What makes us fear death?

[china]

Do you think a leaf that falls to the ground is afraid of death? Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying? It meets death when death comes; but it is not concerned about death, it is much too occupied with living, with catching insects, building a nest, singing a song, flying for the very joy of flying. Have you ever watched birds soaring high up in the air without a beat of their wings, being carried along by the wind? How endlessly they seem to enjoy themselves! They are not concerned about death. If death comes, it is all right, they are finished. There is no concern about what is going to happen; they are living from moment to moment, are they not? It is we human beings who are always concerned about death - because we are not living. That is the trouble: we are dying, we are not living. The old people are near the grave, and the young ones are not far behind. You see, there is this preoccupation with death because we are afraid to lose the known, the things that we have gathered.We are afraid to lose what we have learnt, accumulated. If we could carry over all the things that we have gathered - our friends our possessions, our virtues, our character - then we would not be afraid of death, would we?
Now, if you can live from moment to moment and not be concerned about the future, if you can live without the thought of tomorrow - which does not mean the superficiality of merely being occupied with today; if, being aware of the whole process of the known, you can, relinquish the known, let it go completely, then you will find that an astonishing thing takes place. Try it for a day - put aside everything you know, forget it, and just see what happens. Don't carry over your worries from day to day, from hour to hour, from moment to moment; let them all go, and you will see that out of this freedom there comes an extraordinary life that includes both living and dying. Death is only the ending of something, and in that very ending there is a renewing.

 

[hermanntrude]

how the hell do you know what a bird feels, china?

And if a bird never fears death, why does it fly away as soon as it sees a cat?

 

[quandary121]

I'm not sure your right when you say

Do you think a leaf that falls to the ground is afraid of death? Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying? It meets death when death comes; but it is not concerned about death, it is much too occupied with living, with catching insects, building a nest, singing a song, flying for the very joy of flying. Have you ever watched birds soaring high up in the air without a beat of their wings, being carried along by the wind? How endlessly they seem to enjoy themselves! They are not concerned about death. If death comes, it is all right, they are finished. There is no concern about what is going to happen; they are living from moment to moment, are they not? It is we human beings who are always concerned about death - because we are not living. That is the trouble: we are dying, we are not living. The old people are near the grave, and the young ones are not far behind. You see, there is this preoccupation with death because we are afraid to lose the known, the things that we have gathered.We are afraid to lose what we have learnt, accumulated. If we could carry over all the things that we have gathered - our friends our possessions, our virtues, our character - then we would not be afraid of death, would we?
Now, if you can live from moment to moment and not be concerned about the future, if you can live without the thought of tomorrow - which does not mean the superficiality of merely being occupied with today; if, being aware of the whole process of the known, you can, relinquish the known, let it go completely, then you will find that an astonishing thing takes place. Try it for a day - put aside everything you know, forget it, and just see what happens. Don't carry over your worries from day to day, from hour to hour, from moment to moment; let them all go, and you will see that out of this freedom there comes an extraordinary life that includes both living and dying. Death is only the ending of something, and in that very ending there is a renewing.

I'm not sure your right when you say Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying as far as i am aware all things living if not fear death!.they strive to live they do not wish to die nothing living does.!when encountering death they shy away from it ? And as far as if you can live without the thought of tomorrow in today's world i find that that is exactly how i live. Each day one day at a time as to look to the future now days is impossible if not foolish .Who can honestly say that they know there future will be secure or safe it is only our past that tells us how we can expect to live in the future and that to think about any thing further then tomorrow is pointless as the day we are living in has not ended, so to predict ones own future well being is impossible as we dont know the out come of today yet ?

 

[I think not]

What makes us fear death?

Finality.

