hw 55 culminating project.

theological perspectives vs spirits in the sky

My family believes in god. We all believe that there are spirits of dead which surround us all in every way. My grandma always says that she's gonna be watching us after she dies. She believes that our bodies will go away but who we are is embodied in our spirit. She thinks that our spirits will live on forever we just won't be visible to the living. My mother always told me stories about how she felt her dead uncle pull her leg while her and her sister slept. My aunt also told me stories about how she woke up in my old apartment to the sight of a woman in a white gown standing right above her. She told me how she didn't want to move and that the woman looked just like my dads mother. She always tells me that it was my dad's mom visiting him. All these stories freak me out but I feel that it is possible that the dead are still amongst the living. I feel that we are all a form of energy. In physics they say energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Only transferred or transformed. I feel that energy is with us when we are born. The moment we breathe. When we die that energy just comes out of us as a spirit. I really believe that after we die we go through another phase in life. Sort of like being ressurected. We may come bak as another person or another creature. I feel that it is not crazy to think this. Being ressurected is a way for us to live again without realizing that we even died. Roman catholic belief says, "The "souls of those who have died in the state of grace suffer for a time a purging that prepares them to enter heaven." Souls spend time in Purgatory until fully cleansed of
the temporal consequences of sin that were accumulated during life. (Religioustolerance.org). This is exaclty what I think. I feel like once we die we float up into the sky and we face a panel of judges who discuss where you shall spend the rest of eternity. The highest authorities in the sky will cleanse your soul and rid you of every wrong thing and then we will either be clean enough for heaven or we will be spending time in hell for terrible sins. It is scary to think this way but I feel comfortable thinking this way because it gives me a sense of security. I think religion in general gives people a sense of security in that they know that their souls will be saved and they will spend eternity in paradise. I researched catholic christians and it said that they believe in some sort of heaven and hell and they also believe in purgatory which is like a place where people spend some time if they have unconfessed sins. It is like even when we die we aren't free. There are people judging us and sending us to places. I feel that we have all lived before just as different a different energy. For example my physical being has existed before maybe millions of years ago but it was a different spirit in my body. I feel that when I die I will come back as something else. Depending on what I have done in life I may come back as a very honorable thing or not. My mother believes that snakes are the devils pet and she thinks that if we were to be ressurected and come back as a snake, it is the worst thing because snakes are slimy and they represent evil.

In my family we all feel that the dead have powers that we can only dream of. The dead have the power to insert themsleves into our dreams or into our reality. This is how we come up with the idea of ghosts and spirits. catholics believe that they are 2 different things. To be a ghost means that we are evil and ghosts are considered to be sinners and people who work with the devil. To be a spirit means to be at peace and to be a guardian to those you love the most. Spirits are gods angels while ghosts are the devils demons. Putting beliefs into the death inustry makes for people to become scared into doing good. We get scared into not sinning and living well lives because we don't want to be ghosts. My grandma thinks she will come back as a spirit to watch after us. After the death of someone in my family we always feel like to forget about them is the best thing but they have not forgotten about us. Nobody really knows the answer to what happens after death. Religion freaks may believe that we all come back as a certain thing or that we will live in paradise and have many virgins by our side. All of these stories cannot be validated but we accept them because we are afraid. We don't want to think that after we die all we see is darkness for eternity. There has to be something else in store for us. Some religions think that we will come back as something more magical and honorable. Other religions such as catholiscism believe that we will live on as spirits and and entities which cannot communicate with the living but can manipulate the living. The biggest mystery in life is what happens when we die. We hear stories of people having outer body experiences and seeing white lights. Is this true or is this something said to keep us feeling happy that life goes on. Whatever happens when we die is a big secret which cannot ever be validated because evidence is very slim and very forgeable. What we need to understand is that we all live the ways we want to and that we all have a death that awaits us but it shouldn't stop us from living, it should enoccourage us to do greater and whether we are ressurected or transformed into energy, we should appreciate what we have and death will surprise us all as we may all experience it differently depending on the individual.