SCIENCE: Death Anxiety Likely Cause of Belief in Intelligent Design

[URAVIP2ME]

[QUOTE="Mindmaster, post: 5560669, member: 23276]
Whatever we call ourselves, or whatever ideas we embrace in this realm we are happy to pretend that death isn't coming until we have an experience where it might have. [/QUOTE]

It seems to me reactions about death varies.
We know one thing in common is that death can cause people grief and pain of heart.
As far as ' pretend that death isn't coming ' or perhaps thinking more like 'death is a passage between existences'.
Scripture calls God as Heavenly Father. Father means: Life Giver, and Not Life Taker.
So, people are wrong to say ' God takes ' or one is killed by God especially when one is cut down in the prime of life.
To me, it isn't that 'death isn't coming' in this present life, but that resurrection IS coming.
In Scripture, victory over death is possible through Jesus as per Revelation 1:18.
We should know our enemy. Our enemy is: ' enemy death ' according to 1 Corinthians 15:26; Isaiah 25:8.
Jesus himself addressed or recognized the existence of death at John 11:11-14.
Jesus made clear that death is synonymous with sleep (death and sleep mean resting as in Not aware while dead).
No conscious existence while 'asleep in death' as per Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalms 115:17; Psalms 146:4.
Dead asleep as in there are No formulating of thoughts while dead.
So, the only hope for mankind is: resurrection as in standing up again - Daniel 12:2; Daniel 12:13.
The ' sting ' of death will be gone through Christ's victory over enemy death - 1 Corinthians 15:55-57.
So, we can embrace the hope of the resurrection which mostly takes place during Jesus' coming 1,000-year governmental rule over Earth begins. The majority of mankind can have a happy-and-healthy physical resurrection back to live life again as originally offered to Adam before his downfall to live forever on a beautiful paradisical Earth forever.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Isn't Intelligent Design also based in Judaism, Islam, Bahai and any or all Abrahamic religions? And so the JWs are included as well?
The link(s) that I read mentioned ID of course, but not quite so strongly as this OP ......... it seemed more to do with a afterlife?

However, I find the ' afterlife ' teaching has more to do with ' more alive after death than before death '.
So, afterlife is Not a Bible teaching, but a false religious-myth teaching just taught as being Scripture.
What the Bible really teaches is: Resurrection.
Resurrection for the sleeping un-conscious dead as taught by Jesus and the old Hebrew Scriptures.
( John 11:11-14; Psalms 6:5; Psalms 13:3; Psalms 115:17; Psalms 146:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5 )
The majority of mankind can have a happy-and-healthy future physical resurrection which will take place during Jesus' coming 1,000-year governmental rule over Earth. That is why the ' future tense' is used at Acts of the Apostles 24:15 that there ' is going to be ' a resurrection....

 

[Milton Platt]

"Research conducted at the University of British Columbia and Union College found that people's death anxiety was associated with support of intelligent design and rejection of evolutionary theory.

Death anxiety also influenced those in the study to report an increased liking for Michael Behe, a prominent proponent of intelligent design, and an increased disliking for Richard Dawkins, a well-known evolutionary biologist.

The findings suggest that people are motivated to believe in intelligent design and doubt evolutionary theory because of unconscious psychological motives.

The study was lead by UBC Psychology Assistant Professor Jessica Tracy and and UBC psychology PhD student Jason Martens. It was published in the March 30 issue of the open access journal PLoS ONE.

"Our results suggest that when confronted with existential concerns, people respond by searching for a sense of meaning and purpose in life," Tracy said. "For many, it appears that evolutionary theory doesn't offer enough of a compelling answer to deal with these big questions."
source and more

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Considering the common motivation behind religious faith, it certainly makes sense to me.

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Interesting. I always chalked it up to willful ignorance.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I find it amusing to some extent on this point that even the die-hard of atheists seem to buy into the delusion of eternity in this regard. We live our lives never really worrying about our deaths until some event prompts us to worry about these things. But, one has to question why we intrinsically feel this way until we have an opportunity to cavil about it. I tend to believe that we know the truth of it in our hearts rather than believing we all delude ourselves on the issue. If this wasn't the case to some extent we'd probably behave very differently and never do anything dangerous to our bodies. We're born without any notion or fear of our deaths or even the idea that we're going to have that happen. Perhaps, that is a more interesting discussion...
Whatever we call ourselves, or whatever ideas we embrace in this realm we are happy to pretend that death isn't coming until we have an experience where it might have.

One person recently told me she had No notion of death until an experience where it did happen when she was 5-6.

I find according to Matthew 25:31-33 that we don't ' pretend ' that death isn't coming, but know that a righteous new world or society is coming. During Jesus' 1,000-year rule over Earth, according to 1 Corinthians 15:24-26, then even 'enemy death' will be No more on Earth. Death will be swallowed up forever as per Isaiah 25:8.
Either way, even if we die before Jesus' starts his millennium-long day of governing over Earth, the Bible gives us the hope of a resurrection. Being restored back to life through Jesus - Revelation 1:18.