I. INTRODUCTION Every soul shall have a taste of death. That brings us to a question of what death really is. Generally speaking, the basic concept of the process so called death is build up on the facts that this process starts when the heart stop its work to pump the blood which leads to the brain damage and the failure of the whole systems of human body. When all the system or the functions of human organs are out of work, the body itself becomes lifeless or dead. Furthermore, according to the religious points of view, being dead, as we mention above does not mean that the journey of human soul has come to an end. On the contrary once the soul left the body, it will transform into another living form and will live until the judgment day arrives. ?When all sequence comes to an end, time comes to an end, and the soul puts on the rhythmic or spiritual or luminous body and contemplates all the events of its memory and every possible impulse in an eternal possession of itself in one single moment. That condition is alone animate, all the rest is phantasy, and from thence came all the passions, and some have held, the very heat of the body?. (Norman, A. Jaffares. 1984, p.333) Apart from religious definition of death above, in fact Yeats is neither orthodoxy religious nor orthodoxy scientific. He has his own science, which is an occult one, and his own religion or sophisticated lower mythology and in prose he sometimes reconciles them at the level of mystic. His tolerance in religions resulted in inconsistent and ambiguous attitude as reflected in his Byzantium and Sailing to Byzantium. II. RELIGIOUS DOCTRINES INVOLVED 2.1 Christian Doctrine On the matter of death, according to Christian doctrine of man, God created hu... ... middle of paper ... ... go through relieving its earthly life and will be purified in purgatory. All the evil deeds in human soul will be cleansing so that the soul becomes good and pure again and after that the soul will be united with the body again and he rebirth to lead on earthly life. All the evil deeds and good deeds done in the previous life will done in the previous life will determine the condition of the present life, be it good or bad. The above concept of Yeats no doubt is idealized by him from mixing up the two doctrines: Christian and Hinduism. In fact there is no incarnation in Christian doctrine of man. When a man dies he will go for spiritual journey to heaven (of course after cleansing in purgatory) as suggested by the title Sailing to Byzantium. But W. B. Yeats is so impressed and influenced by Hinduism and may be his love for earthly life so he wants to be incarnated.
The spirit within one is eternal, indestructible, and never changes. Because death is inevitable to all creatures, humans have been perplexed with the concept of death and an afterlife for centuries. Once we are deceased, does our soul become confined underground, or does it transcend to a divine world? According to different religious texts, there are different steps one must take in order to reach salvation and the afterlife. Although Genesis text and the Bhagavad Gita originate from two different religions that do not directly address an afterlife, they both speak of the soul and higher entities, which imply a final resting place for the soul that can be achieved through sacrifice, prayer, and devotion; this in return provides
In religion the concept of life after death is discussed in great detail. In monotheistic religions, in particular the Christian theology, death is a place where the soul, the eternal spirit that is part of you, transcends or descends to depending on if you go to heaven or hell. The argument calls for a form of immortality of the soul and a lack of immortality of the body—the soul lives forever, the body perishes. John Hick in his excerpt from “Immortality and Resurrection” refutes the ideology that the spirit and body are dichotomous, one being everlasting and the other limited. In his view on the immortality of the human psyche, he claims that the spirit and body are connected; they are not too distinct entities. With this proclamation he attempts to prove the existence of life after death by analyzing resurrection from a psychological perspective and through thought experiments.
The idea of the soul varies widely in religious tradition. While these variations exist, its basic definition is unvarying. The soul can be described as the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated. The soul is seen as the core principle of life or as the essence of a being 1. Views on the permanence of the soul vary throughout religious tradition as well. While some view it as a mortal entity in flux others believe the soul is an immortal and permanent unit. These interpretations vary from time period to time period and between religions. These characteristics of the soul are interpreted differently through an Eastern or Western perspective. In general, Eastern and Western Religions, with the exception of Buddhism, consider the soul to be a permanent entity, which is either reborn or sentenced to a permanent heaven or hell.
Immortality is one of mankind’s major apprehensions, and even though it has been mainly restricted to religious customs. People have different opinions about immortality. Everybody defines immortality differently. For some people it is the survival of the astral body resembling the physical body, for others the immortality of the immaterial soul and lastly the resurrection of the body. Basic definition of immortality is the unknown continuation of a person’s existence, even after death. Immortality primarily referred to soul as it like it does not die when the human body dies, but since they both well connected together, when the body dies, soul dies too; therefore, immortality does not exist.
Several of the religions today have their own version of death or the afterlife. Ancient India created one of the oldest of the religions followed today, Hinduism. Hinduism belief about death centers around dharma, which means the person will be reincarnated in another form. Alongside dharma is the Law of Karma, it determines one’s physical state in the next life based on their deeds in their past lives.
There is much belief that when humans die their lives are not yet over. They will live on as something else or they will live as their spirit/ soul. How is it though, that people would be able to live on in an afterlife because once you’re dead you cease to exist? There are three common explanations to how there is an afterlife. The first, near death experiences take place when someone is close to death and can either feel the soul separate from the body, or are able to see what is known as the “white light”. The second, reincarnation which occurs when someone passes on and has a second chance at life as either someone different or a whole new organism is general. The third, resurrection, the way Jesus rose from the dead, happens when someone confirmed dead return to life. Each one of these theories for life after death has a series of truths behind them, however, which one is considered the most reasonable truth? This paper will analyze each theory and conclude with the best answer possible why people should believe in the afterlife.
