There follows a very long explanation of various views on Immortality in various Cultures, for those interested in that context:

Mystical  and religious pursuits of physical immortality                                       From Wikipedia:

Many Indian fables and tales include instances of metempsychosis  the  ability to jump into another body performed by advanced Yogis in order to live a longer life. There are also entire Hindu  sects devoted to the attainment of physical immortality by various  methods, namely the Naths and the Aghoras.^{[citation needed]}

Long before modern science made such speculation feasible, people  wishing to escape death turned to the supernatural world for answers.  Examples include Chinese Taoists^{[citation needed]} and the medieval alchemists and their search for the Philosopher's Stone, or more modern religious mystics, who believed in the possibility of  achieving physical immortality through spiritual transformation.

Individuals claiming to be physically immortal include Comte de Saint-Germain; in  18th century France, he claimed to be centuries old, and people who  adhere to the Ascended Master Teachings are  convinced of his physical immortality.^{[citation needed]} An  Indian saint known as Vallalar claimed to have  achieved immortality before disappearing forever from a locked room in  1874.^[25]

Rastafarians believe in physical  immortality as a part of their religious doctrines. They believe that  after God has called the Day of Judgment they  will go to what they describe as Mount Zion in Africa to live in freedom for ever. They avoid the term  "everlasting life"' and deliberately use "ever-living" instead.

Another group that believes in physical immortality are the Rebirthers, who  believe that by following the connected breathing process of rebirthing  they can physically live forever.

Religious traditions

Main article: Afterlife

Until the late 20th century, there were no creditable scientific forecasts that physical immortality was  obtainable. As late as 1952, the editorial staff of the Syntopicon found in their compilation of theGreat Books of the Western  World, that "The philosophical issue concerning immortality cannot  be separated from issues concerning the existence and nature of man's  soul."^[26] Thus, the vast majority of speculation regarding immortality before the 21st century was regarding the nature of the afterlife.

Spiritual immortality is the unending existence of a person from a  nonphysical source, or in a nonphysical state, such as a soul.  Specifically 'soul immortality' is a belief that is expressed in nearly  every religious tradition. However any doctrine in  this area misleads without a prior definition of 'soul'. Another problem is that 'soul' is often confused and used synonymously or  interchangeably with 'spirit'.

In both Western and Eastern religions, the spirit is an energy or  force that transcends the mortal body, and returns to: (1) the spirit  realm whether to enjoy heavenly bliss or suffer eternal torment in hell, or; (2) the cycle of life, directly or indirectly depending on the  tradition.

The world's major religions hold a number of perspectives on  spiritual immortality.

Buddhism

Buddhism teaches that there is a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth and that the process is according to the qualities of a person's actions. This constant process of  becoming ceases at the fruition of Bodhi (enlightenment) at which a being is no longer subject to causation (karma) but  enters into a state that the Buddha called amata (deathlessness).

According to the philosophical premise of the Buddha, the initiate to Buddhism who is to be "shown the way to Immortality (amata)",^[27] wherein liberation of the mind (cittavimutta) is effectuated through  the expansion of wisdom and the meditative practices of sati and samÄ�dhi, must first be educated away from his  former ignorance-based (avijja) materialistic proclivities in that he "saw any of these forms, feelings, or this body, to be my Self, to  be that which I am by nature".

Thus, desiring a soul or ego (Ä�tman) to be permanent is a prime consequence of ignorance, itself the cause of all misery and the foundation of the  cycle of reincarnation (saṃsÄ�ra). Form and consciousness being two of the five skandhas, or aggregates of ignorance, Buddhism  teaches that physical immortality is neither a path to enlightenment,  nor an attainable goal: even the gods which can live for eons eventually die. Upon enlightenment, the "karmic seeds" (saá¹…khÄ�ras or sanskaras) for all future becoming and rebirth are exhausted. After biological  death an arhat, or buddha, enters into parinirvana, an everlasting state of transcendental happiness.