 

[quandary121]

It is impossible to imagine total extinction. However hard we try, there is always a consciousness there doing the imagining. So it is not surprising that belief in life after death has been almost universal in human societies.But the afterlife has not always been seen positively. For Greeks, Mesopotamians, Israelites, and ordinary Egyptians, it was first thought to be a miserable shady subterranean existence. Life on earth was always preferable to death.
The idea that the afterlife might be better than the present life is a much more recent invention. In Greece, Israel, and Egypt this idea emerged at times of very high mortality, political chaos, war, social breakdown, famine, plague or mass persecution (see The History of Heaven). This occurred in the 21st century BC in Egypt, in the fifth century BC in Greece, and in the second century BC in Israel (where it took the form of resurrection on a magically transformed earth).
Once invented, heaven retained its appeal for everyone facing their own death or the death of their loved ones. It was a method for coping with grief, bereavement, and the fear of death. How comforting to think that though we would die, yet we could never die; that we would leave a place full of briars for one with only thornless roses; that we would meet again with all our lost friends and relatives.
Yet the belief in heaven has many problems. It is not backed by any solid evidence. It devalues life on earth. It reduces the urgency of social and environmental action on earth. And because it is almost always linked with belief in hell, it doesn't really relieve anxiety about death at all. Unless, that is, you play God and assume that you are worthy of heaven; or you accept only the heaven bit and forget all about hell.
​

Near death is not real death.

Other than scripture, there is no reliable evidence for survival after death.There is a growing popular literature about near-death experiences, but these are about near-death - not actual death. People whose physical functions have stopped for a short time are not truly, irrevocably dead. Their experiences are based on processes inside their own oxygen-starved brain, and the accounts they give are untestable against hard evidence.
No-one has ever truly returned from the dead to tell us what it's like. No-one has been dead for a week or a month or a year and come back to tell the tale.
We are told that many accounts agree with each other and with texts like the Tibetan Book of the Dead. But we are not told of the accounts that do not agree. Nor are we reminded that in Judaism and early Christianity there is no heaven after death, no journey of the soul through a tunnel into light - only a sleep until the resurrection of the body.
​

Death is real death.

All our direct experience tells us that souls die with bodies. As Job says:

A man dies, and is laid low;
man breathes his last, and where is he?
As waters fail from a lake,
and a river wastes away and dries up,
so man lies down and rises not again.
[Job, 14:7-12]​

Neurology suggests that our minds are manifestations of our bodies. When parts of the brain are damaged or removed in operations, various functions disappear and our mental capacities change. The simplest explanation is that the soul is not separate: it is a function of the body. When all our brain functions cease, the available evidence suggests that all our individual consciousness and mind activities cease.Of course no-one could completely exclude the possibility that part of our minds may outlive our bodies: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But the onus is on those who claim survival after death to prove it conclusively. No-one has.
In the case of heaven and hell, there is every reason to believe that these are human-made concepts, not accounts of true realities. We can trace in Egypt, Israel and Greece the precise evolution of the concepts. We can date the shifts to within 100 years in each case, and we can see clear psychological reasons why people would need to develop such beliefs at times of unprecedented stress.
​

If heaven is so good, why bother with life on earth?

Another major problem is that belief in a better life after death devalues life before death. The present life is short and problematic. The future life - if we are good - is wonderful beyond our dreams and lasts forever and ever.For people who really believes this, there is no contest. The afterlife is infinitely more important than this life, and this life must be used and may be sacrificed to ensure the best possible afterlife. But if they are wrong, they could undermine the only life they will ever really have, for the sake of an imaginary life that doesn't exist.
The thought of heaven affects the way people think about their lives and actions from day to day. It can create self-consciousness - a feeling that every action and thought is being watched and assessed and recorded. Many things may be done not for the sake of their real consequences - but for the sake of earning an entry ticket to paradise.
Belief in a better afterlife is often closely linked to rejection of the body and of sex as sinful or inferior - because it's the soul that really matters. It is the soul that will go to heaven, and the body's urges that may stop it from reaching its goal.
In the West this trend became prominent with Plato. He was reared in Athens at a time of siege, plague and famine during the Peloponnesian war. After the death of his beloved Socrates, Plato began to believe that the soul was trapped in the body as in a tomb. At death the philosopher's soul would be released to unite with God - though other people's souls would have to go through several reincarnations first. This negative attitude to the body had its roots in anxiety about death. It spread in the Greek and Roman world as insecurity and warfare spread, and was particularly strong in Christianity right up till the Renaissance.
​

Heaven awaits: why bother setting things right on earth?

