Lesson video

Hello, I'm Miss Kendrick.

And welcome to this lesson on death and the afterlife, which is part of our Matters of Life and Death unit, which is bringing together a few different units from some different examples.

Now, you may be wondering why have a lesson on beliefs about death and the afterlife when we've been looking at all these ethical issues in this unit.

Well, both Christians and Muslims believe that their actions in this life will have an impact on their afterlives.

Their belief in judgement , heaven, and hell, will have a huge impact on how Christians and Muslims make ethical decisions in this life.

And also the lack of a belief in the afterlife also has a huge impact on how humanists make choices about this life as well.

For example, if a person believes that they only have this life and that there's no eternal life, then they might be really focused on an ethical theory like utilitarianism that focuses on happiness in this life, because they might argue that if this is the only life that we lead, then we should make sure we're as happy as possible.

Whereas if a Christian believes in an eternal life or heaven, or hell, they might say, well, actually, any suffering in this life is insignificant in comparison to the bliss of eternal life in heaven.

So it's really going to affect these different approaches to ethical issues, such as abortion and euthanasia and things like that.

So this lesson, we're going to be recapping those beliefs about the afterlife.

And we're going to look at the impact of these beliefs regarding death and the afterlife on Islamic and Christian responses to ethical issues.

And we are going to be looking at some nonreligious views as well.

In this lesson, we will be recapping beliefs about abortion and euthanasia.

They're not necessarily the main focus, but we do need to look at them in the context of these beliefs about the afterlife.

So I will be referring to abortion and euthanasia and beliefs about death.

And for some of you, this might be a sensitive topic.

And if that applies to you, then you might want to do the rest of this lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support you.

For the session, you're going to need a pen or pencil, a different coloured pen or pencil to make additions and corrections to your work.

And you're going to need some paper as well to write down your answers.

So if you don't have those things in front of you now, then here's your opportunity to quickly pause the video and run and get them.

And just make sure you've gotten rid of any distractions where possible, so you can be fully focused on this lesson.

So we're going to start by recapping Christian beliefs about the afterlife.

I'm not going to go into everything in full detail, but I'm going to give you a bit of an overview of Christian belief as a reminder, because hopefully, you will have looked at the Christian beliefs unit before you looked at the themes units.

So Christians believe that when you die, Jesus will judge who goes to heaven, hell.

And this will be based partly on who believes in him, and partly on people's actions.

So different Christians do have different beliefs here.

Some Christians will believe that people are judged fully on their actions.

Others believe that they are judged only on their faith.

And many Christians are somewhere in between.

They believe that both faith and your actions are really important.

Evidence for this is the parable of the sheep and the goats.

And this is a story Jesus told about the day of judgement to describe how God would separate those who helped one another and did good things from those people who didn't help others.

It's not even people who did bad actions, it's people who failed to do good actions.

And in this parable, those people who helped others go to heaven and those who don't help others are sent away.

And many Christians say sent away to hell.

One more belief about the afterlife is that, for Christians, they generally believe that Jesus resurrection is evidence that they will also be resurrected and have an eternal life and have an afterlife as well.

So they would often say that this is the reason for their belief in an afterlife, belief in that hope.

And they would say that those things that Jesus taught about the afterlife have authority because of his resurrection and the belief that he is God.

Now that we've had that recap, we're going to pause and we're going to see how much we can remember of those ethical theories as well.

So the next questions you've got are going to be asking about things like situation ethics and the sanctity of life.

So, do and just keep about what I've just recapped in your mind as you answer them, but also see if you can think about the ethical theories that we've looked at in this unit as well.

So we're going to recap Islamic beliefs about the afterlife before we, again, answer some questions on Islamic views about some of those ethical theories and some of those ethical issues as well.

So Muslims believe that when you die, Allah will judge a person based on their actions and that everything a person has done would have been written down by the angels Raqib and Atid.

So Muslims believe that Raqib sits on your right shoulder and writes down all of your good deeds and Atid sits on your left shoulder and writes down all of your bad deeds.

And a common misconception there is when I tell students that, lots of them get this image in their head, which I think comes from the Simpsons, where you have an angel on one side telling you to do good things and a devil on the other side, telling you to do bad things.

