After all, death is every bit as natural as birth. So why fear it?
According to the American philosopher Tom Morris, there are at least four kinds of fear of death.
- There is fear of the process of dying. Here, death itself is not the problem, but rather those last hours and minutes as life ebbs away. We worry that dying might be a painful or frightening experience and dread it.
- There is fear of punishment. Some people believe that in the afterlife, they will be punished for their sins. Certain religions threaten dreadful consequences for quite commonplace faults and failings. This can cause great axiety, even to those whose lives are far from wicked.
- There is fear of the unknown. What happens when we die? Is death like sleep? Or is it mere nothingness? Is it terrifying? Or is it the beginning of a new and better existance? We simply do not know. And what we do not know, we fear.
- There is fear of annihilation. Some people believe - or worry - that death ends everything. Once death comes, the glorious gift of experience is gone forever. No more life; no more laughter; no more love; no more sunshine. This, I think, is the most fundamentail fear of all.
THREE CONSOLATIONS
But enough of doom and gloom. Let's take a look at the flip-side of the coin and consider some reasons for believing that death may not be such a bad thing after all. The greek philosopher Socrates (470-399BC) believed that it is irrational to worry about death, about ir. For all we know, it may turn out to be the greatest of all blessings. So there is absolutely no point getting worked up, or jumping to unpleasant conclusions. Socrates himself was tried and sentenced to death by the Athenian courts, accused of corrupting the youth and disbelieveing the ancestral gods. According to his pupil, Plato, he faced heath with remarkable composure: "The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways - I to die and you to live. Which is the better, God only knows." The Roman politican and philosopher Seneca (4BC-65AD) also considered it irrational to fear death. He supported this view with what I think is a very beautiful argument: no one frets about their past non-existence (before they were born), so why should they fret about their future non-existence after they are dead? "Would you not think him an utter fool who wept because he was not alive a thousand years old? And is he not just as much of a fool who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years from now? It is all the same; you will not be, and were not." Seneca was sentenced to death be the infamously wicked Roman Emperor Nero. In fact, he was ordered to commit suicide. And, like Socrates before him, he met his fate with extraordinary courage and fortitude. The philosopher Epicurus (342-270BC) considered the fear of death to be one of life's major sources of anguish. He devised a very famous argument to convince us that our fears are misplaced. "Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we no longer exist."
