Christianity with no afterlife

[RobbyPants]

This thread will pretty much be one of pure speculation, but I got thinking about it and wanted to ask all of you.

Imagine when Christianity was founded that there was no heaven or hell attached to the belief system. Either, when everyone died, there was no afterlife or they all got the same afterlife (picture Hades or Sheol). This would remove the biggest carrot and stick associated with religion. It would also make the idea of salvation quite different, as Jesus would only be absolving people of earthy punishment. That, of course, is quite a bit more testable than notions of eternal salvation. It's pretty obvious that not every wicked person dies or suffers in this life, and plenty of righteous people do suffer.

So, to get to my question: What do you think Christianity would look like in the modern age if there were no heaven or hell taught in the religion? How would that affect the number of believers? How would it affect those that do believe and how they preach?


My guess is there would be far fewer Christians, as it's be a harder sales pitch. For the ones that do believe, I'd imagine a lot of lax believers, as they don't have a constant threat of hell to coerce them into being better. That being said, I could also see a contingent of stronger "true believers" who feel a need to be right just to be right.

For further speculation, it's possible the religion (if it survived) would have morphed to keep itself alive. So, absent of any eternal salvation and any obvious divine intervention, they might take it upon themselves to police the sinners in this world. So, if a Christian punishes a sinner, would that be divine retribution? I mean, this type of thing does exist to this day, and that's with people already believing that God will judge them, anyway.

[Jenny A]

This thread will pretty much be one of pure speculation, but I got thinking about it and wanted to ask all of you.

Imagine when Christianity was founded that there was no heaven or hell attached to the belief system. Either, when everyone died, there was no afterlife or they all got the same afterlife (picture Hades or Sheol). This would remove the biggest carrot and stick associated with religion. It would also make the idea of salvation quite different, as Jesus would only be absolving people of earthy punishment. That, of course, is quite a bit more testable than notions of eternal salvation. It's pretty obvious that not every wicked person dies or suffers in this life, and plenty of righteous people do suffer.

So, to get to my question: What do you think Christianity would look like in the modern age if there were no heaven or hell taught in the religion? How would that affect the number of believers? How would it affect those that do believe and how they preach?


My guess is there would be far fewer Christians, as it's be a harder sales pitch. For the ones that do believe, I'd imagine a lot of lax believers, as they don't have a constant threat of hell to coerce them into being better. That being said, I could also see a contingent of stronger "true believers" who feel a need to be right just to be right.

For further speculation, it's possible the religion (if it survived) would have morphed to keep itself alive. So, absent of any eternal salvation and any obvious divine intervention, they might take it upon themselves to police the sinners in this world. So, if a Christian punishes a sinner, would that be divine retribution? I mean, this type of thing does exist to this day, and that's with people already believing that God will judge them, anyway.

I don't think it's any accident that both Islam and Christianity promise an afterlife for believers. I don't think hell is an accident either. That, and not much else, are why those two particular religions have succeeded. Without that particular carrot and stick, we'd probably all be pagan except the Jews. And maybe without Islam and Christianity to persecute them into cultural identity, there wouldn't be any Jews either.

The other 21st century survivors like Buddhism and Hinduism have a rather more lifelong philosophical bent than Christianity or Islam that separates them from pagan religions.

[Dystopia]

I can distinguish 3 basic concepts that are present on mainstream middle eastern religions:
- Afterlife --> This is fundamental to religion because it gives people hope. No one wants to know that life is, in the grand scheme of the universe, meaningless. Religion tells you that this life is just a temporary state of existence that will evolve into something greater. This is silly and false, but it's captivating and it may make people feel better, the belief that once you die your body will perish but your soul will live, as if our personalities were immortal
- Heaven --> You do good things, you go to heaven. The concept of heaven is meant to teach people how to do or do not certain things. It's a moral guidance. A very bad one, but I believe it's intended as such
- Hell --> Works together with heaven, and it's where you'll end up if you screw up. It's a frightening concept and it scares the shit out of people, its purpose is to stop you from doing bad things.

--> Heaven and Hell are basically two sides of the coin, one is for good people and the other is for bad people. If you do good, you go to Heaven, if you're bad, you go to hell. The afterlife (excluding the limbo) is the ultimate goal of religious people (for Abrahamic religions) and it gives meaning to their actions.

In my opinion it's not that Christians would disappear, but if there was no heaven and hell I think Christianity would never have been so successful for so long in the first place - Hell scares people, and heaven is a worthy moral goal, if we take away these concepts the afterlife vanishes as well, and as such there is no inherent meaning for life because regardless of what you do you'll end up in the same state (after you die), and since god is controlling you, might as well do what you please.

So yes, there would be fewer Christians because you are speculating on the non-existence of one of the biggest pillars of Christianity (probably the third biggest next to Jesus and god)

[LostLocke]

Isn't there a branch of Judaism that follows 'Yahweh' and lives that life style, but doesn't believe in any form of after life? That when you're dead, that's the end?

[Crossless2.0]

Isn't there a branch of Judaism that follows 'Yahweh' and lives that life style, but doesn't believe in any form of after life? That when you're dead, that's the end?

The Sadducees didn't believe in an afterlife, but their observance centered around the Temple. With that gone, they quickly faded as a viable sect.

[Aoi Magi]

Even buddhism has nirvana and about seven different hells as far as I know, so without some form of that reward-punishment deal I don't think there would be any religion, and we would probably be left with some actual philosophy without the mythological bullshit (and less crappy hollywood movies too).

Now if we are talking about abrahamic faiths, even without the heaven-hell thing in Christianity/Islam, they would still be a pretty popular religions considering the brutal methods they use to spread their beliefs. If you have to pick between belief and a very painful death( by man or a sky-daddy), I think the choice would be obvious.

[Crossless2.0]

Even buddhism has nirvana and about seven different hells as far as I know, so without some form of that reward-punishment deal I don't think there would be any religion, and we would probably be left with some actual philosophy without the mythological bullshit (and less crappy hollywood movies too).

Oh, I don't know. Gita: The Movie or The Begging Bowl of Fury would probably suck a lot.

[Aoi Magi]

those might be more palatable than the recent biblical propaganda movies

[watchamadoodle]

One approach might be to increase empathy and our sense of connectedness so that compassion for others becomes compassion for ourselves and our death as an individual is insignificant.

There are bible verses like "love your neighbor as you love yourself", "judge not lest you be judged". Those seem to be encouraging Christians to be one with everybody else.

I think Buddhism makes no claims about a personal afterlife. It is one of the unanswered questions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions

[Chas]

No afterlife would render Christian theology incoherent. More than it already is.