origins of religion and fear of death

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

Last night, we were discussing the origins of religion and the fear of
death.  I argued that fear of death arises from the inability to imagine
nothingness.  Noelle's friend contended that it always this way, but I
wasn't convinced that people always knew about this concept of nothingness
and therefore didn't always fear death, contributing to the rise of
religion.  But, I didn't have any evidence nor did I know of anyone who
has researched this.

So, I was looking on the web.  I was wondering if you ever saw this:

http://www.akpress.org/2007/items/anarchiststudiesvolumefourteennumberone

or if you knew of an anthropolgical explanation of the origins of religion.