Lol! Say what you really mean Shadow, great, straight to the point, but the answers I don't believe are simple. 1) Because people saw the cycling nature of the sun, seasons and other planets and noticed a pattern, and so therefore, sort to believe that mans soul, consciousness also, was part of this eternal pattern of birth, death and rebirth. 2) Stories from the earliest civilisations such as Mesopotamia, in which the gods descended to earth and taught the people Me's, since every idea has to have an origin, something must have happened to man, as they went from hunter gatherers who buried eachother in the ground, in fetal positions, to building Ziggarets, the first temples, and domesticating grasses, and animals, and then of course each other. https://static.hlt.bme.hu/semantics/external/pages/Rta/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_(mythology).html This is also where the first flood stories came from The Epic of Gilgamesh. Laws such as Ur Nammu Law Code. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-esc-westernciv-humandevelopment/chapter/m2-2-ancient-sumerian-babylonian-and-hebraic-law-codes/#:~:text=The%20ancient%20Sumerian%20Ur%20Nammu,robbery%2C%20he%20will%20be%20killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggurat_of_Ur History of banking started here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking So something did cause this big change, and the stories pointed to something other worldly. Similar stories in The Book of Enoch. The pyramids of Egypt are in line with the stars, the 3 main ones with orions belt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory The Dogon people, their priests dressed with the mitre you now see on Priests today. https://www.mygodpictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/The-Dagon-Mitre-gt412-550x507.jpg They were very aware of the zodiac, four fixed signs and elements, as seen in the gospels, Leo lion, Man Aquarius, Scorpio eagle, scorpion, phoenix, Taurus bull. Even the Vatican today is shaped as a key online with star system, https://youtu.be/P7MR6DH3NAc?si=IDBAoRzN5_tYU9kk The zodiac as a clock in time, the cycling nature of the seasons. 3) Since the beginning of civilisation, there has been groups of people, normally called mystics, who have during different types of meditation or practices, they experience a union with something that defies description, this has been hidden in myths, and outside ritual given to the masses, or they have separated themselves from society. Nirvana in buddhism, oneness with deity, universal source.

If there is an afterlife - surprise. If not, you cease to exist. lol