Various religions across the world employ several different concepts that non-believers often find very strange or difficult to grasp. There is however a concept that is universally understood and somewhat accepted by the vast majority of our contemporary society. This is of course the concept of an afterlife. The afterlife can be defined as a sort of state of being where the consciousness of an individual persists even after the physical death of the body. This concept plays a central role in nearly all religions that employ it and is sometimes dependent on the existence of a God. However, not all religions that employ the concept of an afterlife revolve around the existence of a God and taking into account the primal instinct of self-preservation …show more content…
For Christians, the afterlife consists of different planes of existence. There’s Heaven, Hell, and a special case often associated with the Catholic Church, Purgatory. Heaven is portrayed as a reward for the actions of an individual before their death while Hell is, in contrast, portrayed as a penalty for an individual’s actions before death. Purgatory is described as a plane in between heaven and hell where those who require extended purification in order to enter heaven end up …show more content…
People who are somewhat religious are more likely to fear death than individuals who happen to be atheists or those who are exceedingly religious. Atheists and individuals who highly believe in an afterlife are less likely to fear death as compared to those who are only somewhat religious. This is because of the confidence of the exceedingly religious in their chances of making it to heaven since the chances of attaining an afterlife in heaven is analogous to the amount of religious acts they perform. In regards to the concept of reincarnation, the conditions of the proceeding life may be compared to the acts performed in the current