Big Question Section1: The Abstract

Social scientists have long been interested in the questions of how the similarities and the differences in the views of the afterlife and the social reactions to death of different cultures are explained, and the systematic order that can be found in these similarities and differences.  Death is an ineluctable personal experience, which remains outside of an individual's self-reflection throughout his or her entire life.  In order to locate the problem of death in the social construction of reality in a more or less reassuring way, and thus effectively abate the anxiety emerging from the cognitive ambivalence of death, every culture is bound to attribute to it some meaning. This meaning, accessible and perceivable by human individuals, involves constructing a unique concept of death and afterlife. Religions offer a variety of answers, some seemingly credible and some beyond belief. Their explanations often contradict one another, adding to the confusion and uncertainty about what happens after death. A very common idea is that people are born with immortal souls. Many believe that after death the soul is conscious and proceeds to a literal place or condition of bliss or torment. Others teach that at death the soul is absorbed into a "greater consciousness." Some expect to be reincarnated, coming back to earth as another person or as an animal.

http://www.deathreference.com/A-Bi/Afterlife-in-Cross-Cultural-Perspective.html

http://www.ucg.org/booklet/what-happens-after-death/mystery-death/