Introduction: Living for 1,000 Years—or Longer

Abstract

Life and death issues are at the core of religions’ concerns. Within the diverse faiths of the world, people seek answers to ultimate questions about the value and significance of life, and they struggle to extract purposeful patterns from the threat of their own demise. Through rituals, narratives, doctrinal structures, institutions, ethical systems, and artistic forms, adherents to religions creatively construct their worldviews in an effort to enable themselves to encounter the world and its travails in a meaningful mode. And among the foremost of these challenges is the effort to take account of the fact of death.