Hinduism

 Representation of a soul undergoing punarjanma.  Illustration from Hinduism Today, 2004

Hindus believe in an immortal soul which is reincarnated after death. According to Hinduism, people repeat a process of life,  death, and rebirth in a cycle called samsara. If they live their life well, their karma  improves and their station in the next life will be higher, and  conversely lower if they live their life poorly. Eventually after many  life times of perfecting its karma, the soul is freed from the cycle and lives in perpetual bliss. There is no eternal torment in Hinduism,  temporal existence being harsh enough, although if a soul consistently  lives very evil lives, it could work its way down to the very bottom of  the cycle. Punarjanma  means the birth of a person that pays for all the karma of  previous lives in this birth.^{[citation needed]}Sri Aurobindo states that the Vedic and the post-Vedic rishis (such as Markandeya) attained physical immortality, which includes the ability to change  one's shape at will, and create multiple bodies simultaneously in  different locations.^{[citation needed]}

The Aghoris of India consume human flesh in pursuit of immortality and supernatural powers,they call themselves gods and according to them they punish the  sinners by rewarding them death on their way to immortality. .^[28] They distinguish themselves from other Hindu sects and priests by their alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals.^[29]

Another view of immortality is traced to the Vedic tradition by the  interpretation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

That man indeed whom these (contacts)
do not disturb, who is even-minded in
pleasure and pain, steadfast, he is fit
for immortality, O best of men.^[30]

To Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the verse means, "Once a man has become  established in the understanding of the permanent reality of life, his  mind rises above the influence of pleasure and pain. Such an unshakable  man passes beyond the influence of death and in the permanent phase of  life: he attains eternal life… A man established in the understanding of the unlimited abundance of absolute existence is naturally free from  existence of the relative order. This is what gives him the status of  immortal life."^[30]

Taoism

Taoist beliefs by Xiu Xing and Lian Dan,^{[citation needed]} include that one can achieve immortality to become an enlightened person, or Xian.

Henri Maspero noted that many scholarly works frame Taoism  as a school of thought focused on the quest for immortality.^[31] Isabelle Robinet asserts that Taoism is better understood as a way  of life than as a religion, and that its adherents do not approach  or view Taoism the way non-Taoist historians have done.^[32]

Shintoism

Shintoists claim that except for those who choose or are dispatched to the  underground world of Yomi, every living and non-living being may lose its  body, but not its soul (tamashii), and that they live together with  mortal souls as an immortal being called Kami. Shinto  allows anything to attain Kami status regardless of its existence before becoming Kami. Therefore, even those that do not believe in Shinto may  choose to become Kami, as well as things like a rock, or a tree. Some  may be reincarnated for various reasons.

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrians believe that on the fourth day  after death, the human soul leaves the body and the body remains as an  empty shell. Souls would go to either heaven or hell; these concepts of  the afterlife in Zoroastrianism may have influenced Abrahamic religions. Word "Immortal" is driven from The month in Iranian calendar "Amurdad" (Near end  of July)in Persian meaning "Deathless" Month of Amurdad or Amertata is  celebrated in Persian Culture as their Ancestors believed in this month  Angel of Immortality win over Angel of death.

Ancient Greek Religion

In ancient Greek  religion immortality originally always included an eternal union of  body and soul. The soul was considered to have an eternal existence in  Hades, but without the body the soul was considered dead. Although  almost everybody had nothing to look forward to but an eternal existence as a disembodied dead soul, a number of men and women were considered  to have gained physical immortality and brought to live forever in  either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean or  literally right under the ground. Among these were Amphiaraus Ganymede,Ino, Iphigenia Menelaus,Peleus, and a great part of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars.  Some were considered to have died and been resurrected before they  achieved physical immortality. Asclepius, was killed by Zeus only to be resurrected and transformed into a major  deity. Achilles after being killed was snatched from his funeral pyre by his divine  mother Thetis and resurrected brought to an immortal existence in either Leuce, Elysian plains or the Islands of the Blessed. Memnon,  who was killed by Achilles, seems to have a received a similar fate. Alcmene,Castor, Heracles, and Melicertes, were also among the figures sometimes considered to have been  resurrected to physical immortality. According to Herodotus' Histories, the seventh  century B.C. sage Aristeas of  Proconnesus, was first found dead, after which his body disappeared  from a locked room. Later he found not only to have been resurrected but to have gained immortality.

The philosophical idea of an immortal soul was a later invention, which,  although influential, never had a breakthrough in the Greek world. As  may be witnessed even into the Christian era, not least by the  complaints of various philosophers over popular beliefs, traditional  Greek believers maintained the conviction that certain individuals were  resurrected from the dead and made physically immortal and that for the  rest of us, we could only look forward to an existence as disembodied  and dead souls.^[33]

The parallel between these traditional beliefs and the later  resurrection of Jesus was not lost on the early Christians, as Justin  Martyr argued: "when we say … Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified  and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing  different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons  of Zeus." (1 Apol. 21).

