I think that how we as individuals see death has a lot to do with faith. I have always tryied to imagine how the first human beings saw death. The first human being to have a sense of "self" would have seen animals die and say "I will die some day, what will happen to me then."

Then a terrible realization must have occurred. "I don't know what happens to me after I die." This question has plagued humanity since its earliest beginnings, because once we die we have no sensory perception of the universe, and the living have no way to communicate with the dead.

This is where religion was born. The earliest religions believed in "resurrection". Warriors and hunters in prehistoric times were buried with their weapons and possessions, sometimes even their hunting dogs and hawks. They believed they would be resurrected some day and when they woke up from their long death everything they had would be with them. The Egyptians formalized that belief and constructed their pyramids and mummified their pharaohs, thinking that they would come back some day.

Of course, they did not. Then we have the rise of other religiens like monotheism. In monotheism (Judeo-Christian or other types) human beings have a "soul". The "self" survives beyond death, because the God that created humans is merciful and wants to save them somehow. This is why we get one chance at physical life, because once the body dies, there is no need for the body any more.

Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism and other religions of India believed that the "self" (or soul, called atman in Sanskrit) did not exist. Instead human beings became so attached to the physical world that once the body died, the person would "reincarnate" in a new life somewhere else. This cycle of death and rebirth led to great suffering in living beings because as we live we lose all those things we are attached to. Then the concept of "nirvana" and "enlightenment" came in. If a person became enlightened, the cycle of death and rebirth would end.

Of course, we have atheists who deny all religion and see life as a one chance to exist and then it ends with death. Atheism started in ancient Greece, but it reached its highest philosophical forms in the 19th and 20th century.

In the end it all comes down to faith, what we believe is a reflection of what we have learned through life. Doubt is part of human existence, and organized religion has used doubt as the most powerful weapon for political control.

You cannot be sure that God exists and that God will save you, so organized religion attempts to give people that certainty. In doing so it often used its influence over individual belief to promote political and economic objectives.

Today we see Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations use religion to promote their political objectives, but western society is full of examples of the abuses of organized religion. Crusades, the burning of witches, pastors in churches telling people to vote for a certain candidate, etc. Manipulation has taken many forms, and it has been done by all religions at some point or another. Every major religion spread itself through war (except for Buddhism with its strict adherence to non-violence, although some historians have argued that too).

Next time we see Al Qaida, we have to realize that they are not selling death to their followers, but the certainty of salvation after death. All those virgins waiting in paradise after death are the reward for acting in a way that promotes their political and economic objectives. I have nothing against religion or belief in God, but organized religion promoting blind obedience and conformity, that to me is an aberration.