Life After Death

Since the dawn of history, many people have believed that human beings do not simply cease to exist upon their death. Numerous religions and cultures teach that the physical body may die and decompose, but that some element of the person goes on to what many call the "after-life." Between 1972 and 1982, when the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research asked the American public, "Do you believe there is life after death?," 70 percent said they believed in an afterlife, and 20 percent said they did not. In 1996, when the Roper Center asked the same question, 73 percent of respondents said yes, and 16 percent said no. A 2002 poll conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, as part of its General Social Survey, revealed similar results. Seventy-two percent of those polled said they believed that...