Is there life after death? What form does it take?
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Do we eventually land up in Heaven, Hell, Limbo, Purgatory, Sheol, or some other place, state, or condition?[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Do we simply disappear and cease to exist in any form?[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Do our souls separate immediately from our body and immediately go to Heaven or Hell?[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Do we sleep for a long time after death before waking up for a final judgment? [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Are we reincarnated into new bodies to live another lifetime on Earth[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]What steps do we go through after death before we end up in our final destination?[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Do infants go to Limbo?[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Unfortunately, the Bible seems hopelessly ambiguous on matters related to life after death. This is shown by the variety of scenarios, covering the above options and more, which have been proposed by different faith groups and writers over almost two millennia.
Each group has based their beliefs on what they regard as true interpretations of key biblical passages, supported by church tradition, reason and personal experience.[/FONT]
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Topics in this section:[/FONT]
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Introduction [/FONT]
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Beliefs about the afterlife: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Limbo[/FONT]
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Conservative & liberal interpretations of Biblical passages.[/FONT]
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Beliefs of specific denominations[/FONT]
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What happens to a person immediately after death?[/FONT]
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A personal view by Cary Cook: " 'After Pascal:' thoughts on an afterlife"[/FONT]
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Hell:[/FONT]
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About Hell itself:[/FONT]
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Hell in the New Testament: its location, temperature & other torments[/FONT]
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How hot is Hell; it it endothermic or exothermic[/FONT]
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Beliefs about Hell:[/FONT]
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The diversity of conservative Protestant beliefs[/FONT]
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Is punishment temporary or eternal? (Annihilationism or Traditionalism)[/FONT]
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Conflicts between secularism and conservative Christianity[/FONT]
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Beliefs by the American public[/FONT]
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Beliefs unique to Roman Catholics: [/FONT]
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Purgatory[/FONT]
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Limbo[/FONT]
From a christian stand point
Buddhist View on Death and Rebirth
...Ven. Thich Nguyen Tang...
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As a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, working as a Buddhist chaplain at several of Melbourne's hospitals and as well as Melbourne assessment prison, I have witnessed many personal tragedies faced by the living and of course the very process of dying and that of death and many of these poor people faced their death with fear, with misery and pain before departing this world. With the images of all these in my mind, on this occasion, I wish to share my view from the perspective of a Buddhist and we hope that people would feel far more relaxed in facing this inevitable end since it is really not the end of life, according to our belief. [/FONT]
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Death and the impermanence of life[/FONT]
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In the teaching of the Buddha, all of us will pass away eventually as a part in the natural process of birth, old-age and death and that we should always keep in mind the impermanence of life. The life that we all cherish and wish to hold on. [/FONT]
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To Buddhism, however, death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of the body we inhabit in this life, but our spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment, attachment to a new body and new life. Where they will be born is a result of the past and the accumulation of positive and negative action, and the resultant karma (cause and effect) is a result of ones past actions.[/FONT]
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This would lead to the person to be reborn in one of 6 realms which are; heaven, human beings, Asura, hungry ghost, animal and hell. Realms, according to the severity of ones karmic actions, Buddhists believe however, none of these places are permanent and one does not remain in any place indefinitely. So we can say that in Buddhism, life does not end, merely goes on in other forms that are the result of accumulated karma. Buddhism is a belief that emphasizes the impermanence of lives, including all those beyond the present life. With this in mind we should not fear death as it will lead to rebirth.[/FONT]
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The fear of death stemmed from the fear of cease to be existent and losing ones identity and foothold in the world. We see our death coming long before its arrival, we notice impermanence in the changes we see around us and to us in the arrival of aging and the suffering due to losing our youth. Once we were strong and beautiful and as we age, as we approach our final moments of life we realize how fleeting such a comfortable place actually was.[/FONT]
