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DEATH AND SOCIETY (1) The issue of death in Western society has traditionally been considered as inappropriate topic of public discussion. People are unwilling to admit to themselves that they will cease to exist as individuals, after they die. This is because European mentality is best defined by its strive towards immortality, which is represented in works of art, literature and science. Peoples ability to operate with abstract categories allowed them to become dominant specie of Earth. We rose to the status of semi-gods, when we are able to clone living organisms, fly to the Moon and create new landscapes, so that they would please our eyes.
Yet, we had not figured out how to combat death, even though that modern biology suggests that the essence of death is not biologically motivated, because the cells of our bodies continuously renew themselves. The fear of death is the foundation of all basic instincts. Animals spend their lives in complete ignorance of death. People, on the other hand, are aware of the fact that one day they will die, because they have the ability of logical thought.
However, the nature is based on the principle of balance. Even though that our mental powers convince us of deaths inevitability, they also allow us to ignore this fact on metaphysical level, by finding a spiritual relief in various religious dogmas. The fear of death is irrational; this is why most of worlds religions are also irrational in their essence. Peoples understanding of the essence of death ranges from referring to it as complete annihilation of body and soul to suggesting that we are immortal, because our souls will continue on living in the kingdom of heaven.
There is also a centrist point of view, regarding the issue of death. Buddhism, for example, teaches individual to look upon itself as just a bodily manifestation of some abstract principle, which does not begin and does not end. This is why it is a Buddhism that allows people to accept death with calm, because it considers it to be the natural part of living. Christianity, on the other hand, refers to death as the purpose of life, which is absolutely unnatural.
This is why people in Western countries are much more afraid of death, even though that it should have been other way around, since Christianity proclaims people to be essentially immortal, for as long as they are willing to accept good news. The fear of death does not derive out of our knowledge of what it constitutes. Animals are afraid of death, just as humans, even though that they are unaware of it. We can say that the fear of death is something opposite to the will to live. Wild animals are trying to mask their existence, in order to extend it for as long as possible. This is because all living creatures, including men, are embodiment of blind desire to live.
It is a well known fact that society remains utterly unsympathetic towards the people who commit suicide. This is because taking its own life is considered to be the biggest transgression against the laws of nature. It is valid point of view, however, the realities of modern living do not allow us to fully agree with this statement, as we will show later in this paper. What strikes us as especially horrible about the death is not the end of life but bodys decay, because body is physical form of life as thing in itself. However, we can only sense the effects of death while we alive. As people get older, their skin looses its vibrancy, their teeth fall out and their behavior is becoming childlike.
In another words, the fear of death cannot be rationalized, because when we are alive, there is no death and when we are dead, we do not feel it, as we have ceased to exist. This points out to the fact that people are simply incapable of realizing the true nature of death, because it is something utterly illusive. The closest thing to death is fainting. Those who had fallen unconscious cannot talk about it, because they do not remember anything. We certainly do not feel uncomfortable when we think about the time, before we were being born. Why then do we think about the end of our existence as something horrible?
The answer is simple our blind desire to continue on living does not allow us to think about the death in calm and rational manner. It appears that nature had designed this mechanism with a purpose of preventing people from committing suicides, because death has many advantages over living, when we think about it, without being affected by our emotions. The fact that many people have experienced life after death cannot be considered as something that contradicts science. When we die, the agonizing cells of our brain give birth to the infinite number of three dimensional images. As the result, in the brain of already deceased person, in the matter of one split of a second, the whole new universe is being born. According to the theory of relativity, the infinitely small categories of sub molecular level can represent whole galaxies, in their own space-time continuum.
Whatever for our understanding appears to be one split of a second, in sub molecular realm, can be an eternity. The number of possible combinations between three dimensional images is calculated as such that strives towards the infinity. During the moment of death, the myriad of visual images gets concentrated into the endlessly small period of time. It is like a dream we can fall asleep for a couple a minutes, but when we wake up, it will seem as we had slept for a couple of hours. In the time when person passes away, his dreams stretch out to the infinity. The person is dying, but in the same time he is seeing a dream, which is absolutely real, but the most important it will last forever!
