Debate Are people more afraid of death now than in the past?

It was a process which started because of my line of work, which forced me to see every day the kind of pain which people can impose on one another, and gradually morphed into a realization that even the perpetrators, although they had to be removed from society for the safety of others, might have been only partially responsible because many had social, and more importantly mental and psychological deficiencies or disorders which might have been an accident of genetics and life experiences.

During one decade of my life that combined with a series of terrible events affecting not only my family, but also close friends and, to some extent, me as well.

I could not reconcile that with the existence of an omnipowerful, omnipresent, and loving God. Now, I recognize that some people accept the idea of a creative godhead but believe that once having created the world "God" left evolution and humanity to their own devices. I find that completely unsatisfying. So was the bromide my priest(s) gave me that it's a mystery and we can't presume to understand it. I eagerly picked up a copy of that bestseller, "Why do good people suffer", to which I would add, why do children suffer through no possible fault of their own, and there were no answers there either.

As I've said before, my sense of justice and fairness is an integral part of my nature. So is a belief in the intellect and power of human understanding, prideful though that may be. It is indeed a cliche, but also profoundly tragic, that the world is not fair. Furthermore, if God didn't want us to understand all of these things why give us an intellect at all?

So, faith comes into conflict with both of my "animating" characteristics, if you will.

I don't know if you've ever read any of Elie Wiesel's work. I don't presume to equate the suffering I've seen at close hand to the suffering people experienced during the Holocaust, or put my intellect on a par with his, but I recognize my feelings in his. He is irretrievably sundered from God even though he profoundly misses Him.

I used to accept the science and religion at the same time and used the same explanation that these religious writings are merely a reflection of a nature that represents something figural and that these words are not meant to be taken literally. It was a lame excuse but it worked.

When I started doing historical research and it kinda irked (deep down) because those other fake religions seems to very similar or better to say just a different variant of what have now in religion and later a recent check of religious text completely pushed me away gradually. It was something I saw but did not acknowledge immediately (because I did not want it to be true) but rather gradually.
 
Based on what little information I can find on the subject, and my own interpretations, I believe humans were less afraid of death thousands of years ago than they are now. I think part of it might have been religion based, the other part was they dealt with death on a regular basis. They were closer to the natural world and understood death better.

Surelly, during the "contemporary epochs" it seems that the death question is the utterly tabboo.
 
Very interesting thread with fully anthropological as well philisophical interest. And I say as well
for the reason that: the results and the questions of the first are relatively measurable and clear but there is relatively validition
when applied for the second. Such is the range of the difference that: Anthropology is interested for the "countable" and
"visible" and "provable" answers up on a certain methodology kind of questions. While at the case of the Philosophy, it is
the questions that matters and not as much with the relatively "obvious" and "observable" aspects of the so
called positive sciences.


At that point I have to admit that anthropology is "Philosophy" and philosophy is "Anthropology"
meaning that it is not such counterproposal terms and relatively oftenly interact as counterparts but as counteracts also.
Nothing safe when it cames for "words", apocalyptic reasons and truths up on such big matter like
the Life and Death guestion.

No matter is the -every our "words"- theory about Death, when invades you realize
that nothing can efficiently prepare us to handle the sorrow for our aparted beloved persons.
We have to grow up children and bury our parents... Then completeness will eventually comes.
That completeness summed in a feeling full of "absence". From that desperation sprouts the sperms of hope.


Hope, is like laughing with a bad joke; A joke that we will catch up the meaning later...
 
Who said that: Philosophy is study of death?
The same one who mentions about Eros (love) at the "symposium"... He is the founder of the term "Philosophia",
which considered from him as the "absolut science" (among with architecture and music).
Platon was his name and at that time Athens was in turbullent times.
Such was the impact of Socrates death to Plato and such was the repercussion till today to us.


Societies shaped under the confrontation pressure of death events and tragic incidents.
(By the way... <<Jesus or Socrates>> will always be the quastion for the western part of this world.)


Somehow Death and Eros ghost our fears and wishes, it seems that Love is the absolut eguivalent for the fear
of death, at least for those being concerned at a personal and individual level. For those to be considered at
a colleguial spectrum, I realize that culture (civilization) is the analogous correspondence for the handling
of the Death event.


So, If I summarize in a title that would be: <<The Death event and the dawn of civilizations>> somehow.
 
