Social Status Retention in the Beyond: The Phobia of Man

Abstract

Religions involve group practices of similar spiritual beliefs. An individual’s personal spiritual beliefs are experienced within the individual’s consciousness and may be related to others through various religious practices. Through social participation, individual beliefs may be formed and heightened. Religious beliefs may both provide explanations for unexplained phenomena and communicate the essence of human transpersonal experiences. How people live their lives on earth can be influenced by religious beliefs in life after death. This paper argues that human beings have the inborn drive for statuses. All religions of the world placed serious priority on them, so much: in the ranking of adherents and in the hereafter. Other social institutions see the necessity in statuses placements to enhance productivity, efficiency, proficiency, and profitability. Man in his imagination and realization of this, concludes that the right place to acquire the status is here on earth as the springboard to that of the beyond. He gets it first and this will be maintained in the beyond. By the beyond here we mean abodes after the earthly life. Christianity calls them paradise and hell, likewise Islam and Buddhism describe it as Nirvana. African Traditional Religion mentioned it as the home of the ancestors and the dead. Hinduism has its own as the several reincarnations where the individual soul strives to unite with the supreme Reality also called Brahman. This paper investigates Social Status in the Beyond.