Claire. Posted March 24, 2017 #1 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Study into who is least afraid of death. A new study examines all robust, available data on how fearful we are of what happens once we shuffle off this mortal coil. They find that atheists are among those least afraid of dying... and, perhaps not surprisingly, the very religious. Religion has long been thought to be a solution to the problem of death. Notions of an afterlife are nearly universal, though there is great diversity in the details. Given this close association between religion and death, researchers have long supposed that religion lessens fear about death. It stands to reason that religious believers should be less fearful of death than nonreligious individuals, or does it? A systematic review of high quality international studies led by researchers at the University of Oxford paints a more complicated picture. It shows that the very religious and atheists are the groups who do not fear death as much as much as those in-between in a paper published in the journal Religion, Brain and Behavior. Read more: Phys.org 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post +OverSword Posted March 24, 2017 Popular Post #2 Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) I'm not afraid of being dead I just dread the possible pain I may have to experience on my way to becoming room temp and I am neither very religious or an atheist Edited March 24, 2017 by OverSword 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claire. Posted March 24, 2017 Author #3 Share Posted March 24, 2017 13 minutes ago, OverSword said: I'm not afraid of being dead I just dread the possible pain I may have to experience on my way to becoming room temp and I am neither very religious or an atheist Some 'prologues' to death can indeed be painful or otherwise horrific, but fortunately death in and of itself is not. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farmer77 Posted March 24, 2017 #4 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Weirdly since walking away from the church I have zero fear in dying , aside from concern for those left behind. If I had to identify I would say im buddhist but really I incorporate buddhist principles in my life but am not religious. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OverSword Posted March 24, 2017 #5 Share Posted March 24, 2017 4 minutes ago, Claire. said: Some 'prologues' to death can indeed be painful or otherwise horrific, but fortunately death in and of itself is not. We don't know that 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claire. Posted March 24, 2017 Author #6 Share Posted March 24, 2017 1 minute ago, Farmer77 said: Weirdly since walking away from the church I have zero fear in dying , aside from concern for those left behind. If I had to identify I would say im buddhist but really I incorporate buddhist principles in my life but am not religious. I've often wondered how a dying parent with very young children feels. I don't have children, but I know that I would be terrified of what might or could happen to them in my absence. Same with leaving other loved ones (pets included) behind. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post +OverSword Posted March 24, 2017 Popular Post #7 Share Posted March 24, 2017 I just hope I have a chance to erase my browser history. 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papageorge1 Posted March 25, 2017 #8 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I look forward to death as a glorious expansion of consciousness. But I am probably in that 'very religious' category. It seems the people in the middle; those neither atheist nor very religious (the most uncertain) fear it the most. I guess that makes sense. They don't know what to come to grips with. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted March 25, 2017 #9 Share Posted March 25, 2017 2 hours ago, Claire. said: I've often wondered how a dying parent with very young children feels. I don't have children, but I know that I would be terrified of what might or could happen to them in my absence. Same with leaving other loved ones (pets included) behind. Its tough ! A beautiful young friend of mine ( that I watched grow up through all sorts of tribulation, horrible parents, etc. and eventually make a good life for herself ) - probably the closest thing to a daughter I ever had - died in her early 20s , she had a small baby - father had run off. I remember talking to her not long before she died and she was asking me , very distraught ; "What's going to happen to my little baby after I die? he will be all alone and have no one . " That was hard .... very hard . 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted March 25, 2017 #10 Share Posted March 25, 2017 2 hours ago, OverSword said: I just hope I have a chance to erase my browser history. I bit late mate , someone here has already penetrated your computer, raided your details, and put it up in the Fun and Games Forum 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docyabut2 Posted March 25, 2017 #11 Share Posted March 25, 2017 (edited) 5 hours ago, Claire. said: Study into who is least afraid of death. A new study examines all robust, available data on how fearful we are of what happens once we shuffle off this mortal coil. They find that atheists are among those least afraid of dying... and, perhaps not surprisingly, the very religious. Religion has long been thought to be a solution to the problem of death. Notions of an afterlife are nearly universal, though there is great diversity in the details. Given this close association between religion and death, researchers have long