A change in how we've thought about the afterlife, and what it might mean

A number of pagan religions held that the afterlife was dismal, anhedonic, not worth discussing, or unknown. These religions are now all extinct.

Before I go through some of these pagan religions (and I mean nothing derogatory by that term), a note. Paganism, more than nearly any surviving religion, was not organized on the basis of doctrine. This was perhaps especially true of doctrine about the afterlife. Thus I will focus on what appears, on the basis of our sources, to have been dominant views of the afterlife in these cultures.

A lot of religions that lost the battle of ideas and do not survive today (except through pagan revivals) believed in what I am terming a Sheol-like stasis as the fate of most or all people that died. A Sheol-like stasis afterlife is a state of semi-existence that is certainly no reward. If anything, it may be somewhat unpleasant. It is dark, dim, without the pleasures of the flesh and underground. It is surely no coincidence that it sounds a lot like the grave. For religions that believe in a Sheol-like stasis, Good behavior in life does not influence your condition much after you die. The term Sheol is taken from the early Jewish scriptures which seem to suggest it is the fate awaiting us all. Some writers think that at one point the Jews held this was the ultimate fate of everyone, with ideas of eternal reward and punishment only entering later. Certainly, the faction known as the Sadducees during the time of Jesus time thought this. Also, there are no clear references to the afterlife in the books of Moses, the core text of Judaism that Jews call the Torah.

Here’s a sample of pagan religions that were pessimistic about the afterlife, or didn't think about it much.

Hellenistic paganism: There are various ideas of a paradise, e.g. the Elysian fields, but in the main, the Greeks seemed to think they would face a Sheol-like stasis after death.

Mesopotamian paganism: Sheol-like stasis. The dead eat dust and live without light. I would conjecture- purely on the basis of shallow reading-that, this was a metaphor for the grave. Some of the educated might have understood this as a kind of tacit admission that nothing awaited us after death.

Norse Paganism:The most famous conception that comes down to us suggests that most of the dead would dwell in a Sheol-like stasis. This place came with a real sense of suffering and hunger as well- it’s not by accident that our word for hell comes from their realm of the dead and its queen, Hel. For a warrior elite, there was a paradise, though notably of finite duration until Ragnarok. There were rival conceptions that made a blessed afterlife more open to all. Hel and its Sheol-like stasis may have been the older belief system.

Egyptian paganism:The Egyptians did believe in a heaven for the virtuous and eventual non-existence for the wicked. I mention them though because the continued existence of the vast majority of the population who could not afford the ritual preparations needed is unclear- least at some stages of the evolution of the Egyptian religion.

Finnish Paganism:Sheol-like stasis interesting fact- it may be on the other side of a river, which you must cross with the help of an old. A river crossing with the help of an old man seems to be have been part of the deep Proto-Indo European mythology.

Arabic paganism: The Arabic pagan position on the afterlife is somewhat unknown, but it is interesting to include here because it appears to have been relatively uninterested in the question, with the afterlife not especially important. I conjecture, on the basis of its relative unimportance to the religion, that a blissful afterlife was not a major selling point.

Shinto and other now syncretic religions

I have classified Shinto as neither a living religion nor a dead religion because it has become syncretized with Japanese Buddhism. It is notable that early Shintoism appears to have suggested we were all destined for a place much like Hades. C.f. Wikipedia:

It is common for families to participate in ceremonies for children at a shrine, yet have a Buddhist funeral at the time of death. In old Japanese legends, it is often claimed that the dead go to a place called yomi (黄泉), a gloomy underground realm with a river separating the living from the dead mentioned in the legend of Izanami and Izanagi. This yomi very closely resembles the Greek Hades;

But later Shintoism was more optimistic

however, later myths include notions of resurrection and even Elysium-like descriptions such as in the legend of Okuninushi and Susanoo.

Today, many believers in Shintoism would, I think, draw primarily from Buddhism on their views about the afterlife.

There are a variety of other religions that I wanted to include in this analysis that are now very syncretic or otherwise difficult to reconstruct, including many forms of shamanism.

Some living religions on the afterlife

No living major religion definitely shares the pessimism or agnosticism of these dead religions about the afterlife. There are small groups within these religions that do- for example in Sikhism, some interpret talk of reincarnation as metaphorical. This is not to mention religions that are a halfway house to secularism, e.g. Unitarian Universalism.

My point is that, with a tiny handful of partial exceptions, the living religions believe in a blissful afterlife for believers and/or good people. Conversely some, but not all, extinct religions don’t.

Now let’s review a smattering of religions that changed greatly over their existence to move away from pessimism about the afterlife

First we have the aforementioned Shinto, which appears to have become more open to the idea of the afterlife over time.

I think it’s also quite possible that Hellenic paganism became more optimistic about the idea of an afterlife over time. The Aeneid seems more sanguine than the Illiad, for example.

Judaism is the classic example of moving from pessimism about the afterlife to optimism.

And there is speculation that I mentioned above that blissful conceptions of the afterlife, even for non-warriors, might be of new vintage in the Norse pagan religion.

So there may be a historical trend away from pessimism to the afterlife

Why?

There are lots of possible patterns in the history of religion- for example, a trend away from polytheism. However, my conjecture is that the trend we have documented isn't a coincidence. Those belief systems which suggested that bliss was a possible state in the afterlife outcompeted those that didn't.

You might think “duh, of course, those religions are going to win out, they offer a more competitive package to prospective believers”.

This is probably true as far as it goes, but it only raises more questions. Humans have had religion for a very long time, why didn’t religions suggesting the possibility of bliss in the afterlife win out earlier?

Here I want to speculate. Be warned this is speculation.

My suspicion is that it has to do with class and specifically warrior elites. If you come from a warrior elite, you can stomach the idea of a cold afterlife. You resolve that you need to get as much as you can do done now, for glory will be your only survival into eternity. Further, some of these religions carved out exceptions for the wealthy- e.g. the fate of the warrior aristocracy who died in battle in the Norse belief system, or the fate of the wealthy dead in Egypt.

The poor, for obvious reasons, found it hard to believe that this life was a vale of woes, and nothing especially good awaited them in the next life either. However, during the bronze age (and later in some places) this didn’t matter very much, because what the poor thought never mattered much. If they had other traditions from which they drew comfort, they are not well recorded.

However, as the world moved to conscript armies, the military power of the lower classes increased. So it became necessary to appease them. Glory is hard to obtain for a peasant in a conscript army and does not mean much anyway. Something else must be offered to gather forces and to prevent revolts.

It is notable, perhaps, that in modern times atheism has risen in prominence as we have become wealthier.

TLDR: I suspect there was a shift in the balance of power between the wealthy and the poor, which made the religious preferences of the poor matter more. The heroic individual meant a great deal in bronze age warfare. Later, as armies of the poor came to matter more in warfare, it became necessary to appease the poor, hence the slow shift towards a promise that things would one day be better in the afterlife. This is pure speculation on my part, intended to provoke discussion, and does not reflect any expertise in religious studies or ancient history.

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