Belief in heaven also affects the way people feel about social and environmental action and change. If this earth is no more than a staging post, a launch platform, a starting point from which we pass on to the real destination - then it doesn't ultimately matter all that much if society is unjust, or if the environment is being destroyed. It is not so crucial to preserve it or to change it for the better. Whatever life on earth is like, however oppressive, unfair, insecure, polluted, or barren it gets, we don't need to worry: there is a far far better world to come.As Paul writes:

We know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. [2 Cor 5:1-4]​

The raising of heaven above earth might not be so serious if each religion made social or environmental concern a condition for entry into heaven. Judaism and Christianity do make social concern a condition - but not environmental concern (see The Bible and Environment).
From Paul onwards the promise of heaven was also used to shore up inequality and to discourage rebellion:

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent," he writes in 1 Timothy [2.12-15] "Women will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."​

The secular authorities should be obeyed, Paul insisted:

He who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement . . . One must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. [Romans 13:1-7].​

He also condoned slavery: "All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect." On one occasion Paul even sent a runaway slave, Onesimus, back to his master Philemon [Epistle to Philemon].
​

If God will destroy this earth, why struggle to preserve it?

Belief in an apocalyptic end to the world, common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is more dangerous still. Jesus warned about the last days:

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven. [Mk 13.24-25]BR> On the day when Lot went out from Sodom fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all - so it will be on the day when the Son of man is revealed. [Lk 17.29-30]​

Mohammed warns in similar vein:

When the stars are extinguished
And the skies are riven asunder;
When the mountains blow away like dust,
And the messengers' time is fixed;
When is the time appointed?
On the Day of Decision.
[Koran 77.8-13]​

If God himself will one day roll up the heavens like a scroll and burn the earth to a cinder, then why should we struggle to preserve it? Some fundamentalists believe that the environmental destruction we are wreaking today is God's way of bringing about his plan for the end of the world.
​

The terrors of hell.

If there is no heaven, some people ask, where's the hope? Why shouldn't we sink into despair?The beliefs in heaven, hell and apocalypse do not relieve despair. The Last Days promised by Old Testament prophets, by Jesus and Mohammed can be a cause of massive despair. They mean the end of all normal life on earth, the end of the passage of generations, the end of love between humans, the end of raising families. They mean the end of time and of history. And they could, so we are told repeatedly, arrive at any time. Many lives are blighted and distorted by apocalyptic beliefs.
Heaven is no free lunch. Rarely is it promised without a companion hell - and fear of hell is a potent source of despair and depression. As Lucretius, the Roman poet-philosopher, remarked, the fear of Hell after death can actually make life Hell:

But there in this life is fear of punishments for our misdeeds, a fear enormous in proportion to their enormity, and by the penalties imposed for crime - imprisonment and horrific precipitation from cliffs, the lash, the block, the rack, the boiling pitch, the firebrand and the branding iron. Even though these horrors are not physically present, yet the mind, conscious of its own deeds, in terrified anticipation torments itself with its own goads and whips . . . It is afraid that death may serve merely to intensify pain. So on earth the life of fools becomes a Hell on earth. [De rerum natura, iii: 1013-1022.]​

Hell is a human invention, too. In the three major Western religions Hell begins as a threat used against people who betray old faiths or reject new ones. Later it is generalized to wider categories of sin.The Jews invented their own Hell at the time of the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, for Jews who followed Antiochus' injunctions to renounce their religion. The imagery of hell was based on Gehinnom - the valley of Hinnom, where the Jerusalem's refuse was burned.
Jesus repeatedly stresses the threat of hell:

Hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. [Mk 9.48].
The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. [Matthew 13.49-50]​

Mohammed promises fire and meals of molten copper burning the entrails. In the Western Middle Ages life was dominated by the terror of damnation and the fear of demons.Even today, how many Christians can say they have never sweated with fear of Hell?
​

If heaven exists, it's better if we don't believe in it.

