This topic has the possibility of getting icky quickly, So as nice as wiccan put it, I'll say it bluntly for anyone who MIGHT come in and make this thread get deleted:
Under no circumstance is anyone to berate, pick at, talk badly upon, or 'do/say' anything you wouldn't want done/said about how you personally feel about religion.
That being said, Donte's version of "hell" is aligned greatly with some religions where basically you get your fire and brimstone, do not pass go, end of your eternal soul.
Other religions have something along the lines of different versions of "hell" depending on how good or bad you were in your life time.
While some have a belief that you just pass out and move to the next life.
This may help with any questions you may have as well:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation "Within Japanese Zen, reincarnation is accepted by some, but wholly rejected by others." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen#Zen_in_Japan
I think if you dig for it, you can probably make a lot of fiction work for you if you do the research. It's my belief that
Rumiko Takahashi never gave MUCH in depth thought about what she was making. She's very much a big picture author who forgets a lot of the details along the way, which is why Inuyasha as a whole is riddled with a great deal of plot holes. You can ask anyone who has ever read the manga in part or full, and they'll probably be able to give you at least 3 - 5 plot wholes that make the whole Inuyasha/kagome pairing an issue, as well the jewel, kagome and a few other things.
case: to make it so inuyasha could get to the future there was a jewel shard in the noh mask. This jewel shard possessed the mask that kagome's great-great-great? grandfather sealed away according to Jiji. But Kagome at the end of both manga and anime clearly has a full jewel in the end. She makes a wish on it, yet some how the noh mask still had it's shard by the time Kagome G-G-G?grandfather came around. The whole point of the noh mask was to get inuyasha into kagome's time. as a plot is concerned but, in the fictional reality of it all, it's very dangerous to have left an active jewel shard out there for about 350 years?
RT just never thought things like that out. I think the whole reincarnation thing was mostly to have a basic cover for kagome having the jewel that kikyo was burned with. RT could have just as easily had a few chapters with "Kami" inter-playing with it all to get some over all scheme done. Depending on how she worked it, might have even had easier and better plot lines that way, instead of us having to deal with the same bad guys just getting new henchmen every 10 episodes/30 chapters.
A Sentential Mother, has a plot line where it the reincarnation idea is well thought out and explained why kagome looks so much like Kikyo.
This fic is rated MA for anyone that goes to find the link.
- sugar0o, the MIA as of late.