Most Christians believe the soul to be the immortal essence of a human, and that after death, the soul is either rewarded or punished. Whether this reward or punishment is contingent upon doing good deeds, or merely upon believing in Jesus, is a heated dispute among different Christian groups.
An at times vexed question in Christianity has been the origin of the soul; the major theories put forward are creationism, traducianism and pre-existence.
A number of christian minority beliefs:
In Hinduism, the soul (atman) is reincarnated, its status modified by karma, until enough wisdom has been gleaned to merge with the Brahma?.
In opposition to the Hindu belief, Buddhists deny the existence of the soul; they call this doctrine anatman. But they do however believe in reincarnation. According to the Buddhist belief, at death the mind disintegrates, but if the disintegrating mind contains any particles of karma, in doing so it will cause the creation of a new mind. Thus Buddhists teach reincarnation without any entity to provide continuity between reincarnations.
In Egyptian Mythology, a person were in posession of several souls, three of the body and three of the mind. They were called Chet, Ren, Schut, Ka, Ba and Ach.
Atheists generally deny any existence of a soul, though the issues are, strictly speaking, orthogonal.