There is a viable alternative to belief in heaven and survival after death. It is belief in natural death. In natural death we are resolved into our elements and recycled in nature. We are re-united with the whole from which our consciousness has temporarily separated us. This belief can relieve anxiety about death much more thoroughly and surely than belief in an unprovable heaven - with its attendant hell.If we don't believe in an afterlife, then this life and this body is all we've got. We must be positive about them and make the most of them responsibly while we're here. This world is all we've got, this nature is our garden of Eden, and this one life is the only chance we'll have to try to make it better for ourselves and our children.
No just God would punish us for adopting these beliefs. No just God would send people to Hell for disbelieving things for which there is no solid evidence. So even if there is a heaven, it would be better for this earth if we didn't believe in it.
​

PANTHEISM

is the belief that the universe is divine and nature is sacred.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern for nature.
It provides the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self.

 

[Praxius]

Do you think a leaf that falls to the ground is afraid of death?

No, because a leaf of a tree is much like a hair on a human... it's a cast off. The proper question would be if the Tree feels death when it sheds its leaves.... but then it's not really dieing, therefore the question is kinda defeated.

Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying? It meets death when death comes; but it is not concerned about death, it is much too occupied with living, with catching insects, building a nest, singing a song, flying for the very joy of flying. Have you ever watched birds soaring high up in the air without a beat of their wings, being carried along by the wind? How endlessly they seem to enjoy themselves! They are not concerned about death. If death comes, it is all right, they are finished. There is no concern about what is going to happen; they are living from moment to moment, are they not?

How do you know for sure they don't know what death is, and may or may not fear it? Throughout their lives they are faced with death everyday.... their parents, their friends, companions, siblings.... they all will face death at their own time, and chances are they will take notice of the deaths.

The bird, and all other animals fear death, because that is what keeps us alive. Survival on instinct and by the fittest. If animals had no fear of death, then wouldn't we have deer just walking up to the barrels of our rifles waiting to get shot in the head? Would wolves have to chase after their food? Would the elephants not huddle together as a protective family to keep their young away from the lions seeking food?

They are fully aware of fear and death itself, just as we are.

It is we human beings who are always concerned about death - because we are not living. That is the trouble: we are dying, we are not living. The old people are near the grave, and the young ones are not far behind. You see, there is this preoccupation with death because we are afraid to lose the known, the things that we have gathered.We are afraid to lose what we have learnt, accumulated. If we could carry over all the things that we have gathered - our friends our possessions, our virtues, our character - then we would not be afraid of death, would we?

I don't know about you, but I'm not afraid of death and I have no desire to take everything and everyone with me when I do die.... that's either silly, or insane.

Your expression of attitude in this thread seems to point towards a bleak outlook of your life and humanity in general. We are living and we are also dying.... but we are not dead just yet..... if you wish to be dead, be my guest.... but I am currently alive and I have some time left in my life before I have to actually start thinking of the next transition.

Now, if you can live from moment to moment and not be concerned about the future, if you can live without the thought of tomorrow - which does not mean the superficiality of merely being occupied with today; if, being aware of the whole process of the known, you can, relinquish the known, let it go completely, then you will find that an astonishing thing takes place. Try it for a day - put aside everything you know, forget it, and just see what happens. Don't carry over your worries from day to day, from hour to hour, from moment to moment; let them all go, and you will see that out of this freedom there comes an extraordinary life that includes both living and dying. Death is only the ending of something, and in that very ending there is a renewing.

I do this everyday when I smoke my ganja..... I forget everything, I let it all go.... heck I might even drool a little if I'm so lucky.

But I disagree with your perspective on the animals' of this planet and their level of intelligence, and I also disagree with your general view of humans.... at least as it applies to myself.

