[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I can see it going either way, actually. A fear of death or rather, fear of[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]the unknown beyond it can easily drive some to cling to the hope that[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]there's *nothing* beyond it.
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Yes, this is a good point.
Fear of death has been used for millennia as a means of controlling people with that fear. It can motivate humans to commit all kinds of inhuman behavior in order to avoid it. What are we afraid of? What makes a person capable of committing atrocities upon other humans in order to avoid being killed themselves?
The fact is, it is not natural for humans to WANT to die. If we can understand why that is, despite the fact that ageing, sickness and death is all the human race have ever experienced, then we will begin to see why something inevitable is so dreaded and why the youth, beauty and health industries flourish in the vain attempts to forestall it.
Of all the life forms on this planet, only man has the ability to contemplate his own demise and to comprehend what it means in real life experience. We alone grieve to an extent that emotionally cripples us for a long time.....sometimes for many years.
The animal kingdom, by and large accepts death as a natural part of their existence. Humans fight to live, but animals do not seem to have a comprehension of their own death. Even those who prey on other creatures do not fully comprehend death, but see the death of other animals as perpetuating their own existence. Instinct drives this self preservation, not conscious planning.
For those who accept the Bible's account of creation, even if they accept the stated hope of an afterlife of peace and happiness beyond death...it is still not something that is anticipated with joy. Why, if we believe that our loved ones have gone on to a better life, do we still grieve so deeply?
Our natural response to death should tell us that it was never meant to happen. We were never designed to accept death or the loss of loved ones because God originally designed us to go on living indefinitely.
If an act of disobedience had not introduced death into the lives of humans, then our lives would have been lived perpetually in the paradise conditions where God first placed humankind.
Myths surrounding what happens after death abound in all cultures, but as far as the Bible is concerned, death is just that. It is not another kind of life, but the end of our present existence.
The Bible speaks of resurrection (a return to human life in the flesh) for the majority of us, not spirit life in another plane of existence. It is this myth of continued existence in an unknown place (maybe in eternal suffering) that causes people to fear death.
If you have the Bible's view, there is nothing to fear. Death is nothing more terrifying than going to sleep. (John 11:11-14) The process of dying can involve suffering, but in death itself there is no consciousness. (Eccl 9:5, 10) Jesus has promised to restore people to life once the earth has been cleansed of all wickedness. (John 5:28, 29; 2 Pet 3:13)
Both the "righteous and the unrighteous" are promised a return to life, not just to heaven (in the case of a limited number of chosen ones) but to never ending life here on earth for the majority of us, as God first purposed in the beginning.
This life was meant to be the one we lived forever. That life was interrupted by rebellion, but it was always God's purpose in sending Jesus Christ, to bring us back to what we lost in Eden. (Rev 21:3-5)
There is nothing to fear in death. The worst that can happen is that God will not bring us back to life. Everlasting death is the opposite of everlasting life....the Bible (as opposed to the musings of human imagination) indicates nothing more complicated than that.
