SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Today's edition of the Leicester Mercury carries a double-page spread entitled "So what happens next?" comparing various beliefs (religious and non-religious) about death - and what we think might come after. It’s not on the Mercury website, but it’s interesting reading so I’ve typed it up. I've included a photo of the article, as it has some nice pictures of some of the people who were approached for comment by the Mercury.

The article doesn't mention Leicester Council of Faiths and it doesn't cover all the religions represented on it. There’s no Bahá'í, Buddhist or Jain point of view given here. The Council of Faiths wasn't approached to take part in this (as far as I know) which I think is a pity, but a couple of our members are quoted here. The article also contains contributions from a Pagan, a scientist, a pathologist and "Britain's Youngest Columnists, Aged 8". Definitely some diversity in there then!

So what happens next?

So then: death. We like to try to answer the big questions in the Mercury. Here Adam Wakelin and Lee Marlow asked some Leicestershire experts the ultimate one: what happens when you die?

For something that doesn't really bear thinking about, we spend an awful lot of time thinking about it. Perhaps only sex can eclipse death when it comes to all the different expressions we've thought up for it.

When you breathe your last, you don't just die. You croak it, cark it, kick the bucket, push up the daisies and give up the ghost. Put more sensitively, you pass away, meet your maker, join the choir invisible, cross over, go to a better place.

But where and what is that "better place" exactly? Does it even exist?

We went looking for answers. here with their thoughts are religious leaders, scientists and our blabbermouth eight-year-old columnists Dylan and Oliver - who, let's face it, have no less experience on this subject than anybody else.

The Hindu

We are all, whether we know it or not, riders on a great cosmic carousel.

"We believe in Karma" says Hindu priest Hemang Bhatt. "What goes around comes around."

Death is as elementary as an Albert Einstein equation, believes Hemang. Energy isn't created or destroyed, he says. It simply goes somewhere else.

Coal can be burnt to create electricity and light. When someone dies the same principle follows. Our life energy, or soul, passes into another living being.

Do good deeds and it will enter into a human. Be less virtuous and you may come back as an insect or animal.

"A dog cannot pray or cook its own food," says Hemang. "It suffers."

Only when the slate has been "wiped clean" for past sins will someone be reincarnated again as a human.

Be good enough for long enough over many, many lifetimes and your soul will reach Nirvana, God's abode.

"You never feel cold and are never hungry, you stay with God in bliss for billions and billions of human years."

And after that? You go back into a human body and the cycle begins once again.

The Jew

For Jews this life is a preparation for the next. We sometimes get a taste of paradise here, but it is a mere morsel in a draughty corridor compared to the feast we savour in Heaven - provided you've behaved yourself.

"This world is just an antechamber. What lies beyond is a banquet hall," says Rabbi Shmuli Pink.

"When someone passes away it is not the end of the road. They continue on a different plane."

If a person has lived a sinful life there will be no entry to Heaven - at least for a time.

"If your soul is a dirty suit, then the place called hell in the modern world is a bit like the dry cleaners," says the Rabbi of Leicester Hebrew Congregation. "Only once the mud has been removed can you go on to a better place.

"Heaven is above and beyond any type of pleasure we can receive in this world."

"That doesn't mean we shouldn't cherish what we have in this world, and help others while we are here.

"We should glorify life, focus on the here and now and accomplish as much as we can."

The Scientist

Those of squeamish disposition are advised to skip this bit. 

Heaven might be boundless Elysian fields of daffodils and delight, but biological death is nasty, ugly and gruesome.

Decomposition begins with bacteria in the bowel starting to proliferate says Paul Whiting, professor of biomedical science at De Montfort University.

"Gas and all sorts of other nasty things are released," says Professor Whiting. Rigor mortis sets in a few hours after and will last for nearly a day. 

Skin contracts, darkening the face with a five o'clock shadow bristly beard. Blood, with no pumping to keep it circulating, obeys the law of gravity. Ugly blooms of congealed purple appear under the flesh.

