According to some estimates, since the appearance (creation?) Of man, from 110 to 120 billion people lived on Earth. And they all died.
Today about 7 billion people live on the planet. And they will all die. Naturally, from the very beginning (as, by the way, and always) a person was haunted by the thought - What next?
After death, here on Earth. It is not for nothing that a significant number of works of art, works of great artists and not only artists, have been and are dedicated to this topic. This topic has always been the object of religious reflection. From Paradise and Hell to Agasfera (Eternal Jew). Although in recent years "science" has become more serious about this topic, not limited to atheistic interpretations.
Since the time that man began to differ from the animal, he became religious, that is, he began to see in nature something beyond reality and in himself something beyond death. Perhaps religiosity, the need for Faith, as the most important element of consciousness, may also be its basis, this is actually the only thing that distinguishes humans from animals. From Faith in God to Faith in Justice, Love, Humanism….
The rest, even the notorious intellect, is easily found in the animal world. And atheism, in a certain sense, is also a belief. Belief in science, the big bang, that "everything" came from "nothing" by itself, the origin of man from a monkey, and a lot of things that neither prove nor be convinced of the correctness of certain postulates are not given to "mere mortals." "They" can only believe all this or not believe.
And scientific approaches are limited to more or less "smart" thoughts, hypotheses, theories. Which the scientific community defends with the same enthusiasm as, relatively recently, it defended the idea that the Earth is flat and it is the center of the universe.
The ideas of what will happen there after physical death here on Earth are quite close in many religious concepts. In Christianity and Islam, there are close ideas about Heaven and Hell, where everyone has to go, depending on their personal qualities. Sinners are naturally guaranteed the road to Hell.
And in Buddhism, the possibility of reincarnation into the World of evil spirits and demons is assumed, where the “soul” will experience unimaginable suffering. What depends on "karma", in fact, on the "qualities" of the "soul". However, as a result of reincarnation and suffering for thousands of years, the "souls" who have attained perfection attain the World of true bliss. True, there are not many of them.
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A topic closely related to the problems of death is immortality. In the physical World. It seemed that immortality should be, although hardly attainable, but the desired goal of man. Even now, “transhumanists” “hoarsely” are convinced of the imminent “resettlement” of a person to a computer, which will ensure the actual immortality of an individual. Naturally avoiding reflections on the soul and other, in their opinion, archaics.
But here's the bad luck. Most of the myths, legends and fantasies depict the far from cloudless fate of immortals in the Mortal World. Moreover, such immortality turns not into a reward, but into a punishment. The most famous and famous legend on this topic is associated with the story of Ahasuerus, the "Eternal Jew". This legend arose in different forms and in different years in different countries.
From the attempts of the scholastics to "deduce" this story from the Gospel of John and the appeal to the disciple who was reclining on the breast of Jesus during the Last Supper and to whom the words of Jesus are addressed: “If I want him to stay until I come, what do you before? "… (Heb. John, XXI, 22).
But such an interpretation of the Gospel verse is a sophistic interpretation and is not officially recognized in the theology of Christianity. And most of the plots boil down to a story when a certain Jew was cursed - a craftsman who refused Jesus and pushed him aside when Jesus, carrying his cross, leaned against the wall of his house.
And as a punishment, he was given virtually immortality … until the second coming … And all versions of this story describe the torment of a man who wanders endlessly, alone, when "everything human" is meaningless - there is nothing to strive for and wish for an immortal. What for? Emptiness and meaninglessness of existence, meaningless "cities for immortals" are his lot and destiny. Is that the reward? Rather, physical immortality is really a punishment.
There are many ideas about some "restless souls" doomed to wander in the World, in fact, between Death and Life, which esotericism associates with ghosts and ghosts. Usually legends on this topic pay attention to the fact that often a person does not even understand that he has died, trying to continue some business, chores, clinging to the physical World.
Or trying to change something, although it's too late. Poltergeist? Often such "souls" are associated with endless affection for each other, love and unwillingness to part, which serves as the basis for poetic stories about Eternal Love.
It should be noted that recently "science" has become more and more serious about this great topic - after death. Already many physicists, neurophysiologists and philosophers pay attention to the fact that there is a place for the “soul” in the quantum World and consciousness is a form of matter, and so-called near-death memories are not just hallucinations of a dying brain.
So, for example, the famous physiologist and specialist in the study of the brain, academician Natalya Bekhtereva, shortly before her death, drew attention to the fact that she believed in Life after Death on the basis of her own research. And not only her. But this is another, separate topic.
