Saturday, June 02, 2007

help for the after life (please tell me ur views)

i believe in afterlife and everlasting life. is just a matter of where do the souls go after the stay on earth- everlastingly. my own theory is there are 4 areas. 2 final destinations are heaven and hell. the 2 in between (aka grey areas) are earth for the wondering souls and lost, outside heaven (for the saved souls but various reasons did not move on into heaven)- its rather complex so i will not attempt to explain, least i wavier others' faith.

so heaven and hell is very clear cut. "heaven is a wonderful place filled with glory and grace"...lalala... (ever heard of this song?) as for hell... its ever burning sulphur and unquenchable thirst is widely known to all. perhaps its the widely known tales and rumors of hell that made the dying so scare of dying. for it will be their final judgement and there is no bail to it. but what abt the dead? how do they move on from there? who will lead and guide them to the judgement room, to the destination and finally settle them in?

wondering souls are common known to Asian culture. these souls be it evil or kind are unrest. they are often looking for someone or something. they are forever at 'work' searching. while i pity these souls, there is nothing we can do.

the Taoist will offer prayers to cleanse those souls so that they may be accepted by the 'other' side; offering food to feed those poor hungry souls so that they will not create havoc or disturb the living; candles and joss sticks are burned to show/ lead the way to the 'right path'; hell notes for the souls to carry on the way- to buy stuff for themselves and to bribe the 'officers'.

the Buddhist will chant sutra to cleanse the souls and release them from suffering and longings of the world. by these, the souls will be accepted by the 'other' side and even if the souls entry hell their treatment will be better, less tormenting. instead of food and stuff, Buddhist doesn't burn lots of stuff for their dead relatives. they pray, do good deeds in the name of the dead and chant sutra to help their dead relatives to promote up the ladder of hell (rumored to be 18 levels!) and be reborn asap.

as for Christian, what do we really do for the dead? hmm... being the 1st generation believer, i have no idea too. all i know is that we 'celebrate' the death of a person cuz he/she is going to heaven with God. after we buried him/she, we will visit the grave whenever and bring flowers to the grave; in loving remembrance of the dead. afterall its the body that is in the grave while the soul (the essence of a human) had already ascended to heaven to be with the Lord. there isn't much to the body since the soul is no longer there, only a decomposing heap of dirt.

--------------QUESTION-----------------------
1) in the event of an unrest spirit found what do we Christian do? note that the spirit does not harm anyone (at least at the point of time). do we bind it? and then what?

2) supposedly the unrest spirit is a chinese, can Christian visit the temple can ask the people there to pray for that spirit to be rested and move on to its destination?

3) better still... is there a good Godly Biblical-based book that talks and deals with such issues?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hmm...
Esther, I would like to ask u a question. For the Chinese,whenever we visit a temple, we will donate money so that they will maintain the place or buy more papers and joss sticks. How about the Christian? I understand that your give contribution too, but what do they do to the money?

ally