Page "Afterlife" Paragraph 2

In philosophy, religion, mythology, and fiction, the afterlife ( also referred to as life after death, or Hereafter ) is the concept of a realm, or the realm itself ( whether physical or transcendental ), in which an essential part of an individual's identity or consciousness continues to reside after the death of the body in the individual's lifetime.

According to various ideas of the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul, of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity.

Belief in an afterlife, which may be naturalistic or supernatural, is in contrast to the belief in eternal oblivion after death.