But what are you trying to tell us we should do? Shall we just clear our heads of all thoughts and emotions because they're pointless and we're all gonna die anyways? Are we supposed to operate as ants for one queen (Government telling us what's best for us and we follow along) and to follow blindly until we are dead/killed?

If that makes your life more fullfilling, you go right ahead and do that.... I'll do and think what I wish to do and think and enjoy my life exactly how I wish to screw it up.

 

[quandary121]

No, because a leaf of a tree is much like a hair on a human... it's a cast off. The proper question would be if the Tree feels death when it sheds its leaves.... but then it's not really dieing, therefore the question is kinda defeated.



How do you know for sure they don't know what death is, and may or may not fear it? Throughout their lives they are faced with death everyday.... their parents, their friends, companions, siblings.... they all will face death at their own time, and chances are they will take notice of the deaths.

The bird, and all other animals fear death, because that is what keeps us alive. Survival on instinct and by the fittest. If animals had no fear of death, then wouldn't we have deer just walking up to the barrels of our rifles waiting to get shot in the head? Would wolves have to chase after their food? Would the elephants not huddle together as a protective family to keep their young away from the lions seeking food?

They are fully aware of fear and death itself, just as we are.



I don't know about you, but I'm not afraid of death and I have no desire to take everything and everyone with me when I do die.... that's either silly, or insane.

Your expression of attitude in this thread seems to point towards a bleak outlook of your life and humanity in general. We are living and we are also dying.... but we are not dead just yet..... if you wish to be dead, be my guest.... but I am currently alive and I have some time left in my life before I have to actually start thinking of the next transition.



I do this everyday when I smoke my ganja..... I forget everything, I let it all go.... heck I might even drool a little if I'm so lucky.

But I disagree with your perspective on the animals' of this planet and their level of intelligence, and I also disagree with your general view of humans.... at least as it applies to myself.

CLASSIC ANSWER HAHAHA LOL

 

[lone wolf]

Unfinished business....
People will get to look through your intimate secrets....
The unknown (what if they were right?)

 

[EagleSmack]

Animals don't fear death...they are afraid of getting chased.

 

[hermanntrude]

Animals don't fear death...they are afraid of getting chased.

I think this is possibly true, but how can we know? And how can we know that what we fear is death and not the means by which it comes?

 

[EagleSmack]

"Do you fear death? Do you fear that dark abyss. All your deeds laid bare. All your sins punished. I can offer you an escape. I offer you a choice. Join my crew and postpone the judgement. One hundred years before the mast. Will Ye Serve?."

 

[EagleSmack]

I think this is possibly true, but how can we know? And how can we know that what we fear is death and not the means by which it comes?

I got that from a stand up comic.

 

[hermanntrude]

I got that from a stand up comic.

some very funny things are still true. But I'm glad you're not claiming to know the toughts of an animal

 

[MikeyDB]

I'm not really certain if my following comments are germane in the context of this thread but anyway....

I've faced death as an immediate possibility many times. We all know on some level that life ends and perhaps fear is felt when one considers what could have been.... If we squander the opportunities we have to love each other and offer kindness understanding and tolerance to those who need it most, we've surrendered to that very darkness that holds so much fear for so many. I don't fear death anymore, there was a time.... but not for a very long time have I any trepidations about what will follow this experience.

To each his own I suppose....

 

[china]

To find something original and true, something timeless, you cannot come to it with the burden of memory, knowledge. The known, the past, can never help you to discover the moving, the creative. No amount of technique or learning, no amount of attending talks and discussions, can ever reveal to you the unknown. If you really see the truth of this, actually experience if for yourself, then you are free of all Masters and gurus, of all teachers, saints, and saviors. Because, they can only teach you what is known, and the mind which is burdened with the known can never find what is unknowable.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

To find something original and true, something timeless, you cannot come to it with the burden of memory, knowledge. The known, the past, can never help you to discover the moving, the creative. No amount of technique or learning, no amount of attending talks and discussions, can ever reveal to you the unknown. If you really see the truth of this, actually experience if for yourself, then you are free of all Masters and gurus, of all teachers, saints, and saviors. Because, they can only teach you what is known, and the mind which is burdened with the known can never find what is unknowable.

