Abstract: The subject of this research is the perception of death in public consciousness and its interpretation through the prism of religious and atheistic views. The latter imply the more general social ideas, which manifest as a complex of views, feelings, opportunities for objectification, and suggested ways of interaction, associated with death and caused by the instance of death, or corresponding discourse. The reflection of death in people’s consciousness, in other words the product of social perceptions, is defined by the concept of death. The author uses the phenomenological methodology (phenomenological project of E. Husserl) and hermeneutic methods of analyzing the religious and philosophical aspects applicable to the thanatological problematic. Based on the comparative analysis of the perceptions of death, the author underlines the specificity of each of them, as well as the affiliation to eschatology of a certain type. The religious perceptions are characterized by understanding death as a surmountable quasi-obstacle that opens up a genuine being of spirit. Religious eschatology substantiates the possibility afterlife existence. Within the framework of atheistic perceptions, death designates a return into the state of pre-existence. Special importance is given to the social being and establishment of social eschatology within it. The conclusion is made on the synthesis of religious and atheistic perceptions of death in modernity, which creates platform for the interesting further research in the field of social thanatology.