That's not what Raqib and Atid are like.

They are simply recording your deeds.

So Atid isn't bad.

For example, he's not telling you to do bad deeds.

He's just writing down your bad deeds.

The belief in Raqib and Atid is shown in this quotation, "And indeed, appointed over you are keepers, "and noble and recording.

"They know whatever you do." Muslims was also believe that when they're in Barzakh, in the grave, it's a bit like a veil between this life and the next, they will be asked what their religion is, who their God is, and whether they believe in the prophet Muhammad.

They believe that on the day of judgement , God will judge whether people go to an eternity in heaven, which is described as being sort of paradise, where a person has everything that they need, or going to hell, which is described as a place of punishment and torture.

So that's a recap on the Islamic view on the afterlife.

Now you're going to pause the video and answer some questions on Islamic beliefs about the afterlife and also on their responses to some ethical issues.

Well done for answering those questions.

Now, one of the things that the questions didn't ask you to do was to make links between the afterlife and those beliefs about euthanasia and abortion, and stewardship was on there as well, wasn't it? Now I asked you first to recall a couple of beliefs about the afterlife and then asked you for those overall responses to those issues.

And what we're going to look at now is making clear links between those two things, between the beliefs about the afterlife and the beliefs about the ethical issues.

And this is a really good way of showing that you really understand a religion.

Religions are not just a set of disconnected beliefs.

They're more like a web.

So if one belief was affected for Christian or Muslim or something like that, then that's going to affect lots of other beliefs as well.

In Christianity, for example, the belief that Jesus is God affects Christian beliefs about God himself.

So what is the Godhead likes? So that's going to affect beliefs about the Trinity, and then that's going to affect beliefs about conversion and the belief that Christians receive the Holy Spirit, it's going to affect beliefs about communion and Jesus presence in communion, it's going to effect beliefs in salvation.

So what we can see is that if you poke one part of the web, then there's like a ripple effect, that affects everything else as well.

So showing that you understand these connections between different parts of a religion or religious belief or religious practise is a really good way to show that you understand the religion.

And you just need to make sure these links are authentic to that religion.

What that means is you need to make sure they do fit with those religious beliefs, that you've not made them up or guessed.

And because if we start to guess, then we're not going to really reflect true religious belief, are we? We're just going to, oh, we're going to be guessing.

And we want to avoid guessing.

We want to have real knowledge.

And we're going to show that off in the next task we're going to do.

So on the next slide is a port slide and you have got a table.

And this table is actually going to have three rows, but we're just going to do one row at a time.

And I want you to give yourself lots of space when you copy it out.

So on this table, you've got an issue.

The first one is abortion.

And in that first column where it says what the issue is, it's got a couple of questions.

And then you've got a column for Christianity and a column for Islam.

In each of those columns, I want you to explain what the Christian or Islamic view is on that issue, in this case, abortion.

And I want you to specifically link it to a belief in the afterlife.

So you could focus on judgement for example, and it's often going to be a useful one, but don't just use that every time, because you don't want to be repeating yourself too much.

You want to be able to have a variety of answers.

So have a look at the next slide.

And when you're done, play the video again, and I'll give you some answers.

I hope you going okay with this table.

Now you need your different colour pen here so that you can add in your answers and you might have brought up some slightly different ideas to me, that's absolutely fine.

What we want to make sure you've got is some really specific detail and then not being vague.

So for example, you could have just written in both boxes, Christians believe that they will be judged on whether or not they allowed abortion.

And you might say Muslims believe that they will be judged on whether or not they allow abortion.

Now, both of those things are technically true, but they're very, very brief.

They're not really going into much more depth.

And you're saying the same thing twice.

And in an assessment, you won't get marks for saying the same thing twice.

So if you've only got quite brief things, then you're going to pause the video in a moment and add to your answer.

And in both of these, I've got quotations as well, which are always really helpful to back up our reasoning.

So what do Christians say? So some Christians will say that abortion is okay in some situations.

Jesus said, "Love your neighbour as yourself." Therefore, we will be judged on how loving we've been to each other.

This means that Christians will try and do the most loving things so that they can go to heaven when they die.