(picture)
Having the "memento mori", death's remembrance;

dttw1.jpg

Yesterday was "Souls-Saturday (Gr. Ψυχοσάββατο. > "Psychosabbato;")


I borrowed the picture from a "hardcore punks" fanzine. (sic)
https://deathtotheworld.com/about/
 
There is a possibility if we could live for ever, maybe we wouldn't love each other...
and maybe there wouldn't be any reason for -any of the- civilizations to exist.
Love and civilization requires further analysis but I justly reffered to, for the reasons being
at the periphery of the Death question.


We may, don't clearly know what death is but we well know what is "eating" and those are:
Individuals and their "communions" too. So, Love and Culture is the absolut respond for the fear of death
but is also the subject of death and that what feeds him. (-What an irony here!)
And follows harder.
 
Since, we dont know what death is, why not to try to question it ?

Is it a foundamental element of the event of Life?
Is it just a parameter into a dynamic evoluted system forces of universe?
Is it an autonomous entity which counteracts against Life in the Eternity?


There is no science to answer that kind of questions. Hardly they can manage question about the origin of life.
Can we realize for a moment the time, the years of proccesing evolution after Big Bang.
The mass of the evolving material.? A mili-seconnd after? Or milli-secs before the explosion?
The monsterous forces that explode all things?
The temperatures maybe?
The "decission" that forced all that "Move" ?


And even if we know. Can we digest the "sizes" ?
Simply no. Allthough being or trying to be assesed, counted and measured -from sciences- they are just inconcievable.


So, if the so called "obvious" - are hard to interprate, imagine how harder can be the absence of it.
Eg. The timeless Time or the No place Place. Or for example how difference could make for us
million of thousands more or less celsius deegres since we know that just fewer than a dozen deegrees
can eliminate the vast majority of life as we know it today ... and etc.


What the sciences can answer for us except the origins of our unbearable ignorance? :)
 
I don't understand the need to romanticize or glorify death avoiding speaking about what we have not done yet in life.
 
I don't understand the need to romanticize or glorify death avoiding speaking about what we have not done yet in life.

Well, we certainly can't talk about it afterwards. :)
 
I don't understand the need to romanticize or glorify death avoiding speaking about what we have not done yet in life.

Maybe is a need to know but surelly is mostly not to fear. Maybe is just an anathema an aphorism or an apotropaic
approach for those that will happen and we can't avoid.
It is very interesting what you say. I dont' know "what we haven't done yet" - allthough we could but we didn't.
You mean for example the "pill of eternity" or having a ticket to mars?
I dont perceive life like an deterministic process. So, I don't have to do something...to fullfil the programmed "big" plan
if that is what you mean. Here (Greece) we say that: "when a man plans, god laughs".

For me Death is the "black mater" (which actually is no material at all ) of mine aspect of universe, sort of.
Simply saying: How would Life evoluted without death?

Maybe there is a lot to do with the culture and individual cases also, but it Isn't quite strange if you think that all the streets we are walking
having the name of dead people.

Sorry for my english which I dont feel confident at all, probably there is a miss of comprehension of mine, for what you mention.
I cannot have an straight answer it depends the person and its "enviroment". Thanks for that, I dont have to be absolut about any individual cases.
 
Maybe is a need to know but surelly is mostly not to fear. Maybe is just an anathema an aphorism or an apotropaic
approach for those that will happen and we can't avoid.
It is very interesting what you say. I dont' know "what we haven't done yet" - allthough we could but we didn't.
You mean for example the "pill of eternity" or having a ticket to mars?
I dont perceive life like an deterministic process. So, I don't have to do something...to fullfil the programmed "big" plan
if that is what you mean. Here (Greece) we say that: "when a man plans, god laughs".

For me Death is the "black mater" (which actually is no material at all ) of mine aspect of universe, sort of.
Simply saying: How would Life evoluted without death?

Maybe there is a lot to do with the culture and individual cases also, but it Isn't quite strange if you think that all the streets we are walking
having the name of dead people.

