A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife by Daniel Quinn

Author:Daniel Quinn [Quinn, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-42869-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

RELIGIONS

OF THE AFTERLIFE

People who in life troubled themselves to lead upright and abstemious lives on account of their religious beliefs often feel disgruntled when they cross over and discover that the lot of the pious in the Afterlife differs not a whit from that of the most debased sinner. They feel cheated and are likely to renounce religion as a sham and a trick. Indeed, religions that in life promised “pie in the sky when you die” find few adherents in the Afterlife. Religions that were primarily racial or ethnic or social in nature have likewise not fared well.1

Nonetheless, religion is a powerful and enduring force among the dead.2 The concerns and focus of Afterlife religions are different, naturally, from those of their earthly counterparts; none are morally prescriptive; none claim to be based on divine revelation or to have been divinely founded; none go in for proselytizing in any systematic way. Here there is nothing comparable to, say, the five pillars of Islam, the five observances of Judaism, the four yogas of Hinduism, the three vows of Buddhism, or the faith of Christianity. No one banters on about Atman/Brahman, Yahweh, Buddha, Allah, the Holy Trinity.3 Salvation from the consequences of sin, original or otherwise, is no longer an issue. Charity, purity, and correctness of ritual observance are seldom pursued as ends in themselves. The Golden Rule, which in life could be pointed to as an underlying principle that all religions could affirm, has little practical meaning in the Afterlife.

It has never been an objective of The Little Book to provide a catalog of Afterlife religions. Even a cursory survey of them would occupy hundreds of pages. In any case, most newcomers have only one immediate question to ask about the subject: “What is expected of me?” and this is easily answered: Nothing whatever is expected of you. Probably half the inhabitants of the Afterlife have no religious connection or belief whatever. Another large portion, perhaps half of the remainder, regard religious activity as a form of ready entertainment, to be sampled at will, as books, films, or television programs were in life. Only the remaining quarter of the populace (to continue to speak in very rough terms) throw themselves into their religions with genuine belief and fervor.

In general, three kinds of religions are to be found in the Afterlife (again, as contemporarily experienced): Crossing religions, which, being based on faith in a life to come, more nearly resemble earthly religions than the others; guild religions, which draw together shades with similar interests and pursuits; and spontaneous religions, which are ignited unpredictably, burn brightly for a time, then (usually) disappear without a trace. In the Afterlife, it is not considered de rigueur to “belong” to one religion and shun all others. Shades who are inclined to religion tend to belong to all and to fill up their days attending one event or service after another.

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