Now here, the answer is talking about situation ethics.

So even though it doesn't say that specifically, you can add that in.

We've got a quotation, and we've got the idea of being judged on whether or not a person is being loving rather than being judged on a hard and fast rule, like do not murder.

You could also talk about that.

You could say that Roman Catholics believe that life begins at conception, and therefore, they might say that abortion is murder.

And you could also talk about it being the most loving thing to do in terms of the situation that the mother might find herself in.

Or you might say that actually it's more important to be loving towards the unborn child than towards the mother, and use that argument as well.

You can talk about the sanctity of life as well.

So, basically, I've just listed lots and lots of things you could include in your answer.

Muslims believe that we'll be judged for our actions.

The Qur'an teaches that life should be valued, and therefore, abortion is generally forbidden or Haram, because of the quotation, "And it is not possible "for one to die except by permission of Allah "at a decree determined." So that means that it's not lawful.

It's not allowed for an innocent life to be taken unless it's by one of Allah's decrees.

In that case, it would be capital punishment, and perhaps lesser of two evils.

As Muslims will be judged on their actions, though, they'll avoid abortion as they don't want to go to hell.

You could also put in there that they may allow abortion in the cases where the woman's life is at risk.

And same thing for Roman Catholics as well.

In that scenario, they would say the main aim of the procedure is not to terminate the pregnancy, but to save the mother's life.

And so they would say that that's acceptable because it's a side effect that they would say is a very, very bad one, because they would say that it's not a good thing to lose that life.

But the main aim is not to terminate the pregnancy.

The main aim is to save the mother's life.

So both Christians and Muslims would agree with that view on abortion.

So pause the video now and add to your own answers.

And then we'll go through the next section.

So when we're talking about euthanasia, we might see some quite similar things to abortion, but we do want to try and make sure we're not repeating ourselves, that we're using different evidence, because again, that's a really good way to revise and show your knowledge.

So let's look at the Christian view.

And again, this is not the only view in that from Christianity.

Some Christians are against euthanasia.

This is because they think it is wrong to take human life.

In the Bible, it says, "Created in his image." This means that people are special because they are like God.

Destroying human life is a sin, which will be punished in the afterlife.

So this could also link to the command, not to murder.

And they would say that human life is special and therefore it should never be taken.

They'd say that suffering in this life is worthwhile for the sake of having an eternal reward in heaven, for example, rather than a view that doesn't believe in an afterlife that might say, well, we just want to reduce suffering in this life as much as possible because it's the only life we live.

So let's look at the Muslim view.

Muslims would say euthanasia is wrong.

And this is because only Allah can give or take life.

In the Qur'an, it says, "And it's not possible "for one to die except by permission of Allah "at a decree determined." So we've used the same quotation here, and this means it's up to Allah to decide when we die, not us.

Destroying human life is a sin, which will be punished in the afterlife.

So again, we've got this different view from Islam, but again, very strongly against euthanasia.

So again, we're going to pause the video and we're going to look at one more section.

So stewardship, I think sometimes students know euthanasia and abortion very well, but often don't know stewardship as well.

So we do need to make sure we understand that one because it involves quite a lot because it involves animal testing.

It involves use of animals for food.

It involves responses to the environment and environmental issues as well.

So do make sure you know that really well.

Piece of the environment just here and taking part in the lesson.

So Christians believe that God gave them a responsibility to care for creation, "I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals." If we do not care for the environment, it will affect other people, and this is not loving.

Christians believe that we will be judged on how loving we've been.

Therefore, we will care for the environment or we should care for the environment so that we can go to heaven, so that they can go to heaven when they die, so if I include that slightly at the end.

So this is focusing partly on caring for other humans through caring for the environment.

That's something that Muslims would agree with as well.

And also just the sense of responsibility for God's creation.

Christians would generally say that creation is valuable in and of itself because it's made by God.

Just like if someone you loved created a beautiful art piece, or maybe even a less beautiful art piece, but one that they really cared about, you would treat it well, you wouldn't bash it about or damage it because you would want to love it just as they loved it as well.

You might say it's inherently valuable because it's made by them.

