27 Mar 2005
Death, Interrupted
Man's conception of the Universe and his understanding of the world appear to be rooted in his fear of, and failure to understand, Death. So, all his morality, spirituality, belief systems, etc seem to be the effects of thanatophobia. If he knew with certainty what acually happens after death, I doubt if we had such moral codes and schools of thought in place. What, instead, would have existed, depends on the combination of four things:
1.There is life after death
2.There is no life after death
3.There is God (let us assume God is that someone who has no better things to do than keep an account of our deeds, and rewards or punishes accordingly)
4.There is no God
Assumption 1: That there is life after death and there is God is the assumption that is most widely followed. So, there would not be much deviation from the currently prevalent belief systems and codes, if this assumption were true. Little deviation, however, would have happened because man's behavior would be different; the certainty of a second chance makes him take many things for granted. The world would not have been much different, although some schools of thought would've come up a little later, and in a totally different way. Interesting to imagine how Insurance would have been affected.
This holds, however, only if the next life is dependent on the deeds in this life. It is only this dependence that makes man attach any importance to God. If one is assured that he will be born a man again regardless of his actions in this life, I wonder how many people would respect or fear God.
Assumption 2: There is no life after death but there is God. Except for those who fear God or realise the beauty of Truth, all people else would be disillusioned and refuse to attach any importance to God. The effect? More suicides, less virtue, relaxed moral code, more licentiousness, more sanity, more insanity too. Death would be more dreadful than it now is.
Assumption 3: There is life after death but there is no God. Man would love this. It's akin to a world without police and law. And what more! there's another life to live all over this again! Chaos twice over. Death would be a non-issue. Most philosophers and writers would've committed suicide - some, out of disappointment, but most, out of sheer boredom. The legend of Sisyphus would have inspired more fiction than any other legend possibly could have.
Assumption 4: There is no life after death and there is no God either. Pessimists would have ruled the world. More fear, more violence, more insanity. The rest is not hard to imagine.
Neither of the aforementioned assumptions would have affected the rational man though. He would live the same way no matter what. A rational man derives his points of view from the significance of life; the irrational derive theirs from the fear of death.
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