After 20 hours or so, bacteria are starting to break down the cells of your body. "Horrible enzymes" safely locked away in these cells when everything was working are released.

These "suicide bag enzymes" - responsible for breaking down food, mopping up injured cells and digesting bacteria in life - now run amok.

The technical term is autophagy. Auto is Greek for self. Phagy is Greek for eat. Your body - that thing you looked after, fed, and possibly even treated to a couple of pints of lager on a Friday night - has gone cannibal. It is, quite literally, eating itself.

Heat and humidity have a large say in decomposition, but flesh and blood usually becomes a bag of bone within a year or two.

So that's it? Well not quite. Boil us down and we're basically just a jumble of billions of atoms. They don't die. They just become something else.

The Pagan

Not entirely sure what happens when you die? Can't make your mind up whether it's one thing or another, or something else entirely?

Come and join the Pagans. They're not entirely sure, either.

Sally Singer-Fraser is a wicca [sic], a Pagan witch, and a firm believer in the liberal notion that you should be free to believe what you want to believe, not what some ancient scripture tells you.

"There are all sorts of ideas about death and dying under the umbrella of Paganism," she says.

"It varies. We don't tell people what they should believe. Paganism allows you to make your own mind up."

There's a fairly common theme - that is, when you die, the body is committed to the earth, and the Goddess, the Earth, takes over.

"I believe your body decays, but your soul, your consciousness, is eternal and is looked after by the Goddess. The Goddess is the creative spirit of the universe.

"She looks after everyone, equally. You don't have to buy a place in this kingdom by going to church or doing endless good deeds. She loves everyone, regardless of their faults.

"Lots of pagans believe in reincarnation. And there's also a belief that you build your own debt in this life - and that if you have been bad, then maybe there will be a lesson for you to learn in the next life."

The Pathologist

Where do you go when you die? The existential answer has given us the greatest stories ever told. Fact or fiction? Who knows? The flesh and blood practicalities of your final journey are easier to map.

You either go to a funeral parlour or you find yourself on a pathologist's table.

No pulse and no breathing are not good signs for any of us, says Angus McGregor, a consultant historo-pathologist at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

Should those symptoms persist then you are as dead as the proverbial dodo. 

Your GP or a hospital doctor, depending on where you die, will generally take care of the paperwork.

A death certificate will be issued if they are sure, on the balance of probabilities, how your demise occurred. You can't be buried or cremated without a death certificate. that's the law.

If you might have been murdered, died as a result of an accident or a possible suicide, succumbed to an industrial disease or simply expired unexpectedly, then the coroner will be called.

The coroner, depending on the circumstances, will probably request a post-mortem to be carried out by a pathologist.

This might be a forensic post-mortem - to establish possible foul play or other factors that may lead to a prosecution - or a general post-mortem to establish the cause of death.

Only then will the death certificate be issued. 

This will allow your family or loved ones to formally register your death and get on with funeral arrangements.

The Muslim

There is precious little difference between the Muslim view of death and spirituality and the version favoured by many Christians, says Suleman Nagdi, chair of the Muslim Burial Council of Leicester.

"They are both very similar," he says. "They are both Abrahamic religions, after all, and they share many of the same messages.

"We see death not as the end, but as a gateway to the spiritual life. The body that houses you soul, that goes to the earth when you die.

"But the soul itself ... the soul never dies."

This is a conversation that could go on for hours, says Mr Nagdi, a topic that could fill every page of today's Mercury.

"It's tricky to give this to you in a snapshot, but, basically, we believe that everything you do in life has a consequence - and that will determine your after life.

"There are two strands to this: i) you have to believe in the oneness of God and ii) you have to be a good person who does good things."

Always? And what are "good things"?

"Well, that is up to God to judge. You can do 99 things wrong and do one thing right, and if that's acceptable to him, then that is okay.

