One way humans have devised for dealing with the tragedy of death and the knowledge of mortality is to develop complex visions of what might follow death. It is charged by some that this belief in an afterlife is an innovation of Christianity, and possibly an admixture with Greek philosophy. Christianity focuses on the belief of life after death as a central and indispensable tenet of their faith, however a wide range of ideas exist. Christian denominations base their beliefs of the afterlife on the various interpretations of biblical passages. .
Conservative Protestant denominations tend to base their belief on the literal interpretation of certain passages of the Bible, and symbolic interpretations of others. After their death and judgment, Conservative Protestants believe that only those who have heard the gospel, repented of their sins, and have trusted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior will be saved and attain Heaven, leaving all non-Christians and sinners to spend eternity in Hell. Holding true to the descriptions of the afterlife in the bibe, Conservative protestants believe that everyone has eternal life, and God created Heaven and Hell as places for people to spend the rest of their lives after death and judgment.
Heaven is interpeted as a glorious place, free from pain, disease, sexual activity, depression, where everyone will live in new spiritual bodies in the presence of Jesus Christ. According to a growing number of religious conservatives, Hell is a place where one is simply isolated from God. To fundamentalist Christians, it is a place where people will be intensely tortured without any hope of relief. Some religious conservatives believe in conditionalism or annihilationism: individuals in Hell will be punished for an interval proportional to their sins on earth, and then totally annihilated, ceasing to exist in any form.
Conservative Christians hold four key principles concerning the Bible's passages on the afterlife: it is inspired by God, is inerrant, and internally consistent and infallible.
