Saturday 27 October 2018

Religion, Fear of Death and Loss of Purpose





The aim of religion is to give man a tangible reason to exist, a foundation for morality and reassurance that the foreseeable conclusion to life is not the end of existence.

 Truly religious people (not the ones who go to church every Sunday but the ones convinced of and committed to a transcendental concept) may still fear the suffering of atrophy and the assumed pain of death but have a firm conviction that, having lived their life according to the principles they hold in the highest regard, and having done in life what they saw was their obligation or duty. As such the notion of mortal termination is no longer terrifying. There is work to be done in the time given to us, and when it is complete may we rest in peace.

 In a dramatic sense we can see this played out in religious or ideological fundamentalists who will fling themselves passionately towards martyrdom with their eyes glazed over with the image of heaven burned into their minds. Truly a negative aspect of religion to those concerned with peace and brotherhood but the confidence with which people capable of such action hold their understanding of the world, their place within it and their responsibility to what they hold in highest regard is something to be respected. You may not consider a suicide bomber to be a reflection of heroicism or the strength of the individual but what about a freedom fighter, what about Braveheart?

 This plays out also in the death of William Blake, who is said to have died not only peacefully but in utter bliss, the psychosis that guided his unique art and poetry shrouding him in what could be one of the most powerful human experiences of entering into heaven at the moment of death. Were he alive today we might call him autistic but his psychological conviction and total investment in his perception of reality gave him complete resolution at the end of his life. He had served god and now could transcend.

 The modern consumer lives in a world without religion (though he may say grace before dinner), where the product cycle, the career cycle and the secular cultural cycle never really ends. His only responsibility in life is to climb one ladder or another, and ideally prepare a financial cushion for continued quality of life once he is past working age. This is not the completion of a job, it is just a machine being exhausted and put in the shed until it rusts away. There is no heaven in this pre-death transcendence, he still has to consume, and thus is still expected to participate in the secular consumer cycle, so his obligation is not fulfilled. Eventually he will die, having never finished the secular obligation of spending, buying, connecting and possibly producing.

 This person needs a purpose and the ladder is the only one presented. He must play the game as everyone else does if he doesn't want to get knocked off or ostracized and so he surrenders his agency and descends into a social jellyfish, going with the flow of what to like, hate and be interested in. Death for this person means he can no longer play the game, but he has not yet finished it! No sense of accomplishment that is not an empty transaction. A hobby may be the closest he can get to feeling like a human again and not an NPC.

 As far as I am concerned, the key to religion is not appeasing a god, but having a direction in life, an end goal, a condition by which we can accept the finiteness of life, so that the fear of death cannot overcome the joy of life.

-Atdilda

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