Judaism

In both Judaism and Christianity, there is no biblical support of  'soul immortality' as such. The focus is on attaining resurrection life  after death on the part of the believers.

Judaism claims that the righteous dead will be resurrected in the Messianic age with the coming of the messiah.  They will then be granted immortality in a perfect world. The wicked  dead, on the other hand, will not be resurrected at all. This is not the only Jewish belief about the afterlife. The Tanakh is  not specific about the afterlife, so there are wide differences in views and explanations among believers.

The Hebrew Bible speaks about sheol (ש×�ול), the underworld to which the souls of the dead depart. The  doctrine of resurrection is mentioned explicitly only in Daniel 12:1-4 although it may  be implied in several other texts. Later Judaism accepted that there  would be a resurrection of all men (cf. Acts 24:14-15) and the intertestamental literature  describes in more detail what the dead experience in sheol. By  the second century BC, Jews who accepted the Oral  Torah had come to believe that those in sheol awaited the  resurrection either in comfort (in the bosom of Abraham) or in torment.

Christianity

 Adam and Eve condemned to mortality. Hans Holbein the Younger, Danse Macabre, 16th century

Christian theology holds that Adam and Eve lost physical immortality for themselves and all their  descendants in the Fall of Man, though this initial  "imperishability of the bodily frame of man" was "a preternatural  condition."^[34]

According to the book of Enoch, the righteous and wicked await the resurrection in separate divisions of sheol, a teaching which may  have influenced Jesus' parable of Lazarus and Dives.^[35] Christians believe that every person that believes in Christ will be resurrected;  Bible passages are interpreted as teaching that the resurrected body  will, like the present body, be both physical (but a renewed and  non-decaying physical body) and spiritual.

Contrary to common belief, there is no biblical support of 'soul  immortality' as such in the New Testament. The theme in the Bible is  'resurrection life' which imparts immortality, not about 'soul'  remaining after death. Luther and others rejected Calvin's idea of soul  immortality. Specific imagery of resurrection into immortal form is  found in the Pauline letters:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall  all be changed,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the  trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we  shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put  on immortality.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always  abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. —1Corinthians 15:51-58

In Romans 2:6-7 Paul declares that God "will render to every man  according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life", but then in  Romans 3 warns that no one will ever meet this standard.

After the Last Judgment, those who have been born again will live forever in the presence of God, and those who were never born again will be  abandoned to never-ending consciousness of guilt, separation from God,  and punishment for sin. Eternal death is depicted in the Bible as a  realm of constant physical and spiritual anguish in a lake of fire, and a realm of darkness away from God. Some see the fires  of Hell as a theological metaphor, representing the inescapable presence of God  endured in absence of love for God; others suggest that Hell represents  complete destruction of both the physical body and of spiritual  existence.

N. T. Wright, a theologian and, as Bishop of Durham, the  Anglican church's 4th most senior cleric, has said many people forget  the physical aspect of what Jesus promised. He told Time: " Jesus'  resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete  upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead,  who will "awake", be embodied and participate in the renewal. John  Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will  download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new  hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two  things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in  God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more  important transformation will be when we are again embodied and  administering Christ's kingdom." ^[36] This kingdom will consist of Heaven and Earth "joined together in a new creation", he said.

Roman Catholicism

Catholic  Christians teach that there is a supernatural realm called Purgatory where souls who have died in a state of grace but have yet to expiate venial sins or temporal  punishments due to past sins are cleansed before they are admitted into Heaven.  The Catholic Church also professes a belief in the resurrection of the body. It is  believed that, after the Final Judgement, the souls of all who have ever lived will be reunited  with their resurrected body. In the case of the righteous, this will  result in a glorified body which can reside in Heaven. The damned, too,  shall reunite body and soul, but shall remain eternally in Hell.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses believe the word  soul (nephesh or psykhe) as used in the Bible is a person, an animal, or the life a person or animal enjoys. Hence, the soul is not part of man, but is the whole man — man as a living being. Hence, when a person or  animal dies, the soul dies, and death is a state of non-existence, based on Ezekiel 18:4.^[37]Hell (Hades or Sheol) is  not a place of fiery torment, but rather the common grave of humankind, a place of unconsciousness.^[38][39]

