At the start of my anthropology of religion course, I ask students to “explain” religion: Why do you think it exists? What do you think it does? The majority will usually give answers along existential lines: “Religion provides purpose and consolation. It gives meaning to life and relieves fear of death.”
These answers aren’t surprising given [...]
Tags:afterlife·Ernest Becker·existential angst·fear of death·immortality·Irvin Yalom·Ivan Ilyich·Leo Tolstoy·meaning of life·mortality·nihilism·purpose of life·Stephen Cave
It is well known that the modern world religions which trace their origins to the Axial Age are centrally concerned with death. Some might call this concern an obsession. Of these world religions, only Hinduism does not have Axial roots. This is not to say that “Hinduism” (which is neither singular nor unified) was unaffected [...]
Tags:afterlife·ancestors·axial age·Brahmins·Buddhism·death·deification·Denial of Death·dying·Ernest Becker·existential·Hindu·Hinduism·immortality·impurity·India·Jainism·Kali·psychoanalysis·purity·rebirth·reincarnation·Sanskrit·Stuart Blackburn·thanatos·Vedic·Wendy Doniger·world rejecting
One of the acute paradoxes afflicting conscious human life is the awareness of death. The paradox reaches crisis when one fully realizes that death cannot be experienced — it occurs outside of experience, and we therefore lack any frame of reference for it.
The intense weirdness of death has of course captivated many great thinkers and [...]
Tags:awareness of death·Claude Lanzmann·death·dying·Ernest Becker·existence·immortality·Jean Baudrillard·mortality·non-existence·Peter Berger·Shoah·Symbolic Exchange and Death·The Denial of Death·The Sacred Canopy
As many know, Christopher Hitchens (the cheeky British gadfly of God) has esophageal cancer. Although he announced this and took a break to undergo treatment, I noticed last week he had resumed writing some columns. Yesterday, I found this recent video interview over at The Atlantic; it is simultaneously heart-wrenching and moving.
It is heart-wrenching because [...]
Tags:afterlife·atheist·cancer·Christopher Hitchens·David Hume·deathbed·gadfly of God·God is Not Great·Hitch-22·immortality·James Boswell·Jeffrey Goldberg·prayer·Samuel Johnston·Scottish Enlightenment·The Atlantic·video interview