Sorry for my english which I dont feel confident at all, probably there is a miss of comprehension of mine, for what you mention.
I cannot have an straight answer it depends the person and its "enviroment". Thanks for that, I dont have to be absolut about any individual cases.
For someone who isn't confident in his English, you sure have a rich vocabulary.
When it comes to what we have yet to do, I am also referring to how our attitude towards death can change.
If there is a lot you are working on, passionate about, doing, wanting to do, then death definitely is something you would want to avoid at any cost.
But then there are also those who sort of feel like their job on earth is done. This was brought up before, but I think that it is really about perceived purpose.
As for culture: death is a personal thing and I don't see that much of a real connection between cultural approach and your own personal upcoming experience.
I personally have never seen a dead person. Only once was I at the funeral of an infant, but the open casket was very far from me. I had a glimpse or two, but it didn't feel real to me. I am definitely not interested in ever seeing someone dead and uneasy about how it may affect me if I did. My 4 year old daughter however has already seen a dead person. Her and her mom drove by a motorcycle accident where the guy's head was split open and he was in a large pool of blood. My daughter talks about it in a more excited fashion like someone would describe a scene from a movie while her mom can hardly speak about it.
Again, there may come a time when I will feel like my "work here is done" and death will not be something terrifying.
It will all make sense to me one day (I believe), but the last thing I need is religion to play with and manipulate me with my fear of death.
I also don't ever want to be a burden to my family. If it ever gets to the point where I depend on others too much, I don't know how I would feel then, but right now my thoughts are that at such point, I would rather no longer be alive than holding back my loved ones in their lives and futures.
 
For someone who isn't confident in his English, you sure have a rich vocabulary.
When it comes to what we have yet to do, I am also referring to how our attitude towards death can change.
If there is a lot you are working on, passionate about, doing, wanting to do, then death definitely is something you would want to avoid at any cost.
But then there are also those who sort of feel like their job on earth is done. This was brought up before, but I think that it is really about perceived purpose.
As for culture: death is a personal thing and I don't see that much of a real connection between cultural approach and your own personal upcoming experience.
I personally have never seen a dead person. Only once was I at the funeral of an infant, but the open casket was very far from me. I had a glimpse or two, but it didn't feel real to me. I am definitely not interested in ever seeing someone dead and uneasy about how it may affect me if I did. My 4 year old daughter however has already seen a dead person. Her and her mom drove by a motorcycle accident where the guy's head was split open and he was in a large pool of blood. My daughter talks about it in a more excited fashion like someone would describe a scene from a movie while her mom can hardly speak about it.
Again, there may come a time when I will feel like my "work here is done" and death will not be something terrifying.
It will all make sense to me one day (I believe), but the last thing I need is religion to play with and manipulate me with my fear of death.
I also don't ever want to be a burden to my family. If it ever gets to the point where I depend on others too much, I don't know how I would feel then, but right now my thoughts are that at such point, I would rather no longer be alive than holding back my loved ones in their lives and futures.

It wouldn't be fair to disagree for the reason I don't know something more -about death- that may you don't.

So, if the disagreement is about, -"How the death event influent cultures and civilizations"; I will note the followings:


First and mostly this is how it placed from the the thread starter (member ericrdpilot). As said:
<< I believe humans were less afraid of death thousands of years ago than they are now. I think part of it might have been religion based,
the other part was they dealt with death on a regular basis...>> That dont require further analysis, I think it is obvious.


The human creature is an entity which interacts and functions in a coordinated enviroment (society) and obedient to sustain
and secure the common interest of the pack that it belongs. That means the individual persons are allguot materials of bigger and whole
organisms, let that be a pack of hunters; or villages; tonws; cities; states; or recently hyper ethnic schematisms like U.S or E.U, etc.
The "body" of society apparted fom humans -allthough humans- being different as persons, which their operational individualistic value it
depends from their functionality and the recognition from and of the rest of the colleaques of the pack.
For example: We are made from the same material but someone is the "heart", an other one is the "lungs", an other the "kidneys" but we all
are part of the same body, a body -from the same material- which we have an expire date simillar of those of our natural physical ones.
In other words: I -personally- shaped and influented from others, in the same mechanim which I shape and influence others.
So, it is true and real to have the individualistic comprehensive of -mine;/yours;/ours; existance but only if we place it in an hyper-individual frame
of synergies with other persons, characters and personalities.


We are social and political creatures which our prosperity, our future and survival depends from our common and customized needs,
depended from the challenges we face as individuals and collectivities ones. The bees cannot survive not even can have a try to live
without belonging to a hive. It is not an hyperbole to admit that is not only our physical body but as well we are material of a greater
body and that is colleguial one. (and believe me those are words from someone which enjoy his solitude like a bear..)


So, if I sum it up and end with a conclusion which accordant with the previous -of mine- statements and place it in an ontological (of what is;)
frame of humane existance (and not a metaphysic one). I would say that:
One is our physical body.
An other one is the "social body.
And an other one is the "invisible" non-material one we call as soul or psyche which interacts with the previous two and both three serves
the demands of the unintelligible "Spirit" or "first move" or "God" or whatever -we can agree about it's nomination- which bond us all smehow.
Away fom me any theological or conserved religious or theosophistries or theophobical narrations of Life and Death event.
(or as I personally refer as "The Great Incident"...)