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Grieving[/FONT]
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It is natural to grieve the loss of family members and others we knew, as we adjust to living without their presence and missing them as part of our lives. The death of a loved one, or even someone we were not close to, is terribly painful event, as time goes on and the people we know pass away along the journey of life, we are reminded of our own inevitable ends in waiting and everything is a blip of transience and impermanent.[/FONT]
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At a certain moment, the world seems suddenly so empty and the sense of desperation appears to be eternity. The greater the element of grief and personal loss one tends to feel sorry for oneself.[/FONT]
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Some of us may have heard the story of the women who came to the Buddha in great anguish, carrying her dead child pleading him to bring the child back to life. The Buddha said Bring to me a mustard seed from any household where no-one had ever died and I will fulfill your wish. The woman's attempt to search for such seed from houses were in vain and of course she could not find any household in which no-one had ever died and suddenly she realized the universality of death.[/FONT]
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Karma[/FONT]
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According to Buddhism, our lives and all that occurs in our lives is a result of Karma. Every action creates a new karma, this karma or action is created with our body, our speech or our mind and this action leaves a subtle imprint on our mind which has the potential to ripen as future happiness or future suffering, depending on whether the action was positive or negative.[/FONT]
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If we bring happiness to people, we will be happy. If we create suffering, we will experience suffering either in this life or in a future one.[/FONT]
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This is called the Law of Karma, or the Law of Cause and Effect. Karmic law will lead the spirit of the dead to be reborn, in realms which are suitable appropriate to their karmic accumulations.[/FONT]
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According to His Holiness, the 14 th Dali Lama of Tibet, that to cultivate the good karma, our good actions are an excellent way prepare for our death. Not performing evil deeds, keeping our heart and mind pure, doing no harm, no killing, sexual misconduct or lying, not using drugs or alcohol has very positive merit which enable us to die as we have lived.[/FONT]
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The way we pass reflects the way we lived our lives, a good death putting a good stamp on a good life. As Leonardo Da Vinci once wrote in his notebook; Just as a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings a happy death. If we have lived a life of emotional turmoil, of conflict selfish desire unconcerned for others, our dying will be full of regrets, troubles and pain. It is far better to care for the lives for all around us rather than spending a fortune in prolonging life or seeking ways to extend it for those who can afford it, at the expense of relieving suffering in more practical ways. Improving the moral and spiritual quality of life improves its quality for us all rather than the selfish individualism that benefits the elite few who draw most resources.[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Preparing for death and Buddhist rituals associated with dying[/FONT]
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Buddhist clergy often remind their followers about closeness of death, emphasize the importance in getting to know death and take time to prepare for their own demise.[/FONT]
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How do we prepare for death?. It is really simple, just behave in a manner which you believe is responsible, good and positive for yourself and towards others. This leads to calmness, happiness and an outlook which contributes to a calm and controlled mind at the time of death.[/FONT]
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Through this positive and compassionate outlook of life, always being aware of the impermanence of life and having a loving attitude towards all living things in this transient existence we will be free of fear in opposite to grasping selfishly to life due to not having experienced happiness in life.[/FONT]
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Having lead a responsible and compassionate life and have no regrets when death approaches enables us to surrender without a struggle to the inevitable and in a state of grace which need not be as uncomfortable as we are led to believe. A dying Buddhist person is likely to request the service of a monk or nun in their particular tradition to assist in this process further, making the transitional experience of death as peaceful and free of fear as can be possibly achieved.[/FONT]
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Before and at the moment of death and for a period after death, the monk, nun or spiritual friends will read prayers and chants from the Buddhist Scriptures. In Buddhist traditions, this death bed chanting is regarded as very important and is ideally the last thing the Buddhist hears. Buddhists believe that we can actively assist and bring relief to the dying members through assisting the dying through the process of dying.[/FONT]
