quran Jannah is mentioned in the sense of an abode that is a reward for the believer in God. After-life in Buddhism is described as rebecoming (punarbhava) where there is no involvement of a self but instead there is a “stream of consciousness”  (vijnana sota) arising from dispositions (“sankara“) that could give rise to a form of consciousness called prathisandi-vijnana at the time of death that could enter another being at the stage of conception. One could see that there is a considerable amount of metaphysical content that lacks empirical evidence in these theories and one wonders whether all that is necessary for religious experience.

Moreover, most of the religious metaphysical views are necessitated due to the belief in after-life and these would include Self, heaven, hell, theories on the mechanics of transmission of being from one birth to the next including karmic information etc. Thus, one arrives at the question how and why religions came into being for that may give an answer to the question whether belief in survival after death is essential for practice of religion.

Religion was created by man in his search for solutions to the human predicament, full of defilement, insatiable greed, uncontrollable hatred, ignorance, self-ego which caused immense mental dissatisfaction and sorrow. This problem was made worse by various physical and mental illnesses and natural evil. Early man was amazed, baffled and terrified by natural phenomena and evil. His inherent inquisitiveness and evolved intellect made him pry into nature and its mysteries and thus developed his science. His incessant feeling of dissatisfaction and suffering made him seek solace and thus develop religion. He worshipped natural phenomena like the Sun, trees, rocks and later he created deity. Several gods were worshiped in Mesopotamia including Anu the god of Heaven. In ancient Egypt a deity named Sobek with a crocodile head was created. Seals discovered in Indus Valley civilisation ruins show objects of worship like fig trees, etc.

As the civilisations evolved the objects of worship also became more civilized so to speak. Greeks developed twelve gods, Zeus, etc., to oversee different subjects. Vedic religion in India developed three gods responsible for the creation and destruction of the world. Pantheism which is the doctrine that propounds several gods and also the concept of identification of god with the universe developed in these cultures. In line with these thoughts arose the Book of Genesis in Palestine ascribed to Moses, the first book of the Hebrew religion which described the creation of the world and life in it. It also mentions Abraham, who had the first humanity’s relationship with God and is considered the founder of Judaism. Three religions Christianity, Judaism and Islam, with a common god, evolved from Abrahamic thought. Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohamed the founders of Christianity and Islam respectively are also humanity’s connections with god. Meanwhile, Vedic culture in India also paved the way for the development of three religions Brahmanism, which developed into Hinduism continuing the doctrinal essence of the Veda, Buddhism and Jainism which took different paths.

It is clear that religion was created by man as a solution to the evil that is a feature of life on earth. Man wanted a definition of the moral existence which he thought could perhaps mitigate the evil that he had to contend with in life. He also wanted a source of solace and he created god for this purpose, yet the god he created in the final analysis is a reification of the abstract composition of the morals embellished with metaphysical artifice. In Christianity Jesus Christ preached mainly on morals and his famous Sermon on the Mount as contained in the Gospels of Matthew emphasizes his preachings on morals, on how a human being should live. He spoke about God as the symbol of morals, the moral Absolute and goodness. He ascribed to God omnipotence and omniscience in order to make people abide by the morals he preached, cautioned by the belief that a supreme being would be sitting on judgement and decide whether they go to heaven or hell. Jesus took the side of the poor, exploited, wretched of the earth and symbolically was born in a manger, he carried the sins of sinners symbolically on the cross. His mission obviously was to instil morals into the soul of people.

To be a good Christian one need not essentially believe in an unempirical after-life, and being born in a metaphysical heaven or hell. One does not need a reward of being born in heaven to do good. The good one does is reward itself. Leading a moral life brings so much goodness to oneself as well as all others. The world becomes a much better place to live in. All man-made evil like wars that abound despite an omnipotent God overseeing the world affairs, would abate if everyone lives a moral life. Cruelty of man against man would cease. Greed and hatred would be controlled. One could believe in Jesus Christ sans the myth, and his preaching on moral life and put into practice those precepts and there by one could be a good Christian. The concepts of god, heaven, hell and after-life were created by man to deter immoral life by instilling doubt or fear of the consequence and encourage moral life.

The central theme and core philosophy of Buddhism is suffering or dissatisfaction (Pali- Dukkha) and the means of ending suffering. This pertains to the present life on earth and there is no need of an after-life for the theory on suffering to be valid for it is something that we experience in our day to day life.  Even Nirvana which really means freedom from defilements greed, aversion and ignorance, which would eliminate dissatisfaction (dukka), could be attained in the present life and does not depend on an after-life. Buddhist philosophy is significantly influenced by its morals and has to be considered in that context. Even if karmic consequences could be experienced in this life, one would accrue the benefits of meritorious living in this life itself.

One may argue that the profound philosophy of Buddhism would collapse if the theory of rebecoming (“punarbhava”) is disregarded. As mentioned above Buddhist philosophy is influenced to a great extent by its morals and its main pillars are the thrilakhana (anicca, dukkha, anatta), the Four Noble Truths and paticca-samuppada. These theories are more or less grounded on empiricism and do not depend on metaphysical considerations like after-life. For instance, “anicca” (impermanence) is an everyday experience and so is”dukkha (dissatisfaction). “Self” in Buddhism is the feeling of “I, me, mine” which we experience but has no reality. The Four Noble Truths deal with the main concern of Buddhism which is dukkha and does not depend on rebirth. Paticca-samuppada propounds a mechanism for dependent arising of all phenomena which again could be discussed independent of “rebecoming”.

Similarly, in Hinduism and Islam the practitioner need not believe in a metaphysical after-life to practice these religions for the good of oneself as well as everybody else. One could practice Bhakthi marga in Hinduism without believing in an after-life. One need not believe in rebirth to practice the comprehensive morals so diligently written down in the Holy Quran.

It is the widely different metaphysical beliefs in religion that destructively divide people into religious groups and encourage clannism, which in the extreme form may even cause religious wars. It is such beliefs that give rise to religious chauvinism and bigotry. Morals, on the other hand, in different religions are very much similar and could be a unifying factor. What is worse, these metaphysical emotional beliefs give the proselytizing cults tools to be used for their unholy loathsome deeds which may provoke retaliation and violent eruptions such as “bala sena”. Though these metaphysical theories and views may provide topics for often uninformed, unwise debate and criticism, as the Buddha said, these different views would constitute opportunities and articles of attachment and tenacious grasping that may lead to conflict, confrontation and even war. If the morals that every religion preaches are treated as the unifying factor, religious harmony so essential for a country like Sri Lanka that eminent priests like Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith advocate could be achieved.

N. A.de S. Amaratunga