Absolute crap, as usual. Study a little bit of the history of science and you'll see how it's all been built on past knowledge and techniques, "standing on the shoulders" of others, as more than one scientist has put it, in complete contradiction to your claims here. And in typical New Age nonsense fashion, you end with a total non sequitur: "the mind which is burdened with the known can never find what is unknowable." If it's unknowable, it doesn't matter what you're burdened with or not burdened with, by definition you'll never find it. No mind can ever find it if it's unknowable. Do you actually think about the logic of what you write?

 

[china]

Dexter Sinister ,

Do you actually think about the logic of what you write?

Dear Dexter Sinister ,
Agree , we must have knowledge to communicate, to tell each other about something; and to cultivate knowledge there must be memory. Without knowledge you cannot fly an airplane, you cannot build a bridge or a house, you cannot construct great roads, look after trees, care for animals and do the many other things that a civilized man must do- for all this you must have knowledge, information, memory, and in these matters it is necessary to receive the best possible instruction. But you see Dexter , while knowledge is necessary at one level, at another level it becomes a hindrance. There is a great deal of knowledge available about physical existence, and it is being added to, all the time. It is essential to have such knowledge and to utilize it for the benefit of man. But is there not another kind of knowledge which, at the psychological level becomes a hindrance to the discovery of what is true? After all, knowledge is a form of tradition, is it not? And tradition is the cultivation of memory. Tradition in mechanical affairs is essential, but when tradition is used as a means of guiding man inwardly, it becomes a hindrance to the discovery of greater things, himself . We rely on knowledge, on memory in mechanical things and in our everyday living. Without knowledge we would not be able drive a car, we would be incapable of doing many things. But knowledge is a hindrance when it becomes a tradition, a belief which guides the mind, the psyche, the inward being; and it also divides people. Have you noticed how people all over the world are divided into groups, calling themselves Hindus, Buddhists, Christians,Communists ,Capitalists , Polish ,Americans ,Canadiens ......etc ? What divides them? Not the investigations of science, not the knowledge of agriculture, of how to build bridges or fly jet planes. What divides people is tradition, beliefs which condition the mind in a certain way. So knowledge is a hindrance when it has become a tradition which shapes or conditions the mind to a particular pattern, because then it not only divides people and creates enmity between them, but it also prevents the deep discovery of what is truth, what is life, what is God. To discover what is God, the mind must be free of all tradition, of all accumulation, of all knowledge which it uses as a psychological safeguard. The function of education is to give the student abundant knowledge in the various fields of human endeavour and at the same time to free his mind from all tradition so that he is able to investigate, to find out, to discover. Otherwise the mind becomes mechanical, burdened with the machinery of knowledge. Unless it is constantly freeing itself from the accumulations of tradition, the mind is incapable of discovering the Supreme, that which is eternal; but it must obviously acquire expanding knowledge and information so that it is capable of dealing with the things that man needs and must produce.
So knowledge, which is the cultivation of memory, is useful and necessary at a certain level, but at another level it becomes a detriment. I hope you can understand what I am saying Dexter Sinister and wish that we can come to common uhderstanding .

 

[Lester]

It's not death itself that cause consternation but what comes after- I have simply accepted the fact that one day like the Norwegion Blue, I shall also be bereft of life- unless they invent that magic pill.

 

[china]

hermanntrude ,

how the hell do you know what a bird feels, china?

it's an ancient Chinese secret .

 

[Scott Free]

Being dead didn't bother me before I was alive so why should it bother me after?

I have forgotten who was the originator of that thought (Mark Twain?) but its logic keeps me from fearing death.

I don't much cherish the idea of dying in some gruesome way and that, for me, is where the fear factor is applicable.