"Likewise, you could do 99 things right and one thing wrong and he could turn you away.

"This is our struggle. It is a permanent reminder that we must continue to choose the right path, not the wrong one."

Britain's youngest columnists, aged 8

OLIVER: I think you go to heaven when you die, if it really exists.

DYLAN: When you die, your soul flies up into the clouds.

OLIVER: You're a ghost when you're dead. Ghosts can go through walls, but not bodies. When you're a skeleton they can get out. They go to heaven.

DYLAN: It's really hot up there in heaven because it's really right next to the sun.

OLIVER: Heaven is a nice place. there are quite a lot of nice people there. You go and join your family. There are no knives or forks so you have to eat with your hands.

DYLAN: It's like being on your summer holidays, but it lasts longer.

OLIVER: Some people say there are quite a lot of nice ladies in heaven and some of them are your slaves. I don't believe it. There are nice ladies, but they’re not slaves.

DYLAN: When you're in heaven your body gets covered with soil. You don't need your body any more and it slowly fades away.

OLIVER: I think God might live in a castle in heaven, like the Queen, but I only think that. I don't know. You only see him on special occasions.

DYLAN: God is in heaven, but he's in space as well. He's everywhere. You can only see him when you're dead.

OLIVER: Hell is like a gigantic prison, 100 times bigger than any prison on earth. You go to hell if you do something against the law, even if you don't get caught for it, like thieving or fighting in a pub.

DYLAN: I think the good bit of you goes to heaven and the bad bit goes to hell. And that bit gets stuck there forever. That's why you need to be good.

The Sikh

Sikh Surinder Singh Jagdev is a civil engineer. He’s from London, where he lived with his family, earning a decent wage while wondering if there is more to life than the one he was living.

In 2005, he came to Leicester to volunteer at the Welford Road Gur Panth Parkash temple. He was supposed to stay for two weeks. Six years later, he’s still there. “I think this is the happiest and most fulfilling time of my life.”

Death, says Surinder, is merely the end of one chapter in the Sikh religion. The body decays, but the soul soars and never dies. The soul is eternal, living on not in heaven or hell – but in the body of another.

“We believe that when you die, your soul enters another body – a body chosen by the creator,” says Surinder. “So a child is born and a soul is allocated.”

The allocation of souls and bodies is not haphazard, it’s deliberate, says Surinder. Your acts in the previous life will determine the body and the life you are given in the next.

“It is why one child is born in depravation, and why one child is born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

“It is here where you account for your behaviour and your deeds to the creator, who is omnipresent, formless, he is everywhere.

“We don’t believe in a heaven or a hell.

“We believe in a life on earth, a journey from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, where one should always strive to do good deeds, because that will lead to a better, more wholesome life when you die.”

The Christian

First things first, says Canon David Monteith: he has no rational proof for his beliefs; no irrefutable “here-you-are” scientific evidence.

“But I have faith,” he says. “I believe that God has made me, that he loves me, and that death – while it’s an interruption – is not the end.

“All that’s valuable in life, all that God has given us, will continue to be held by God in his hands.

“So, while death is devastating and, naturally, there is grief for the ones left behind, it is not the final word, the last act of the play.

“It was St Paul who said: ‘Where is your sting, oh death? Where is your victory?’

“Death is what makes us human, it is what differentiates us from God and, as Christians, that allows us to face death head on.”

So what happens when you die? To the body and spirit?

“The body decays, it goes back to the ground, but the spirit continues to grow, nurtured by God’s love. I don’t believe in reincarnation. Yes, some Christians do, but the church does not teach it.”

It is up to you if you want your spirit to enter the Kingdom of God, says Canon Monteith.

“I like to think that offer is open to everyone regardless – it is up to you if you want to take it.

And you don’t save that place by going to church ever Sunday?

“He doesn’t say go to church. He says love your neighbour and love God.

“I don’t think God punishes you. He welcomes you. It is up to you if you want to be welcomed.”