Fear of Death
Psychologists have addressed the hypothesis that fear of death motivates religious commitment, and that it may be alleviated by assurances about an afterlife. Empirical research on this topic has been equivocal. According to Kahoe and Dunn, people who are most firm in their faith and attend religious services weekly are the least afraid of dying. A survey of people in various Christian denominations showed a negative correlation between fear of death and religious concern.
In another study, data from a sample of white, Christian men and women were used to test the hypothesis that traditional, church-centered religiousness and de-institutionalized spiritual seeking are distinct ways of approaching fear of death in old age. Both religiousness and spirituality were related to positive psychosocial functioning, but only church-centered religiousness protected subjects against the fear of death.
Shelly Kagan examines the philosophical background of whether fear of death make sense (not about the actual kind of emotional reaction). In this context he states in one of his lectures, that there are certain conditions to fear in general to make sense:
- fear requires something bad, as the object of fear and
- there's got to be a nonnegligible chance of the bad state of affairs happening, to their mind
Read more about this topic: Fear
Famous quotes containing the words fear of, fear and/or death:
“... we’ve allowed a youth-centered culture to leave us so estranged from our future selves that, when asked about the years beyond fifty, sixty, or seventy—all part of the average human life span providing we can escape hunger, violence, and other epidemics—many people can see only a blank screen, or one on which they project fear of disease and democracy.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men.”
—William Allingham (1824–1889)
“The raven is my talisman.... Death is my talisman, Mr. Chapman. The one indestructible force. The one certain thing in an uncertain universe. Death.”
—David Boehm, and Louis Friedlander. Dr. Richard Vollin (Bela Lugosi)