So that'd be another reason why Christians would have a focus on stewardship.

Muslims believe that they will be judged on whether they've been good Khalifahs when they die.

This means that it's important to look after the environment if humans want to go to heaven when they die.

So in Islam, there is a specific belief that they will be judged on whether or not they've cared for the environment.

There's less of a focus on that in Christianity.

Although I wouldn't say it goes against Christian views, to say Christians would be judged on whether or not they've treated the environment well.

Another thing that you could include for the Islamic view is the Ummah, especially when it comes to things like climate change and other environmental issues, Muslims would say, well, that's going to affect the members of the Ummah in the present, but also in the future as well.

They don't want to pass on a destroyed world to future generations of Muslims. So that's another thing you can include here.

So some key points to keep in mind before we do some quick fire questions.

When we are looking at the idea of death and the afterlife and its impact on these ethical issues, there's a few things you need to keep in mind.

So firstly, the idea that life is valuable regardless of the quality of that life.

So, many Christians would say, and Muslims would say that, even if a person is living in suffering, their life is still valuable.

And that doesn't mean that their life can be taken.

There's an eternal perspective of life or on life as well.

So the idea that this life is quite short in comparison to all of eternity.

So again, that means that if a Christian or a Muslim doesn't believe that this life is all that there is, maybe they'd be willing to make some really big sacrifices in this life for the sake of the next.

And finally, there's the belief that God is an authority on what is moral.

So that means that they would say, though, humans sometimes go, well, we think that it would be okay to do this.

We think it might be okay in this situation to take an innocent life.

But if it says in Bible or the Qur'an that that is not moral, then they would say that it isn't, that God's authority is what should be followed.

And this is quite an important thing to keep in mind because as we look through history, culture really changes on what it thinks is socially acceptable or morally acceptable.

There's things in our culture now, which 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, were not considered moral at all.

And so there's this question of whether or not morality is just a result of the culture and the time in which we live or whether morality is an eternal thing that's been set in place by God.

And religious people will often argue that those moral rules are eternal, that they're set in place by God, that it doesn't matter what time or coach you're living in or what situation you're in, it's always wrong to lie, for example.

But there will be disagreement.

There will be some Christians or Muslims who might say there's some circumstances in which it is okay to lie.

That was just the example that popped into my head.

So we're going to answer some quick fire questions.

And just as we go through these, these different questions, and also as we've looked at different ideas in this lesson today, just remember that for humanists, as I've said several times, they're going to have a different perspective on lots of these issues, because partly of that belief that they are not going to be judged in an afterlife.

They will be judged only in this life by the standards of their society, and they'll work to bring about the greater good for themselves, but also others as well.

I don't want you to get the impression that they're only out for their own good.

Many humanists will sacrifice much for the good of others as well.

But the focus is very much on that being driven by the belief that this is the one life we lead and they would want to leave a positive legacy and positive consequences to their actions in this life.

So let's do some quick fire questions.

Which religion believes in the sanctity of life because humans are made in God's image? That is just Christians.

So Muslims do not believe that humans are made in God's image, but they do believe that humans are made specially by God.

Which religion follows situation ethics? Christianity, and when I say follow situation ethics, some Christians will follow situation ethics, but not all.

Don't do that.

And which of the definitions below best fits with the term utilitarianism? To bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

Which of the groups below is most likely to follow utilitarianism? Humanists, because it's a nonreligious ethical theory.

Which of the beliefs about the afterlife below fits with Islam? Humans will be asked three questions in the grave.

So the others are all from Christianity.

When do Roman Catholics believe life begins? At conception.

When do you many Muslims believe ensoulment takes place? So when a foetus and has gets it's soul.

120 days, which is around four months.

And well done for all of your hard work in this lesson.

So, this hasn't had a lot of recap.

So a little bit of revision in there, but also just practising bringing in that belief in the afterlife to those different questions.

And in some themes, you might get questions such as how might beliefs in the afterlife affect religious people or Christians or Muslims today, and influences where does after that? And you could talk about these ethical issues in terms of an influence.

Muslims will be influenced to not allow abortion or not allow euthanasia or something like that.

So again, well done for all of your hard work and you can now do the exit quiz.