Belief in Hell (the hell of punishment and eternal suffering) is quite strong here in America. Fear of hell keeps the mega churches full.
Belief in Hell (the hell of punishment and eternal suffering) is quite strong here in America. Fear of hell keeps the mega churches full.
Funnily enough, Buddhist and Hindu Hell is far worse than Christian Hell. The vivid descriptions in the Mahabharata and the Puranas on what kind of nasty tortures await sinners in the afterlife (all specifically tailored to their sins) are nightmare-inducing. I haven't read up on Buddhist Hell, but there is a Villa in Singapore, called the Haw-Par-Villa, which has gaudy representations, in the form of brightly painted statues, reliefs and paintings, of the various creative tortures that Buddhist sinners can look forward to in the afterlife...
At least in Hinduism and Buddhism, Hell isn't eternal, it only lasts until your are cleansed of your sins. Then you get to spend the apportioned period of time in Heaven, with the gods, once that is over, you have to be reborn again and you will be assigned a new birth based on the balance of your good and bad deeds. If you were especially pious or moral, or had some high spiritual achievement, you may be assigned a rebirth as a god, on one of their planets or realms, as a reward, where you may exist in such a form for millions of years. Eventually, that passes too and you will have to be reborn as a Human.
Buddhists of course try to avoid all that, and by achieving Nirvana, they stop the endless cycle of death and rebirth.
Yes, although it is more of a feature of Chinese Religion, which doesn't really have a name, it is a collection of practices and beliefs from ancient China that survive to this day, but it doesn't come from Buddhism, as far as I'm aware.
The ancient Chinese had a similar view of the afterlife as the Greeks and Sumerians did. They believed that all humans went to the Underworld after death, which, though not a place of torture, was a grim and desolate place, where wandering souls were thirsty and hungry, so they could only be fed and given the basic necessities by their descendants, through ancestor worship. This is why even today, the Chinese give offerings to their ancestors, in the form of various foods, as well poured drinks (libations) and burning whatever might be needed in the afterlife. These days they even have burnable representations of smartphones, cars, etc...
The ancients believed that the underworld was for humans, heaven was for gods only. They believed it would be a terrible fate for any human to end up in heaven as they simply weren't made for it and could not possibly withstand the splendour and might of the gods.
Ah yes, it is made clear by the entry, that Tuonela is believed to be identical to Hades, or in other words, the underworld.
You have to wonder where all these disparate cultures have developed the same concept of the soul of the dead ending up in the underworld.
Based on my own astral travel and NDE experiences, I'd say it was probably a result of Shamanic / Psychedelic journeys and the accounts of those that have had and NDE.
My shrink sister from California was telling my daughter and I that she had hypnagogic hallucinations as a child, so did my daughter which was why she was eventually diagnosed/misdiagnosed with narcolepsy. I did too but they were a different flavor, more like astral projection which is what I suggested as a possibility to my daughter when she first told me about them.
In any case, my sister was describing her experiences, one in particular, she said they felt very real but one she said was finding herself in a scene like London with a lurking Jack the Ripper. Could be construed as a former life experience BUT I'm sure an NDE would have the same tenor and for legitimate reasons someone could experience unusual insights into the netherworld. I remember reading about one such event at the very least.
In addition, contrary to my personal beliefs, we visited a couple of 'witcheries'. My daughter and sister started talking to me about dark and light energies ... I'm like oboy!