It may be possible to mistake my meaning. I only fear death in the sense that everyone ought to fear it. If your own death is coming at you like a freight train, and you feel no trepidation, I'd say that you on some level don't really perceive death as real.aliantha wrote:You're truly afraid of death, Rus? Because I'm not. Not that I'm going out looking for death or anything, but I'm satisfied that if I died tomorrow it would be okay. I've done most of what I set out to do; I've seen to it that my kids are provided for financially if I go; and I've lived my life in as morally correct a manner as I believe I could have. That's pretty much all any of us can do to prepare, isn't it?
OTOH, my religion doesn't feature a big scary Judgment Day on the other side. But even if I'm wrong and there is one, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape to meet it. Other than the fact that my religion is the wrong flavor, if you will.
One other thing, Rus: you keep talking about despair, how everything but faith leads to despair. And yet neither Av nor Fist nor I are despairing. I think your logic there needs a little work....
My fear is a rational one that every intelligent being ought to have. It is a ripping apart of body and spirit - something that according to design wasn't supposed to happen. It doesn't mean that I'm quaking in my boots - it is still a mostly intellectual view of death - maybe I should be quaking.
I'm not talking about having done what you can to prepare - that has nothing to do with what I mean by "fear". What it means is a realization of how important THIS life is in preparation for eternity - an awareness of how much we've already screwed up affects it - I would also say that it is worth considering the possibility that one may not be fully aware of the extent to which he has screwed up:
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, bk 3, ch 14 (Morality and Psychoanalysis)That explains what always used to puzzle me about Christian writers; they seem to be so very strict at one moment and so very free and easy at another. They talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important : and then they talk about the most frightful murders and treacheries as if you had only got to repent and all would be forgiven. But I have come to see that they are right. What they are always thinking of is the mark which the action leaves on that tiny central self which no one sees in this life but which each of us will have to endure - or enjoy - for ever. One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed it. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what really matters.
One last point. Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.
www.philosophyforlife.com/mctoc.htm
Again, I have not said that any of you feel despair now. I am saying that if your current philosophy does not hold up under "the ultimate test", then despair will be the result.
The main thing I get here is how easy it is to mistake meaning.
Not that word!) to be something that is not normal in terms of our design, that it is actually a system-wide abnormality, so to speak, that it is a failing and not the human ideal to be "only human", then we will , like a doctor who has a more correct understanding of the nature of a physical illness, react in a more appropriate manner to spiritual illness. At the very least, if you acknowledge that there IS an ideal for the human body (perfect health), then it might be possible to acknowledge that there may be an ideal for the human soul. The major religions all generally point to someone who had this correct understanding. Christianity goes further than the others by bringing God physically into the historical picture (Again, see "The Everlasting Man" [maybe if I repeat this often enough, you'll pick it up someday...?])
Anyway, I had heard all these stories about JWs, and their crazy beliefs, so I invited them all in. Figured I'd learn what they really did believe. Also, I've always been interested in what people believe. Religion is among the most pervasive aspects of all human cultures, so it's not a bad idea to learn what everybody believes, eh? And at that time, I wasn't sure if there were any beliefs anywhere inside me, so I was always trying to learn at least a little about lots of beliefs, to see if any resonated with me. So I had one of the guys come back every Sunday for a couple months. I had a good time asking questions, learning about them. Then, one day, all happy, he said, "I think you're ready to come to a meeting." I said, "Oh! No. Sorry. I don't believe any of this stuff. I'm just interested in learning what you believe." (Never saw him again.)
) Perhaps your psychological makeup would be like a kid in a candy shop who is unable to choose from among so many, and so can't pick at all.