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Through Buddhist doctrine we are told by Buddhist masters that the final moment of our consciousness is paramount, the most important moment of all. If the ill person is in hospital and the diagnosis is grim that the person cannot possibly survived, the family should call in the Buddhist priest to pray for the loved one so that at the final moment, the right state of mind has been generated within the person and they can find their way into a higher state of rebirth as they leave the present lives.[/FONT]
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The nurses and family members are not supposed to touch the corpse, having to wait 3-8 hours after breathing ceases before touching the body for any preparation after the death. We Buddhists believe that the spirit of a person will linger on for sometime and can be affected by what happened to the corpse. It is important that the body is treated gently and with respect and that the priest can help the spirit continues its journey calmly to higher states, not causing the spirit to becoming angry and confused and may be more likely to be reborn into the lower realms.[/FONT]
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In the Mahayana Buddhism, especially, Vietnamese tradition we pray for the dead for 49 days after passing away, 49 being the estimated time it takes for the spirit to be reborn again into a new life. Some spirits are reborn 3 days, 21 days, 49 days or 100 days after death, and in some cases even 7 years.[/FONT]
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Rebirth[/FONT]
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The concept of rebirth or reincarnation has become more popular in the west in recent years due to the influence of Tibetan Buddhism, especially, the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (by Sogyal Rinpoche, 1992) became a best seller in the USA and has been widely read throughout the developed countries by new generations who are concerned with alternative thinking and eastern cultural perspectives. Naturally people concern with life beyond death was stimulated by the ideas contained in such philosophies and beliefs. [/FONT]
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Nirvana[/FONT]
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The supreme aim of Buddhism is to obtain nirvana or enlightenment. This translated means a state of liberation or illumination from the limitations of existence. It is the liberation from the cycle of rebirth through countless lives up and down the 6 states of existence. It is obtained through the extinction of desire.[/FONT]
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Nirvana is a state that is obtainable in this life through the right aspiration, purity of life, and the elimination of egotism. This cessation of existence as we know it, the attainment of being, as distinct from becoming. [1] The Buddha speaks of it as unborn, un-originated, uncreated, unformed, contrasting itwith the born, originated, created, and formed phenomenal world. Those who have obtained the state of Nirvana are called Buddhas. Gautama Siddhartha had obtained this state and had become a Buddha at 35. However it is now believed that it was only after he had passed away that he reached such a place of perfect tranquility, because some residue of human defilement would continue to exist as long as his physical body existed.
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According to Buddhism if a human does not obtain nirvana or enlightenment, as it is known, the person cannot escape the cycle of death and rebirth and are inevitably be reborn into the 6 possible states beyond this our present life, these being in order from the highest to lowest;[/FONT]
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Heaven. In Buddhism there are 37 different levels of heaven where beings experience peace and long lasting happiness without suffering in the heavenly environment.[/FONT]
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Human life. In Buddhism we can be reborn into human life over and over, either wealthy or poor, beautiful or not so, and every state between and both as it it is served up to us. Anything can happen, as is found in human life and society all around us as we are familiar with in the day to day human world in is myriad of possibilities. What we get is a result of our Karma of what we have dragged with us from previous existences and how it manifests in our temporary present lives.
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Asura. A spiritual state of Demi-Gods but not the happy state experienced by the gods in the heavens above this state. The Demi-Gods are consumed with jealousy, because unlike humans, they can clearly see the superior situation of the gods in the heavens above them. They constantly compete and struggle with the gods due to their dissatisfaction with their desires from the others.[/FONT]
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Hungry Ghost. Thisspiritual realm of those who committed excessive amounts of evil deeds and who are obsessed with finding food and drink which they cannot experience and thus remain unsatisfied and tortured by the experience. They exhaust themselves in the constant fruitless searching.[/FONT]
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Animals. This realm is visible to humans and it is where spirits of humans are reborn if they have killed animals or have committed a lot of other evil acts. Animals do not have the freedom that humans would experience due to being a subject constantly hunted by humans, farmed and used in farming, also as beasts for entertainment.[/FONT]
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Hell. This realmis not visible to humans. It is a place where beings born there experience a constant state of searing pain and the various types of hell realms reads like a variety of horrific torture chambers. Those with a great deal of negative Karma can remain in such places for eons of time.
