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DEATH&DYING, LIFE & LIVING

Eighth edition

Chapter 19

The Meaning and Place of Death in Life

Chapter Objectives

To explore issues related to the meaning of death

To examine several religious and philosophical ideas about the afterlife and the meaning of death

To consider the content and interpretation of near-death experiences

To reflect on the place of death in human life

The Meaning of Death (1 of 2)

Some questions raised by the fact of human mortality:

Why are we born?

What is the meaning of our having lived?

What is the impact of our death on the value & significance of our life?

What is the relationship between life & death?

These questions form part of our human reality & underlie almost all human activity

The Meaning of Death (2 of 2)

Possible responses to these questions

The ancient Chinese Yin/Yang symbol suggests that wherever there is life, there is death, & wherever there is death, there is life

Other responses have involved the attempt to understand just what happens after death, as explored within art, popular culture, folk tales, anthropology, literature, philosophy, religion, & theology

Death: A Door or a Wall?

Feifel (1977b) wrote that humans tend to conceptualize death as either:

A Door

Death is a stage along life’s way, a river to cross, a passage from one sort of life to another, a door through which to pass

A Wall

Death is simply the cessation of all life, the end of everything one does or can know, a wall into which one crashes & through which one cannot pass

How one thinks of death philosophically is tied to how one values it—as good or evil, whether a door or a wall

Greek Concepts of the Afterlife

Socrates believed that humans cannot know but only believe what death means in terms of our continued existence

Homer provided a different description of the afterlife as an unhappy place where the dead have no sense or feeling & are mere “phantoms”

Plato argued for the inherent immortality of the soul; death is the separation of body & soul, after which the soul must exist forever

Some Western Religious Beliefs in Hebrew & Christian Scriptures

“Immortality” is sometimes associated only with divine beings

Sometimes “deathlessness” is seen as being given by the gods to specific human beings

An afterlife might be related to a phantom-like existence, a sort of “diminished life”

Ongoing life after death is often related to what one leaves behind at one’s death, such as one’s children

(Bailey,1978)

Other Western Religious Beliefs

The notion of the individual surviving death is only rarely found in Hebrew scriptures

It is the community’s life that is important; the ongoing life of the familial line is significant

If there is to be a life after death, it must be an embodied life through resurrection

The afterlife includes the concepts of heaven & hell

Islamic Beliefs

At a last judgment, each individual’s behavior while living in this world will be judged

Submission to Allah brings rewards; rebellion brings punishments

The soul of the deceased is believed to visit the grave regularly to receive reward or punishment

A casket containing the body of former boxer, Muhammad Ali, who died on June 3, 2016, at the age of 74, arrives in Louisville for an Islamic prayer service.

Some African Beliefs: Preliminary Generalizations

The power that makes life possible is everywhere the same

Human life is part of nature & a constant cyclic process of becoming

The community contains both the living & the living-dead

The living-dead are in a different part of this world

The transition to the other world is sometimes symbolized as a land journey

This view typically does not include heaven or hell

Reincarnation

Right living can lead to an end of being reborn & to complete peace or union with a transcendent reality

After death, three possibilities exist:

The atman (or soul) may be in one of the heavens, awaiting rebirth

The atman is immediately reborn

The atman is in a state of eternal bliss with Brahman (the transcendent reality) having achieved liberation from the cycle of rebirths

Hindu Beliefs

A Hindu funeral pyre in Calcutta, India, on February 19, 2012

Buddhist Beliefs

All is impermanence; nothing exists in some eternal, unchanging condition

This fact produces suffering for everything that is aware of it

Failure to recognize, confront, & transcend this fact results in reincarnation into one suffering body after another

Only by transcending desire can one escape the wheel of rebirths & achieve nirvana

A Common Concern in Images of an Afterlife

Some of these images may seem threatening, attractive, &/or provide a sense of peace

In the United States in the 21st century, many people no longer hold these religious views; for many, they have given way to modern, scientific views of death as extinction

As Socrates suggested, perhaps we must choose some picture of what death means & make do with faith as the only possible route here

Near-Death Experiences

What Are Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)?

Similar descriptions of experiences reported by some individuals during the time they had been pronounced clinically dead & prior to their subsequent resuscitation

Common components of NDEs include:

A sense of detachment from one’s physical body

A sense of entering the darkness

Experiencing the appearance of light or entering the light

A sense of bodily separation, being dead, & “returning” to life

Interpreting Near-Death Experiences

The most common interpretation is that NDEs involve being dead & then coming back to life

Some scientists believe that survival after death is nonsensical; NDEs are artifacts of unusual situations

Kelly (2000) drew attention to three converging features of NDEs:

Enhanced mental processes at a time when physiological functioning is seriously impaired

The experience of being out of the body & viewing events going on around it as from a position above

The awareness of remote events not accessible to the person’s ordinary senses

The Place of Death in Human Life (1 of 2)

How (if at all) is life in this world now linked to what happens after death?

Is there “life” after death?

Is death a permanent extinction?

Humans are able to make of death an important steering force in the way we interpret its place in our lives

“In the last analysis, all human behavior of consequence is a response to the problem of death.” (Feifel, 1977b)

The Place of Death in Human Life (2 of 2)

Efforts to Circumvent or Transcend Death

Symbolic Immortality: biological, social, natural, & theological ways people have found to continue after they die what they value in their lives (Lifton, 1979)

Attempts to circumvent death (e.g., cryonics programs) reveal a meaning for that irrevocable, unavoidable moment: it produces suffering

The meaning we find for death teaches us that life is precious; death makes possible the value of life

Ultimately, the meaning any individual finds for death will be his or her own