The agony is the real gift from the nature. It is her last gift to a dying person. What is truly interesting is that all the manifestations of our spirit are nothing but the result of our instinctive belief that we will last forever. Everything comes as the result of it: science, art, religion. Many people had experienced a clinical death and it appears that they had seen absolutely real images of future afterlife. That is why we do not truly believe that one day we will die.
This is because our own psyche builds a defensive barrier, so that we do not go nuts. It prevents us from seeing the difference between the dead and alive. (Think of all the burial rituals, with kissing of corpse and such). If person, during his lifetime, was a Christian, in the true sense of this word, and felt remorse for the bad things he had done, his endless dream will turn into something that will remind him an endless Christian hell. And otherwise around - those who lived their lives easy, while trying to take the best out of it, who were able to enjoy simple pleasures of life, without being too serious about it, will remain forever happy in the eternity that awaits for them. You are already dead, you will never live again, and you are history but only for those who live in the "temporary living continuum", which is the real world. But for you personally, this is only the beginning.
The short moment of death can turn into the endless suffering or the endless bliss. The new world will open before you, and it will seem more real than the real one. More beautiful, or more horrible - depending on what kind of burden you have on your conscience. (2) Before the advent of Christianity in Europe, people did not fear death the way they do now. In Scandinavian sagas, the greatest virtue that the individual can ever accomplish is to die in combat.
People were aware that their lives are just existential expressions of something higher. This is why, back than, they were much more psychologically comfortable with phenomenon of death. Individuals cannot be thought of outside of historical or ethnic context. Frenchmen, for example, can relate to innumerable generations of their ancestors, as well as to generations of their descendants, who are not being born yet. Up until the time when spiritual disease of multiculturalism affected France, French citizens considered themselves as being part of unified French nation. This allowed them to sacrifice their lives with ease, for the sake of Frances greatness, as they knew that by doing this they achieve immortality.
This situation has changed drastically with the advent of degenerative religious and social doctrines, which reduced people to atomistic mode of existence. Christianity can be considered as the basis of spiritual degeneracy, which initiated peoples pathological fear of death. This religion teaches that people can achieve immortality, for as long as they agree to be deprived of their unique traits of character, which serve as the basis of their personality. In order to be able to achieve this dubious salvation, individual needs to totally reconsider his ways of living.
Such things as imposing justice, protecting the members of family or combating the enemy, do not have any value at all, because they are associated with life, while Jesus wanted people to be more concerned with death. He taught his disciples to let dead bury their own dead, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. After Christianity had gained a foothold in Roman society, it began its onslaught on ancient culture. Within a very short period of time, ancient Creek and Roman sculptures that represented health, beauty and intellect, were being replaced by ugly images of saints, who used to take a masochistic pleasure in cutting off their own genitals, for the glory of God. However, the worst thing of all is that the religion of peace started the process of peoples spiritual poisoning. It is natural for everyone to be afraid of death; still, Christianity turned this natural instinct into something utterly unnatural.
Jesus wanted people to be both: afraid of death and to be drawn to it, at the same time. This is why Catholics even today are happy when they get a chance to touch or kiss Christian jerky - that is a dried out part of saints body. During the Easter, thousands of people in such countries as Philippines, Colombia or Venezuela flog themselves and ask to be crucified at the cross. Sigmund Freud suggested that along with the instinct of life, peoples behavior is also defined by the instinct of death.
Christianity is nothing but the instinct of death in form of religion. Jesus promoted dying as only the acceptable form of existence. This explains why the cult of dead plays such an important role in this religion. It is very remarkable that today many people think about Christianity as something opposite to what it really is, because his religion is associated with...
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Research essay sample on Fear Of Death Afraid Of Death
