I prefer to deny my fears (any fear) about death and an afterlife and to portray myself as macho and as cool as possible. “Death? Nah! Don’t bother me. (laughing to emphasize how casual I am trying to sound.) Never give it a thought. I’m bad, man. I ain’t got time to worry about that nonsense. (laughing cockily). I’m livin the life, man. Ain’t got time.”
Any data to back that up?
Hmm, I guess I never really pursued projects and attached a lot of importance to completing them. “Vanity of vanities!” / “Futility of futilities!” / “Absolutely meaningless!” - Ecclesiastes 12:8 and much that preceded it rang very true for me.
But then there is this dramatic assertion that meaning and purpose do exist, in God.
“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.” - Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
To me the value of that is profound relief from meaninglessness. But for for others, for whom the promise or threat of an afterlife is more persuasive, that text seems to allude to that too.
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I am. Modern Jews believe all sorts I’m sure. Like modern Christians. Which isn’t relevant.
Just the word of a Rabbi and Jewish acquaintances.
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This is five years old…
What a Jewish person must believe to receive the life of of God in them and become a new creation, is that Jesus is the Messiah. That’s all that matters.
Rom 2:28 A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.
Gal 6:14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. 16 Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.
A Jewish person is like any other person, they need to be set free from their slavery to sin and the devil. That only comes through being united with Jesus in His death and resurrection. What’s good for the gentile is good for the Jews.
The Good News of Jesus is for all.
Here’s an interesting graph @Klax on percent of each religion believing in life after death.
I am sorry, @NickolaosPappas , if this is diverting too much from the OP. Let me know and I can start this somewhere else.
Wow, and I thought Christians were all over the place. That article doesn’t seem to treat categorical statements about Jewish belief in an afterlife very kindly. Too much diversity to make blanket statements.
Vinnie
The 32% agnostic/atheist/nothing category sticks out at me…
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So 6%+ of conservative Proddies DON’T believe in life after death?! And 32% of agnostics do!
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No its fine. Its interesting. So half Jews believe jn a destructiom of the soul? Wow
Also how can the Buddhist believe in the afterlife? Theur goal is to end the cycle of reincarnations and cease to exist from this mysery existance not to go to heaven
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Yea its an oxymoron
not sure–maybe that’s a problem with the survey–we interpret the questions in a unique way, not the way others would. Maybe some believe that reincarnation is an after life; I think that some folk Buddhists have widely varying views.
Agnostics I can see thinking there could be an after life, though, wouldn’t you? “I don’t know.” 
Well the fact that you can even reincarnate as an ant ,i dont know of that makes it an afterlife
Doesnt make sense. If they do believe in an afterlife then they are not agnostics no? Its like me telling im an atheist but i do believe in God
Probably goes to show how much mixing there is of religious ideology and how all faiths can be changed by ever evolving philosophies and the mainline views of others.
Vinnie
Yeah true. Kinda stupid though to take someones else religion practise or something else about it and mix it with yours. Like if you dont like your current one why dont convert to another? All this mixing thing shows that the religion youve now created its false.
If you think about it I think Jews and Christians did the same. In the former case early Jews with little conception of a soul or afterlife but later on we see developments in this area due to foreign interactions so that by the time of Jesus many believed in the resurrection of the dead. Nature of souls is still wishy washy but may have developed as well. Many think Greek philosophy influenced Christianity. The issues of immortal souls driving the body is one example. All religions evolve and change over time. Augustine used a mistranslation of Romans 5 and built a whole doctrine of original sin that carried on to the present day. How much Christian thought has been influenced by this? If religions don’t grow and evolve then they die.
Vinnie
Im sorry but the core message of Christianiry and Judaism never changed. We believe in Jesus as the first Christians did(and i assume jews believe still in YWhW. Christianity never “evolved” to believe in other things. What i was saying is that for example by believing in the afterlife Buddhists go contrary to the words of Buddha himself.
I mean you could say the same that by us believing in evolution we go against what Christ believed ,but hey we cant know what he meant when he quoted adam and eve. Although i do believe they might have existed
What in your view is the core message? I see a lot of core messages from different groups of Christians.
For some the core message that if you don’t believe in Jesus you go to hell and are tortured for eternity.
My core message is that God incarnated himself, suffered and died for us and was resurrected.
Mine doesn’t involve penal substitution, hell, original sin or many other commonly believed doctrines. It also doesn’t stress giving your intellectual consent to “facts” of history as a requirement for salvation.
Vinnie