Why do so many people believe in an afterlife?

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Thank you for your responses, there is a lot to think about in this.

What is the difference between a live body and a cadaver?
21 grams!
Twenty one grams of what?

Beacause they have been trolled by god! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaqC5FnvAEc[/youtube]

The concept of heaven and hell partially comes from the hope that the universe has some sort of "basic fairness" to it. (i.e. super-evil people finally get what's coming to them, basically good people are rewarded, etc)

That would be pretty ridiculous if the universe has no concept of "basic fairness" as an integrated part of it.

I think it's not so much fear of death, but more that life is such a struggle at times. We like to think there must be something better waiting up ahead than this constant struggle. Otherwise what's the struggle for?

I am comfortable with oblivion, billions of years will pass and I wont even know.

The collection of cells that hold my consciousness are dependant on the environment.

I imagine after death is like sleeping without dreaming. sensing nothing.

We are trillions of cells working together to create the illusion of a single entity.
On a even smaller scale we are just a swath of common elements formed into a whole.
And on a macro scale we are just waves of energy in an endless sea.
We are simply the universe experiencing itself subjectively.

After the resurrection we will be like the angels who do not marry.

i see no thing that moves from one moment to another, let alone one life to another.

I don't think 'fear of death' or 'fear of oblivion' does credit to the loads of spiritual experiences people have. If anything, that is the cause of believing in afterlife. I believe in an afterlife, and I do not fear death, nor oblivion. I think hell is a very, very frightening concept. Imagine your worse pain x1000 and not being able to do anything about, it not decreasing, forever suffering to infinity. I don't believe in hell, because I believe that God is love, but that aside, Scientific reductionism has it's uses as a method, but not as a valid worldview (in my humble opinion).

So, to recap: spiritual experiences are what is responsible for the belief in an afterlife.

Primal fear, and I have no need for primitive instinct as misguided as this.

To answer the actual question, it's the logical conclusion of us having anything resembling free will. To be anything more than just the result of our genetics and environment, human beings (leaving aside other animals just because it's not relevant) presumably would have to have some kind of spirit or soul or something. Because of the principle that nothing merely ceases to exist, I can conclude that this spirit has to exist in some form after our death.

Yes, I'm assuming the laws of physics apply to metaphysical things, deal with it.

Fear of Death.

It is not that so many people believe in an afterlife. All do. Some just deny this.