Mt. Fuji from around Tokyo
Effect of Believing in the Afterlife
It is reportedly said that about 70% of Americans believe in existence of the afterlife. But, only 32% of Japanese, 26.5% of Hindus, and 11% of Chinese believe in existence of the afterlife.
If you cannot believe that there is the afterlife, you cannot be a follower of Christ Jesus, although you may respect the Buddha or other Asian saints. Conversely, if you believe in existence of the afterlife, you might not become a follower of Satan so easily as otherwise you might.
Believing in the afterlife means to believe that your mind still continues to work after your physical death in this life. Although you lose your physical body, your mind exists out of the brain and the physical body. It means that your mind exists in space in the spirit world as an entity of itself.
As there is no restriction of space and time in the spirit world, your mind has no physical size (even in this world there is no size of your mind). You may also see past and future of the material world. If you believe in the afterlife, you may accept any supernatural phenomena or miracles in this world, too. And, this is the core of the effect of Christianity. Followers of Christianity can accept miracles, including supernatural phenomena. This tendency and mind set can lead to revolutionary movement and development of culture, science, industry, and business. So, there is no wonder that the U.S. leads the world, followed by Japan, India, China, etc.
Christianity has given a reasonable idea on how this material world came to exist: This material world was created from word of the God.
In other words, God thought about the material world, the universe, and the human world with His words to make them clear and have them take concrete states and conditions.
But, what we should think about when reading the Bible should not be a paradise in this world but the Kingdom of God that should be part of the spirit world from which this material world was created by power of word and thinking of God.
Christ Jesus told that we could get into part of the spirit world called the Kingdom of the God, if we believed the God and Christ Jesus. Indeed, the effect we can experience when reading and understanding the Gospels should be of the spirit world but not of the material world. It may be expressed as getting into the Kingdom of the God.
Those who believe in the afterlife or the spirit world are stronger and wiser than those who do not, since the spirit world takes priority over the material world as the God has priority over men.
Anyway, we should think more about the afterlife than this world.
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Mark 2, King James Version
2 And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house.
2 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.
3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four.
4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.
5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.