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To conclude, as already mentioned, none of us can avoid death and if we are not free from the vicious cycle of death and rebirth, we are doomed to the endless cycles of life and death and its paradoxical nature of suffering, of happiness and sadness, youth and ageing, healthiness and sickness, pain and death, all because we are so attached to the existence in the first place.[/FONT]
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The Buddha urged us to prepare for death, to prepare for that journey by cleansing the mind and not being so attached to things, to be able to let go and release ourselves for needing to be, from needing to have. Through this we will not suffer so much as we pass through the final stage of the present life, we can let go, be grateful for what we had but not clutch to it, not try to ensure permanency and cause ourselves to suffer more than we need to. This way we can end the cycle and leave forever, obtaining nirvana and release from the cycle of death and rebirth.[/FONT]
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a buddhist stand point[/FONT]
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Death, Mutation, and Rebirth:[/FONT]
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The Migrant in the Fiction of Salman Rushdie[/FONT]
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Jason R. D'Cruz <infinity@astral.magic.ca> [/FONT]
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Alternately called "wog", "snotnose", and "sniffer" by his English schoolmates (Hamilton 94), the once conspicuously dark-skinned boy is now heralded as a representative figure of contemporary British literature: supreme irony, poetic justice. Whether one adores or detests the work of Salman Rushdie, he is difficult to ignore. After Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the revered Imam and Supreme Guide, called a fatwa on his head on Valentine's Day, 1989, Rushdie gained the notoriety that he was dying for; ironically, the price of his fame may indeed be death. In a recent edition of 'The New Yorker', Salman Rushdie was quoted as writing: "A poet's work...To name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep. And if rivers of blood flow from the cuts his verses inflict, then they will nourish him." (Hamilton 112) Rushdie has always been concerned with giving a voice to the voiceless, with giving the power of description to the disenfranchised, and today, Rushdie is renowned for his brilliantly vicious political satire. However, on a deeper level, his books far transcend the ephemeral relevance of political satire. Rushdie aims to give the power of description to the migrant, a personage who is often described into a corner by those around him (Rushdie, The Satanic Verses 167), a character with whom Rushdie can easily identify. Three of Rushdie's most important works, Midnight's Children, Shame, and The Satanic Verses, draw heavily on the theme of migration. By examining the life of the migrant, Rushdie explores the universal mystery of being born and the puzzle of who one is. One can understand Rushdie's quest for identity by examining his life, his deliberately chosen style of prose, the theme of "double identity", "divided selves" and the "Shadow figures" in his novels and in his personality, and the benefits that many characters reap from being migrants. [/FONT]
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It is important first to study Rushdie's life because many of his life experiences tend to seep into his works. Salman Rushdie is the quintessential migrant and has gained a unique perspective from his rather unique life. Rushdie was born in India, schooled in England, forced by his parents to move to Pakistan, and finally exiled back to Britain (Hamilton 95). Rushdie has never been truly accepted in any of his 'homes': in England he was considered very foreign and 'exotic' at Rugby public school and subsequently at Cambridge; back in India he was ridiculed by his peers for his perfect British accent and considered brainwashed and corrupted by the materialistic West; in Pakistan he is still considered an infidel and a blasphemer (Hamilton 96). In The Satanic Verses, Rushdie weaves one of his schoolboy experiences into the plot of his novel. He recounts how on the first day of school he was given a kipper for breakfast and not told how to eat it: He sat there staring at it, not knowing where to begin. Then he cut into it, and got a mouthful of tiny bones. And after extracting them all, another mouthful, more bones. His fellow pupils watched him suffer in silence; not one of them said, here, let me show you, you eat it in this way. It took him ninety minutes to eat the fish and he was not permitted to leave to rise from the table until it was done. By that time he was shaking, and if he had been able to cry he would have done so. Then the thought occurred to him that he had been taught a valuable lesson. England was a peculiar tasting smoked fish full of spikes and bones, and nobody would ever tell him how to eat it. He discovered that he was a bloody-minded person. "I'll show them all," he swore. "You see if I don't." The eaten kipper was his first victory, the first step on his conquest of England. (The Satanic Verses 137)
