Death is one of the most feared requirements of life. As a result, over the years, in an attempt to comfort themselves and others, people have invented ideas about what happens to a person after they die--stories of an afterlife where everything is bliss and all are loved. The most popular afterlife stories are those that were adopted and spread by our major religions. However, a belief in an afterlife is not just limited to religious groups. Even people without religion have some belief or another about what happens to a person's body and soul after they die.

One idea, and probably the most popular, about what happens to a person after they die is the heaven and hell concept. This theory is taught by most major and minor religions and is adopted not only to give people hope that there is a life after this one, but also to scare people into doing what is "right" while here on earth.

The heaven was created to give people hope, to give people something to live for and strive toward. Every now and again, things get difficult for individuals and they need a little hope to get them through. That is one reason the idea of heaven was created. People needed an incentive to persevere through the low points in their lives. To keep on keeping on, if you will.

Heaven was also created to comfort people. To comfort people when they lost someone that they loved, and to comfort them when they were facing their own expiration date.

The hell, on the other hand, was created to scare people into doing what is "right." It gave people an incentive to do what society deems as "correct" or "socially acceptable." Just as the heaven was created to comfort people about the afterlife, the hell was designed to terrify the people away from it. It terrified them into living better lives while on earth, so they may go to Heaven, and also that they may rest in peace.

Another popular idea about what happens to an individual after their time on earth has expired is the idea of reincarnation. Again, this idea was spread through the use of organized religion. In short, reincarnation says that after one's life is over, they are born again into another life, here on earth. Life after life, life after life, they pass through time in a never ending line.

However, just as the heaven has the hell incentive, reincarnation has its own incentive; this incentive being--what a person was reincarnated as. According to the reincarnation theory, the better a person was in their previous life, the better status they would be born into in their next life. Examples being--someone who lived a "good" life by doing what is "right" might be reincarnated as a king or some other famous person--where as someone who strays and lives a "bad" life by doing what is "wrong" may be reincarnated as a beggar.

At any rate, each of these theories both comfort and control society. These theories comfort people by giving them some "idea" about what is to come, and control them by showing them what could happen.

A third theory is the deja-vu theory. According to this theory, a person is born, lives their life, dies, and is born again--as themselves. Birth after death, birth after death, a person lives their entire life over and over, again and again, until they get it "right." They live their lives over and over again until they finally live their life without regret. This is when a person has mastered their life--a life with no regrets. Once this is done, they may move on. They may come back to earth--if they so choose, but why would they? They have already passed their test! It would be like someone in the military going back to basic because they wanted to. It would be pointless. After life on earth is done they may move on into another form of existence. They may be born again into a different world--one that the likes of which our human minds cannot even begin to comprehend.

Although these theories are quite different from each other, they all share one thing in common--the implication that there is something out there besides the life that we know. And it is this hope for something else, for something better, that makes our everyday lives that much easier.

Very few people think that when a person dies, that's it; there is nothing more out there. This is understandable. The thought of nonexistence is not a pleasant one, and it is one that most people cannot handle. But when we stop and look at it scientifically, it is also very unlikely that the end of this life is the end of us. People are made up of matter and run on electricity. Both matter and electricity can neither be created nor destroyed, as our science has taught us. As such, when we die, we don't go anywhere. Our fragments may separate and disperse, but they still remain. Nature has a way of recycling itself, and we too are a part of that process.

NOTE

This article was written to give the reader some understanding of where societies' beliefs in life after death came from and why they were and are so popular. As much emphasis that people put on life after death, they don't concern themselves with the importance of life. I view this as a major problem in today's society. I mean, how can someone concern themselves with what is going to happen to them when they die, when they have not even allowed themselves to live, yet? A preoccupation with death and the afterlife is no way to live one's life.

Instead, I propose, live your life day-to-day. Concern yourself with what is going on in your life, not what is going to happen to you when you die. Do not worry about that, it will take care of itself when the time comes.

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