Most humans have believed their existence continues literally beyond physical death

Evidence

Since the dawn of humankind, cultural worldviews have offered immense comfort to death-fearing humans. Throughout the ages and around the globe, the vast majority of people, past and present, have been led by their religions to believe that their existence literally continues in some form beyond the point of physical death. Some of us believe that our souls fly up to heaven, where we will meet our departed loved ones and bask in the loving glow of our creator. Others “know” that at the moment of death, our souls migrate into a new, reincarnated form. Still others are convinced that our souls simply pass to another, unknown plane of existence. In all these cases, we believe that we are, one way or another, literally immortal. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 62

Related

• Humans pursue symbolic immortality through works, namesakes, and progeny (similarity 0.81)
• Even skeptics cannot fully abandon the idea of immortality (similarity 0.78)