Despite the trials Rushdie had to undergo, he maintains that there are distinct advantages to being a migrant for both the writer and the person as a whole. In a BBC taped interview, Rushdie stated: "To migrate is to experience deep changes and wrenches in the soul, but the migrant is not simply transformed by his act, he also transforms the new world. Migrants might well become mutants, but it is out of such hybridization that newness can emerge." (BBC "Conversations" series). He explains in "Imaginary Homelands" that migrant writers have a "double perspective" (19): they are both insiders and outsiders in the worlds they describe. He believes that redescribing the world is a necessary first step to changing it (14): in all three of his novels, this redescription is the prerogative of the migrant narrator. Migration is a painful but emancipating process: "To be reborn, first you have to die" (The Satanic Verses 6). Finally, Rushdie explains that the literary migrant is able to "choose his parents." Rushdie's own include Cervantes, Kafka, and Melville along with reams of Muslim and Hindu poets and Eastern oral myths (Rushdie, "Imaginary Homelands" 21). [/FONT]
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Rushdie admits that after leaving one's homeland for a long time, one has a tendency to romanticize, over-emphasize, or even forget completely, certain details. However, Rushdie also maintains that there is an advantage to this filtering of experience. In Midnight's Children, Rushdie uses the metaphor of a movie screen to explain the perception of a migrant: "Suppose yourself in a large cinema, and gradually moving up, ...until your nose is almost pressed against the screen. Gradually the stars' faces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny details assume grotesque proportions;...it becomes clear that the illusion itself is reality" (394). Although migrants may not be able to determine the precise historical truth of their past, they are able to ferret out what is important in the shaping of their lives. [/FONT]
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This selective filtration of memory is made most apparent in Midnight's Children. Much has been made by critics of the unreliable narration of the protagonist, Saleem, in this novel. Saleem gets numerous historical events and dates muddled up as he tries desperately to convince his readers that he is at the centre of India's history (Rushdie, "Errata" 24). In an essay subsequent to the book, Rushdie reveals that these mistakes were inserted on purpose. He claims to have chosen to insert 'remembered truth' rather than 'literal truth' (24). The theme of blurred remembrances builds upon that of the "perforated sheet" (Midnight's Children 15) in the same novel. At the beginning of the story, Saleem's grandfather, Aadam, falls in love with his future wife only by seeing her piece by piece through a perforated sheet. This theme of the fragmentation of vision recurs throughout the novel. Although his perception is somewhat unreliable in apprehending literal fact, the migrant is able to gain truth from this illusion; migrants can find meaning in existence by situating themselves in history. [/FONT]
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Indeed, it is quite clear in Rushdie's novels that migrants gain insight from their plight. Unfortunately, however, such insight is often silenced and devalued. By successfully blending English and Indian voices, Rushdie manages to empower the migrant. In "Imaginary Homelands" Rushdie writes; "We can't simply use the language the way the British did; it needs remaking for our own purposes...To conquer English may be to complete the process of making ourselves free" (17). In Rushdie's fictionalized immigration office "a woman is by now mostly water buffalo, businessmen from Nigeria have grown sturdy tails, a group of holidaymakers from Senegal...have been turned into slippery snakes..." (Harrison 92). When asked how this can be, Saladin answers, "They describe us...That's all. They have the power of description and we succumb to the pictures they create." (The Satanic Verses 167-168). In his books, Rushdie attempts to give a voice to the voiceless. The theme of multitudinous voices is pervasive in many of Rushdie's novels (Bardolph 210). In The Satanic Verses Saladin becomes a radio celebrity and is known as the "Man of a Thousand Voices and a Voice" (60). The psychic conferences of Midnight's Children contain one thousand children with a plurality of different languages, cultures, and beliefs. [/FONT]
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Rushdie's most powerful tool for redescription, and hence, recreation, is his magnificent prose. With his brilliant word plays and supreme command of the language he fuses his Indian childhood with his Cambridge education. Rushdie recreates the English language by combining it with Indian colloquialisms and Urdu and Hindi words. One of his techniques is to "[insert] Indian vernacular habits into flawless English intoned sentences..." (Dhawan 191). An excellent example of this occurs in Shame: "Barbs were flung through the same lattice: 'Ohe, madam! Where do you think he gets your grand grand clothes? From handicraft emporia?" (67) Another technique is the literal translation of Indian vernacular idiom (Dhawan 192): "May your grandsons urinate upon your pauper's grave" [italics added] (Shame 17). Rushdie displays his erudition with the use of numerous literary allusions in his novels. By way of parody, Midnight's Children contains the line: "Telepathy set me apart: telecommunications dropped me down." (118) This parodies the lines of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland (Dhawan 187): "Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew / Undid me" (III 292-293). By combining the oral and literary traditions of East and West, Rushdie legitimates the migrant experience and allows the migrant the opportunity to "describe himself back out of the corner" ("Imaginary Homelands" 16). [/FONT]