Culture is love. Love is culture. And the more of them never harm anyone. (Well, that is debatable... but for the flow of the rhetoty,
we shall surpass, and rethink it later... If we, not yet be dead.)
For all that and for even more which cannot share in a few paragraphs. I believe that death is an event with cultural extensions among others.
Which partially agree with the notions of member @ericdpilot.


Attention here please!
If I place a critique is for the desacralization neo-narratives of the postmodern totaliarinism and only.
e,g
<<Since we killed the God, what we shall do with the corpse?>>
 
For someone who isn't confident in his English, you sure have a rich vocabulary.
When it comes to what we have yet to do, I am also referring to how our attitude towards death can change.
If there is a lot you are working on, passionate about, doing, wanting to do, then death definitely is something you would want to avoid at any cost.
But then there are also those who sort of feel like their job on earth is done. This was brought up before, but I think that it is really about perceived purpose.
As for culture: death is a personal thing and I don't see that much of a real connection between cultural approach and your own personal upcoming experience.
I personally have never seen a dead person. Only once was I at the funeral of an infant, but the open casket was very far from me. I had a glimpse or two, but it didn't feel real to me. I am definitely not interested in ever seeing someone dead and uneasy about how it may affect me if I did. My 4 year old daughter however has already seen a dead person. Her and her mom drove by a motorcycle accident where the guy's head was split open and he was in a large pool of blood. My daughter talks about it in a more excited fashion like someone would describe a scene from a movie while her mom can hardly speak about it.
Again, there may come a time when I will feel like my "work here is done" and death will not be something terrifying.
It will all make sense to me one day (I believe), but the last thing I need is religion to play with and manipulate me with my fear of death.
I also don't ever want to be a burden to my family. If it ever gets to the point where I depend on others too much, I don't know how I would feel then, but right now my thoughts are that at such point, I would rather no longer be alive than holding back my loved ones in their lives and futures.

(Since you share a personal story , I'll do the same to my next posts to accompany you, - and lighten up the climate-
before the big dive which may follows!)
 
I was close to five years old and maybe a bit less. It was typical afternoon heading to night.
My mother usually -at that time- preparing our evening supper, and oftenly among other delights
she made for us (me and my sister) pastry leaves with feta (local fresh cheese) we call "tyro-pitakia"
and it was of my favourites.


That afternoon it wasn't like the others we usually spent our times. We had our new (black and white) T.V.
at the living room and all of us we were a bit of excited, -well, not all exactly because my father was absent,
he had to worked all day to pay our new "dream device".
Me and my sister we were on the couch, the house it was full of the smells of our mother preparings and everything
looked and smelled perfect...We had the "tyro-pitakia" in front of us and surelly there would be ice cream after... But those
serenity moments wouldn;t last for long, At that timeI was fully rest in my unbearable childish ignorrance.


That night at the t.v. program was the King Kong movie, the first one... And it was my first time
that I had to confront with the absolut fear and the realization that wasn't any chance to get away of it.
<<We have big problem here>>.
I had terrible nightmares for a very long time... My mother couldn't answer my question <<-why we dying,>>
my sister thought was that our parents they have to lock me to bedlam and my father's thought it was
that the cheese consumption at evenings triggered the nightmares (which is rummored as local urban myth even today!)


Anyway, what it was obvious it was that the blond sexy woman somehow calm down Kong;s anxiety
and fpr me... Yes, for me an indian woman accompanied my pillow and protect me for a long time...
(I wished to byed an medieval knight with sword and black and yellow shield with a silver "spangellhelm"
but the small store run out of these.)

playmobil-klicky-indian-woman-lady_1_6c3ecd26222ff7a2499a181e8eaa930b.jpg

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/playmobil-klicky-indian-woman-lady-517669517



I early postulate that women somehow deal better with the secrets of Life and Death.
A woman bring us to life and usually women take care our bedsheets and the "shrouds" of our graves.
The men trained to be hard and ready to die only. We are the "expendables" Who is the first to die?
If not the mature males to protect the rest of the family,/city,/country etc.
Love is between as also "before" and "after". Love is everywhere... among with a lot of death around...
(By the way, tha';s why women love us, especially the hairy ones, like me and Kong .:LOL:)


That was my first fear crisis incident which inherit me a "memento mori" sort of attitude, since on.
 

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