After the final judgment, it is  expected that the righteous will receive eternal life and live forever in an Earth turned into a paradise. Another group referenced as "the little flock" of 144,000 people will  receive immortality and go to heaven to rule as Kings and Priests.  Jehovah's Witnesses make the distinction that those with 'eternal life' can die though they do not succumb to disease or old age, whereas immortal  ones cannot die by any cause.^[40] They teach that Jesus was the first to be rewarded with heavenly  immortality, but that Revelation 7:4 and Revelation 14:1, 3 refer to a literal number (144,000) of additional people who will become  "self-sustaining", that is, not needing anything outside themselves  (food, sunlight, etc.) to maintain their own life.^[41]

Mormonism

 A non-doctrinal illustration of the Mormon Plan of salvation.

In Mormon theology, there are three degrees of glory which are the ultimate, eternal dwelling  place for nearly all who lived on earth. Prior to mortal birth  individuals existed as men and women in a spirit state. That period of  life is also referred to as the first estate or Pre-existence. Mormon theologians cite a Biblical scripture, Jeremiah 1:5, as an  allusion to the concept that mankind had a preparation period prior to  mortal birth: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and  before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I  ordained thee a prophet unto the nations".^[42]Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement,  provided a description of the afterlife based upon a vision he reportedly received, recorded within the Mormon  canonical writings entitled Doctrine and Covenants.^[43] According to this section of LDS scripture, the afterlife consists of three degrees or  kingdoms of glory, called the Celestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Kingdom, and the Telestial Kingdom. The few who do not  inherit any degree of glory (though they are resurrected) reside in a  state called outer darkness, which, though not a degree of glory, is often discussed in this context. The only ones who go there  are known as "Sons of Perdition".

Other Christian beliefs

The doctrine of conditional immortality states the  human soul is naturally mortal, and that immortality is granted by God  as a gift. The doctrine is a "significant minority evangelical view" that has "grown within  evangelicalism in recent years". ^[44]

Some sects who hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration also believe  in a third realm called Limbo, which is the final destination of souls who have not been baptised, but who have been  innocent of mortal sin. Souls in Limbo include unbaptised infants  and those who lived virtuously but were never exposed to Christianity in their lifetimes. Christian Scientists believe that sin brought death, and  that death will be overcome with the overcoming of sin.

 The Golden Gate in Jerusalem, known as  "The Gate of Eternal Life" in Arabic, as it stood in 1900

[edit]Islam

And they say [non-believers in Allah], "There is not but our worldly  life; we die and live
(i.e. some people die and others live, replacing them) and nothing  destroys us except time."

And when Our verses are recited to them as clear evidences, their  argument is only that they say,
"Bring [back] our forefathers, if you should be truthful."
Say, "Allah causes you to live, then causes you to die; then He will  assemble you for the Day of Resurrection,
about which there is no doubt," but most of the people do not  know.(Quran, 45:24-26)

Muslims believe that everyone will be resurrected after death. They undergo  correction in Jahannam (Hell) if it has led an evil life, but once this correction is over, they are  admitted to Jannat (Paradise) and attain immortality.^{[citation needed]} Those  that commit unforgivable evil will never leave hell. Some individuals  will therefore never taste Heaven.

(Quran,002.028) "How can ye reject the faith in Allah?- seeing that  ye were without life, and He gave you life; then will He cause you to  die, and will again bring you to life; and again to Him will ye return."

Muslims believe that the present life is a trial in preparation for  the next realm of existence. He says[man says], "Who will give life to  bones while they are disintegrated?" Say, "He will give them life who  produced them the first time; and He is, of all creation, Knowing." [It  is Allah] He who made for you from the green tree, fire, and then from  it you ignite. Is not He who created the heavens and the earth Able to  create the likes of them? Yes, [it is so]; and He is the Knowing  Creator. (Quran, 36:78-81)

But those who disbelieve say, "The Hour (i.e. the Day of Judgment)  will not come to us." Say, "Yes, by my Lord, it will surely come to you. [Allah is] the Knower of the unseen." Not absent from Him is an atom's  weight within the heavens or within the earth or [what is] smaller than  that or greater, except that it is in a clear register - That He may  reward those who believe and do righteous deeds. Those will have  forgiveness and noble provision. But those who strive against Our verses [seeking] to cause failure (i.e. to undermine their credibility) - for  them will be a painful punishment of foul nature. (Quran, 34:3-5)