For many death is a unknown, even for people who believe death is the end, I believe very few actually believe that without some uncertainty, and any uncertainty would bring fear of punishment.
For many religious, yes they have a fear of judgment. For me to die is to live, truly live as we were always meant to, to play as a child of the universe, to grow and evolve forever. But I admit that I am unsure of the transition which does bring some fear. I like to look at acts 7:54-59 to get a glimpse of a possible transition for a believer, how the unbelievers did not and would not see what was really happening, and I do wonder if Stephen suffered or was he protected from the pain.
I don’t believe in God, the afterlife, or Judgment Day, and I don’t think it’s true to say that all “religious types” know they’re unworthy of salvation. Besides, a central tenet of many Christians’ theology is that none of us are worthy of salvation, but God loves us enough to provide it anyway.
Perhaps it’s my Catholic upbringing that led me to say this. We were taught that God has like a cosmic tote board adding up our good and bad deeds, and our afterlife address would depend on the total.
I don’t fear death. I think if you are religious and you try to do the right thing then what is there to fear?
For me this is the chapter that matters and if you get this one right then the next one if it is like it says it is will be far better than this. They always say that people who die have gone to a much better place don’t they. Well if you follow what is right then you should have no fear of dying. Maybe that’s why almost every Muslim never fears death.
Some will burn in hell for sure but from a very early age you learn not to fear death because everything is in God’s hands and we can do nothing to control it and that is why it matters how we live our life here.
I’m not so sure that works, though. I doubt that insects are afraid of their own death. Probably dogs and cats too. Chimps, I think, may sometimes begin to suspect that what happened to mommy and cousin Bobo may happen to them someday too–but I’m not even sure of that.
Acting in ways that function to preserve one’s own life /= being afraid of death. I think fear of X requires the ability to represent X to oneself. A mouse is afraid of a cat because a mouse can think about the cat that’s chasing it. But I don’t think it can be afraid of death because I don’t think a mouse can think about its approaching death.
Of course, how would I know what various animals can and can’t think about? Still, it seems implausible, doesn’t it? Death’s a pretty abstract concept, and the evidence seems to indicate that once you get a little down the cognitive chain from humans, animals just don’t have that kind of capacity.
I’m with MrDibble. I’ve gotten to not fear my own death, but I’m still working on having my teeth drilled while saying, “The mind rules. There is no pain.”
I agree with MrDibble in that my greatest fear is not death, but the actual dying. That said, the idea of ceasing to exist is inherently frightening. Of course, I’m not religious and don’t believe in an afterlife, but on the whole, I haven’t noticed much lack of fear of death among the religious afterlife believers, other than the nut cases. But then, a lack of fear of death is one way we pretty much define nut cases these days. The fear can be, indeed must be, controlled to the extent that we can function, but I doubt there’s any sane person who can truly confront the concept of ceasing to be without fear.
I’d say any animal capable of fear at all fears dying; that’s why they flee from predators. But for the self-conscious alone is reserved the concept of and thus the fear of death. Rationally, I believe that death is a neutral state of not being, and thus significantly better than being miserable. But irrationally, I still fear it.
When we transistion to life in the cyber world (all your memories and experiences recorded and stored on-line) will we posess “consciousness”?
Or will be full of anger, in that no longer posessing physical bodies (no eating, drinking, sex) we are essentially ghosts?
Not an appealing prospect.
Almost all animals fear fire, or at least show the fear of fire by running away in a panic, because fire ends them. So those that don’t fear fire tend to die, and leave only those with a predisposition to run away.
If it quacks like duck, walks like a duck, and bites like a duck… It’s probably not a mouse.
You can argue the philosophical ramifications of animals “understanding” death, but the reality of it is that you don’t need to understand, or conceptualize something in order to fear it. I’m quite certain my dog doesn’t conceptualize my vacuum cleaner, doesn’t stop her from running away every time I turn the thing on.
I was about thirteen. I woke up one morning just looking at the ceiling and IT hit me, my parents are going to die. About 6 mos later, same circumstances, and IT hits me again, I am going to die. Gut wrenching realization both times.
At the time, I quickly shrugged it off. WTF, it’s just the way things work, no sense in worrying about it.
Today, I happen to believe that we are eternal and that “death” as we talk about it from our mortal coils is an illusion of loss, a passing into another state of consciousness. My life is happy enough, all my favorite drugs and toys, good health and a comfortable place to sit among friends. But frankly, enough is enough, already.
That is true, and as time goes by fewer and fewer religions teach hell. It is a good sign, that at least some religions are going back to the core teachings. There is no reason to fear death, because it doesn’t exist. Life is eternal for all of us.
I don’t fear death. I don’t regret or fear the time before I was born. I see no reason why death is not a return to that state and so why should I fear it?
I do fear how I am going to die, though. No one likes pain and I’d like to avoid it if possible but if anything death would be the release from that pain.
Actually, no. I believe it’s one of the things that psychiatric professionals look for in judging sanity/competence. And as a society, we look at people looking to hasten the onset of their own afterlife or the rapture as pretty much crazy. I’m not including people in perpetual pain or who accept death as inevitable when in extremis, but otherwise normal healthy people who do not actively try to avoid death are certainly, at the very least, considered suspect. You know, people like suicide bombers or religious cults geared toward death.
I know that psychiatric facilities use the phrase “a danger to self or others” in evaluating whether or not a person should be admitted/released. I believe they establish this by the high-tech method of talking to the person in question.
