The common view of death as a great mystery usually is brushed aside as an emotionally fueled desire to believe that death isn’t the end of the road. And indeed, a prominent school of research in social psychology called terror management theory contends that afterlife beliefs, as well as less obvious beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, exist to assuage what would otherwise be crippling anxiety about the ego’s inexistence.

Yet a small number of researchers, including me, are increasingly arguing that the evolution of self-consciousness has posed a different kind of problem altogether. This position holds that our ancestors suffered the unshakable illusion that their minds were immortal, and it’s this hiccup of gross irrationality that we have unmistakably inherited from them. Individual human beings, by virtue of their evolved cognitive architecture, had trouble conceptualizing their own psychological inexistence from the start.

Why is the belief that we continue after death the "nature of our consciousness?" Because man is made in God's image. To have a byproduct you must first have an initial product. The terror one might feel to imagine their egos alienated is a warning of hell.

So god is afraid to die too ?

Silkweaver--excellent question!

What do we do with those people who are not afraid to die? Not everyone is afraid. Religion aside. Some people just are not worried about it.

Been close enough to value life but not to worry about death. Every day is a bonus.
I would argue that religion is a by-product of the feeling the afterlife existed. Gives it more oomph, or credibility.
(aside related to silkweaver's research - I was intrigued by an explanation of current obesity situation being due to the fact that humans have evolved in a state of almost perpetual hunger. Thus the body is geared to take all food and store what it can't use. Our diet of processed food answers the bodies cravings too well.)