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The duality, and eventual fusion, in Rushdie's prose is mirrored in his migrant protagonists. The identity of the migrant is such that he is torn in two opposing directions: in all of Rushdie's novels the protagonists have alter-egos, or what Jung would refer to as Shadow figures. In Midnight's Children, the introspective prophet, Saleem, is paired with the evil and Machiavellian Shiva . These two characters are switched at birth at the beginning of the novel and live with the each other's families for the rest of their childhood. In Shame, the army general, Raza Hyder, is paired with the civilian politician, Iskander Harrappa: "Hyder and Harappa, my leading men. Immigrant and native, Godly and profane, military and civilian" (283). In The Satanic Verses, the vulgar, self-important Gibreel Farishta, who believes he is the next prophet, is paired with the stiffly Anglophile Saladin Chamcha. The lustful and hedonistic Gibreel annoys Saladin to no end with his resolute Indianess: "Mera joota hai Japani / Yé patloon Inglistani / Sar pé lal topi Rusi / Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani" ("Imaginary Homelands" 11) which translates roughly as: "O, my shoes are Japanese / These trousers English, if you please / On my head, red Russian hat - / My heart's Indian for all that." (The Satanic Verses 10). Each of these paired characters is chained inextricably to his alter-ego throughout his life. [/FONT]
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The phenomenon of dual identity which is so prevalent in the migrant protagonists of Rushdie's novels also occurs in Rushdie's own personality. There is a clear discrepancy between Rushdie, the angry, vitriolic, blasphemous enfant terrible, and Rushdie the introspective, sensitive, and vulnerable migrant (Harrison 105). Also, Rushdie has always considered the writer's role as antagonistic to that of the state. In 1986, however, he found himself backing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua (Hamilton 107): yet another contradiction. [/FONT]
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Despite the confusion and ambiguity that the migrant's existence entails, in Rushdie's novels it forces the character to search for self-identity, to search for the things that made him: this is the blessing of the migrant. Each of the migrant protagonists has a very special talent that allows him to clearly view himself and the world around him. In Midnight's Children, Saleem is born on India's independence day and hence has powers of telepathy. In The Satanic Verses Gibreel believes he is a prophet and is blessed with foreknowledge of future events. In Shame, although Omar complains bitterly that he is a "peripheral man", he is able to connect many different characters and becomes what Robertson Davies might term 'Fifth Business'. Indeed, Rushdie himself embarks on a journey of self-discovery when he writes and the talent that propels him toward self-knowledge is his brilliant creativity and skillful writing. [/FONT]
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Many migrant writers seem to experience the same emancipation and insight that Rushdie does. In Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua writes:It is not a comfortable place to live in, this place of contradictions. However, there have been compensations and certain joys. Living on borders and in margins, keeping in touch with one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an 'alien' element. [...] I have a sense that certain 'faculties' [...] and dormant areas of consciousness are being activated and awakened" (unpaginated preface)
Rushdie's message does not apply solely to the literal migrant. It is universal insofar as we are all, in a way, migrants. In "Imaginary Homelands" Rushdie writes: "It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity. Which seems to me evidently true; but I suggest that the writer who is out-of- country and even out-of-language may experience this loss in an intensified form....This may enable him to speak properly and concretely on a subject of universal significance and appeal." Just like the migrant protagonists in Rushdie's works, all human beings have hidden sides to their personalities: we must all search for the roots and meaning of our existence. [/FONT]
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In conclusion, Shame, Midnight's Children, and The Satanic Verses all deal with the death the migrant dies, the agony of mutation, and the emancipation and self- knowledge of rebirth. One can understand this unifying theme in Rushdie's works by examining his life, his deliberately chosen style of prose, the theme of "double identity" in his novels and in his personality, and the benefits that many characters reap from being migrants. In order to appreciate fully the work of Salman Rushdie, one must look past the politics surrounding his novels and study Rushdie the artist. Only then can the reader develop an appreciation his brilliance and examine his universal insights into the human experience. Anything less is denying his work the credit it deserves[/FONT]
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a hindi stand point[/FONT]
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associates Abraham, Jacob, Jesus, Ali, and any other prophet, angel, saint or Satan together with God ––– so that he glorifies these and others as does he glorify God), then after dying the devils will capture him and torment him and may cast him in the volcanoes and he may be afflicted by many other kinds of punishment.