This life is unknown how long it lasts but during that time the person be judged for his sins and if his bad deeds overbalanced his good deeds, a window from hell opens among him and if the other way around a window of heaven open up. This period ends with the beginning of the resurrection. Different belief from the Platonic dualism theory by the philosopher Plato (429-347 BC) who believes that the soul preexisted the body and will exist after it and that there is another world that is intangible although biblically when the man dies, “he perishes, body and soul.” (Auer105). As in (Luke24:7-30) when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his death and they almost did not recognize him, there is a different world and that can tell be somehow evidential of what the purgatory life is; where the soul detaches from the body and be in the world o
William Butler Yeats, born in 1865 and died in 1939. Yeats is one of the greatest poets that is well known in the twentieth century. Also a philosophical person, Yeats had developed his own philosophy which states, “Yeats developed a philosophy that united his interest in history, art, personality, and society. His basic insight was that, in all these fields, conflicting forces are at work. In history, for example, as one kind of civilization grows and eventually dies, an opposite kind of civilization is born to take its place. Similarly, human personalities can be defined as opposites: the creative or subjective person versus the active or objective person.” (Prentice Hall Literature [page 1144 Yeats’s Philosophy]). With this said, Yeats believed that if you believed there was such a thing called a “soul” you would not only live a life of concentric circles, but indeed there would be this thing we call an “afterlife”. Thus, explaining Yeats’s Philosophy, meaning that we will be reborn depending on whether or not of you wanted to live life, or as he states it in Sailing to Byzantium, live the new life like a monument. Critic Richard Ellmann states, that Yeats’s poetry is based on the opposition between “the world of change” and a world of “changelessness”. Evidence of this is supported in Yeats poetry, When You Are Old, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Wild Swans at Coole, The Second Coming, and finally Sailing to Byzantium. All five of these poems represent change and stability in each poem; however, the change can vary among nature and civilization.
W.B. Yeats, influenced in large part by his free-thinking father, became just that (2322). Yeats poetry contains elements of the mysticism that he studied, whether the double worded meaning of "The Second Coming" or the reference to Spiritus Mundi in that poem, Yeats defied the religious conformist thinking prevalent at the end of the Victorian era.. In his poem, "Sailing to Byzantium", Yeats takes on the narrative voice of an old man, sailing away from his "homeland" to Byzantium, where old men stand in "God's holy fire" (2332). This reference to Byzantium, a city of the Roman empire, would not have been considered "holy" by traditional religious thinking.
As of now, we don’t know what happens after death scientifically. Using God on our side, we say that personal eradication, or transformation to a higher state, or reincarnation, or departure to a shadowy existence on "the other side1” must happen to a person at death.
All religions are all linked in one way or another and it has been like this since the beginning of every faith. Among the most influential religions around the world, Christianity teaches about an aspect of life and punishment after death whilst Hinduism all preach also the same thing about life and punishment after death. These religions are the biggest religions in the world and they have obtained many followers. Christianity preaches that people are going to resurrect after the last and final day of the earth and they are all going to stand after God for their judgement based on whether they are going to heaven or hell. On the other hand, Hinduism think and teach otherwise, they all believe that human beings reincarnate, meaning that only the physical body dies but the subtle body is transmitted to another physical body. This shows that not every religion believes in same after life aspect and this paper will examine their differences.
The view of the afterlife is subject that everyone has thought when thinking of life. Many ponder on this when they are sick, up in age or had a “close call”. Certainly there are more reasons. However, the afterlife is thought of urgently during those times. Afterlife can be described as the life a person experiences after death on Earth. Many religions have mixed views and beliefs on the afterlife which will be discussed to shed light on this aspect of world religions.
Do human beings live only once, or are we granted the opportunity to return after death and experience many different lives? The question of reincarnation has been examined for thousands of years and has been embraced in various degrees by numerous religions. Scientists speculate that even the people who lived during the New Stone Age (10,000B.C.E - 5,000B.C.E.) believed that once a person died, their journey had not yet concluded. Because ideas about a society that lived so long ago are frequently not concrete and can be difficult for present day culture to grasp, many scholars point towards Hinduism as being one of the earliest religions to offer explanations of reincarnation. Hinduism, originating sometime during the fourth millennium BCE is the most ancient of the surviving great religions. The adoption of the belief of rebirth can be found in Hindu scriptures dating around 600 BCE As time progressed, suggestions of reincarnation began to be found in Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, and Christianity. While this is certainly not a complete list, or a statement that each of these religions embraces and in turn teaches the theory of rebirth, it does shed light to the fact that among very diverse beliefs and lifestyles there is a great desire to know what happens after death. In addition to the search about what transpires posthumously, many people see reincarnation as an explanation for many of the great questions about life. Such as, why is there suffering in the world? is there a meaning to life? How can child prodigies be explained? and are memories about past lives valid? Following is a discussion of how the theory of rebirth can answer some of life's most difficult questions and provide supportive evidence coll...
which supports the idea of a hope Yeats harbored lies in the revision process . Richard
Death is a controversial topic that most people in society tend to avoid. Death is often difficult to talk about regarding people. People often tend to lean towards having insight and control on everything in this world. Death is one thing that people cannot have control over or do not completely understand. Death often results in sadness for friends and love ones who wont see that person anymore. Death in a sense is unclear to individuals sense there is no scientific proof to understand what happens when a person dies. There are various beliefs of what happens when a person dies, according to different cultures. Some have a stance as seeing death as termination from existence. Others have a stance on death as leaving one world and having a portal to another life. In a sense comparing these to beliefs death is either real or not real. Philosophically death would be examined through human reasoning. Personally, I believe that when you die physically your spirit man goes to either Heaven or Hell, depending on belief in Jesus. My stance is based on the Christian stance on how you will spend eternity in one place or another. Even though there is no evidence of what happens when you die, when you die you either go to heaven or hell because the Bible and Christian faith have a firm belief in this doctrine. An individual also has a spirit that is eternal.