11th August 2009
“During the seventeenth century, when Calvinism raged throughout Scotland, people went to their deaths (or the asylum) terrified of what the invented afterlife held for them. Recently, a good-living elderly friend passed away shaking with fear at what awaited him, such was the power of his youthful indoctrination.”
Bill Macaskill
August 11th, 2009 at 21:00
Very sad.
August 11th, 2009 at 22:05
Kind of reminds me of Epicurus’s argument as to to why one should not fear death: (1) What does not exist cannot be harmed, (2) it is irrational to fear when one cannot be harmed, (3) death is non-existence, (4) thus it is irrational to fear death. But if death really is non-existence, then that in itself is a little scary. For some, it better serves to imagine death as the beginning another existence. I like to point out that although some of us “believe” in another existence, we all “know” this existence. This life is what matters. Its impermanence makes it no less meaningful. Your thoughts?