supposed that religion lessens fear about death. It stands to reason that religious believers should be less fearful of death than nonreligious individuals, or does it? A systematic review of high quality international studies led by researchers at the University of Oxford paints a more complicated picture. It shows that the very religious and atheists are the groups who do not fear death as much as much as those in-between in a paper published in the journal Religion, Brain and Behavior. Read more: Phys.org Lets get real, there not a person dead or alive who hasn't been afraid to die religion or not or now that is to die,its a common strait we all have. Like all these terrorists attacks in the world and people `s saying we are not afraid, like hell we`re not! Edited March 25, 2017 by docyabut2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted March 25, 2017 #12 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Interesting ! .....that you can see and know what is inside every mind on the planet . And ... I am NOT commonly straight either ! < harumph ! > 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccr8 Posted March 25, 2017 #13 Share Posted March 25, 2017 2 hours ago, back to earth said: Its tough ! A beautiful young friend of mine ( that I watched grow up through all sorts of tribulation, horrible parents, etc. and eventually make a good life for herself ) - probably the closest thing to a daughter I ever had - died in her early 20s , she had a small baby - father had run off. I remember talking to her not long before she died and she was asking me , very distraught ; "What's going to happen to my little baby after I die? he will be all alone and have no one . " That was hard .... very hard . When my granddaughter was 4 I was looking for a another apartment and told her I was going to move. She looked at me with the saddest eyes and said I just have my mommy and you and if my mommy died you would have to be my mommy and daddy. It took some time to assure her that I am always going to be there. I can understand your feelings, I have always had a lot of little sisters and not all of them are still here. jmccr8 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sherapy Posted March 25, 2017 #14 Share Posted March 25, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, docyabut2 said: Lets get real, there not a person dead or alive who hasn't been afraid to die religion or not or now that is to die,its a common strait we all have. Like all these terrorists attacks in the world and people `s saying we are not afraid, like hell we`re not! I am currently working as a caregiver for two ladies who are terminal, I transitioned them onto Hospice and am going through the death experience with them. My First Lady died in Dec. 2016., she was terrified to die, she grew up Methodist and along the way became a Universal Unitarian, nothing brought her any comfort, she was literally terrified of her impending death, she thought she could beat it. The two ladies I have now are incredible, neither are afraid to die one is not religious, but not Athiest either, the other is spiritual. They both share openly about their journey, and it is interesting for me and all those around them. It is a great learning experience, very inspirational to me. Death for some is a beautiful journey one filled with gratitude and celebration of who they have become. The hard part is the physical suffering that comes from years of a terminal illness. My job is to minimize suffering, which gives me the incredible honor of understanding and acting from compassion. Some people are afraid to die and some aren't it depends on a lot of things. Edited March 25, 2017 by Sherapy 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wes4747 Posted March 25, 2017 #15 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I dont wanna die, when i was a young devoted christian i was particularly afraid to die. Now that i know not what i believe, i believe i want every breath offered. Nope, no death for me please 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kismit Posted March 25, 2017 #16 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I'm not afraid of dying, but sickness and pain, that's a different thing. My Mum is currently facing her own mortality and one thing she has mentioned is that shecan't imagine a world where she isn't in it. She says that as much as she thought she had thought about it before, now that she is really preparing it's a very different thing. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perdurabo Posted March 25, 2017 #17 Share Posted March 25, 2017 You do not die because you never existed in the first place. What you mistake to be yourself is a mass of things gathered around you. Concepts. Conceits. Philosophies and flesh. When your puppet-thing dies, all these delusions (that can only reside within Time) drop away. The true you, the I AM remains in eternity where it has always been. The experience is akin to waking up from a dream. Why the charade? If we all knew from birth that escape was so easy and attractive, most would succumb to suicide. This little Show can only work if death remains mysterious and at least somewhat unpalatable. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susanc241 Posted March 25, 2017 #18 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I am not afraid of the state of death - I lean towards 'nothingness'. What bugs me is not being around to witness all that is to come: seeing my descendants beyond my grandchildren, if I am lucky, also beyond my great grandchildren; the first contact with aliens; complete cures for all of our illnesses, total worldwide peace (one can dream, can't one?), and so on. It always saddens me that my father who died in the early 70s aged only 48 has missed out on the computer age (picking one thing) as he would have loved it and been in his element! