People With University Degree Fear Death Less 473
An anonymous reader writes "People with a university degree fear death less than those at a lower literacy level. In addition, fear of death is more common among women than men, which affects their children's perception of death."
Re:Other fears? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death? (Score:4, Insightful)
Marcus Aurelius (Score:5, Insightful)
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
Re:Odd. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I believed that there was a good chance that after I died I would be thrown into a lake of fire and otherwise punished for the rest of eternity, you can bet your sorry ass that I would be scared shitless of dying. Yes yes if you're good you get to go to heaven, but what if you accidentally committed a mortal sin without realizing it or something? After all, if you read the Bible, God is nothing if not capricious; how can you know that when He said "No mixed fabrics!", He didn't really mean it? What if you really are supposed to believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, reality be damned? It's just so uncertain.
Fortunately there's no hell, so there's no worries on that front. Honestly, I can't for the life of me see why theists think that religion brings peace and comfort. What is any amount of Earthly reassurance, in the face of the threat of infinite torture? (take that, Pascal!)
Re:There's more than one "fear of death" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There's more than one "fear of death" (Score:4, Insightful)
This is such baloney. It's not influencing beliefs, it's good 'ol human sentimentality. Which I value very highly. THIS IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN. Think of everything you love, and hold dear. Now imagine your life without it. You are not on a horse, you are dead, in a blank void, as you clearly stated.
I have a 6 year old son. Tell me why I would not be scared of losing the chance to see him grow up?
And as an aside, please tell me how you managed to cognitively grasp the concept of thought if there was no thought itself.
Re:What about the people in US Government? (Score:4, Insightful)
They fear the rule of law more than death and Government is their God.
Yes, and they also kidnap infants and drink their blood at their Satanic gatherings.
Can we stop with the hysteria yet? People in the US government are like people anywhere else -- some good, some bad, most just trying to pay their bills and keep out of trouble. Just because it's in the political interest of certain right-wing media organizations to regularly vilify them doesn't mean you have to mindlessly play along.
Re:The more wealthy have the time to ponder (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything becomes quiet...then silence. Peace at last.
That's incorrect -- death is not peaceful silence. Peaceful silence is something people have experienced and are familiar with. Death is your own non-existence, which by definition it is impossible for you to experience.
(You might get some moments of peaceful silence just before you die.... but that's not death, that's dying. And depending on how you die, you might not even get that)
Re:Other fears? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying that as somebody who spent a lot of time in the academic world:
Ignorance is not at all a privilege of people without a degree.
Education good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like there's a long list of benefits in education. Not only will you be less religulous, but you will also not fear death as much and hopefully get a more fullfilling job.
Educating women is even better, they have fewer children and a better health. And they tend to see education as something important for their children.
Have a look at Hans Roslings excellent talk about the miracle in Pakistan for what education has done, and especially education of women.
Long live education, which should be free and availible.
Re:Odd. (Score:5, Insightful)
A more likely cause behind the correlation (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Odd. (Score:5, Insightful)
Heaven is a terribly boring place, Hell is suffering, I would rather take another chance at life and Re-incarnate, of course it would be nice to retain ALL my memories of the past life so I could learn from experience and not make the same mistakes twice.
Re:The more wealthy have the time to ponder (Score:5, Insightful)
Death is your own non-existence, which by definition it is impossible for you to experience.
I work on the method of thinking about what life was like (for me personally) before I was born. That's identical to death in my opinion. What I personally experienced in 1856 is identical to what I will personally experience in 2156.
Definitely a bit of weird thing to wrap your head around in terms of the "non-existence", but I feel it's a better comparison than the post you replied to talking about "peaceful silence".
Re:Other fears? (Score:5, Insightful)
People fear what they don't understand. Ignorant people fear more, and are manipulated by their fear en masse.
Getting a master's degree in physics did not give me any particular understanding of death. However, a central point of experimental sciences is coping with uncertainty. Understanding that the world is not black and white has a lot to do with your personality, and many people do not seem to be comfortable with themselves unless they feel absolutely certain about some things.
In my current work as a teacher, one general challenge is getting my students from "what is the right/wrong answer" to understanding and analyzing the questions in a deeper level. I feel like I must first undo the elementary school teachings, in order to teach scientific thinking.
This seems to reflect the fact that lower levels of education are about strict judgment and rote memorization. People at this level fear death, because they feel like they must have some kind of absolute knowledge in order to deal with it.
Re:Odd. (Score:1, Insightful)
"There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of 'Heaven' ridiculous by saying they do not want 'to spend eternity playing harps.' The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-up, they should not talk about them."
-- C.S. Lewis
Re:Odd. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Isn't fear of death natural?"
The fear of _dying_ perhaps, death itself feels like it felt before you were born.
That wasn't so bad, wasn't it?
Re:Other fears? (Score:5, Insightful)
So yeah, academia ain't no intellectual utopia, but there is a difference...
Most likey... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Odd. (Score:2, Insightful)
No, nobody is supposed to eat Taco Bell.