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Merton Posted March 25, 2017 #19 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Probably the atheist is least afraid of death; he or she doesn't depend on fantasies to deal with it. I think for many people the real fear of death is not for ourselves but for those we love, but it is all the same. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Walker Posted March 25, 2017 #20 Share Posted March 25, 2017 (edited) Fear of death is only one (but perhaps the greatest) of the fears caused by attachment to self (or to others or to material things). Overcome attachment to self, to others, and to the world, and there is nothing to fear, not even fear itself As i've been trying to say every opportunity i get fear is nothing more than a mental construct which we learn to build from infancy. Because it is only a mental construct it can be dismantled reshaped and remodelled or even simply pulled apart and removed. Professionals have now found out how to deconstruct and remove even the greatest phobias by re teaching the brain to think differently,let alone the normal fears of life. This article is now over 3 years old but it gives some background. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/demystifying-psychiatry/201311/rewiring-the-brain-eliminate-fear This one is from last year Whether it is a phobia of spiders or a traumatic event in the past, the effects of fear can reverberate through a person’s life. But with the right training we can rid ourselves of them, according to a study. Researchers have found a method for tricking the brain into letting go of specific fears, which they claim could lead to new treatments for phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). an international team, including researchers at the University of Cambridge, was able to zero in on the memory of a specific fear using a new technique involving brain scans and artificial intelligence (AI). ‘Because we could decode these brain patterns quickly, we decided to give subjects a reward - a small amount of money - every time we picked up these features of the memory.’ Rather than rewarding people for consciously overcoming the fear memory, like in aversion therapy, people were rewarded for subtly overriding their response unconsciously over time. Writing in a paper published in the new journal Nature Human Behaviour, the researchers explain: ‘Overall, the fear reduction effect achieved…appears robust.’ They add: ‘Our current findings may eventually benefit clinical treatments for fear-related disorders.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3957412/The-stress-free-way-beat-fear-Scientists-reveal-subconscious-brain-training-cure-phobias.html#ixzz4cKVxRQfi Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook Edited March 25, 2017 by Mr Walker 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Walker Posted March 25, 2017 #21 Share Posted March 25, 2017 2 hours ago, Perdurabo said: You do not die because you never existed in the first place. What you mistake to be yourself is a mass of things gathered around you. Concepts. Conceits. Philosophies and flesh. When your puppet-thing dies, all these delusions (that can only reside within Time) drop away. The true you, the I AM remains in eternity where it has always been. The experience is akin to waking up from a dream. Why the charade? If we all knew from birth that escape was so easy and attractive, most would succumb to suicide. This little Show can only work if death remains mysterious and at least somewhat unpalatable. Or all those concepts conceits philosophies and flesh die, and nothing is left, because that is all you ever were. To me death is like the time before birth. i am not afraid of that period, so why should I fear death ? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sherapy Posted March 25, 2017 #22 Share Posted March 25, 2017 10 hours ago, Kismit said: I'm not afraid of dying, but sickness and pain, that's a different thing. My Mum is currently facing her own mortality and one thing she has mentioned is that shecan't imagine a world where she isn't in it. She says that as much as she thought she had thought about it before, now that she is really preparing it's a very different thing. Is your mom on Hospice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kismit Posted March 25, 2017 #23 Share Posted March 25, 2017 2 hours ago, Sherapy said: Is your mom on Hospice? Not yet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sherapy Posted March 25, 2017 #24 Share Posted March 25, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, Kismit said: Not yet. It is really great she talks so candidly with you and you listen this is such a gift to the one who is going through the death journey it helps them honor their life by sharing with another human. Not everybody is this open it sounds like you have a wonderful relationship with your mum Kismet. Edited March 25, 2017 by Sherapy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud the mackem Posted March 25, 2017 #25 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I've had a few near misses with death and then someone very special to me died suddenly.. If (as I hope) there is an afterlife we shall meet again, and as you get older you realise that your time here is getting shorter so live every moment as we all have to go through the same "gate" 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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