Death, Faith & Existentialism
Filiz Peach explains what two of the greatest existentialist thinkers thought about death: Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers.
Clearly, the manner in which we are able to think ourselves into believing one thing rather than another about death can have a profound impact on the behaviors we choose. Believe in one or another God commanding one or another Scripture and, with Heaven or Hell on the line, you will act accordingly.
But a “true self” is to me no less an existential contraption than God Himself. You can reject religion but then anchor yourself to one or another secular facsimile and still be in the same boat: an either/or morality in which Right and Wrong, Good and Evil become a fundamental part of what motivates your deportment with and around others.
As for speculating that no one is immune to despair when eyeball to eyeball with the Grim Reaper…who can really say, right? It’s not for nothing that most religions insist that suicide is a sin. After all, if it was not deemed to be, how many of the true believers might opt “here and now” to end their life in order that their soul be catapulted into Paradise?
Not impossible? Hell, it happens all the time. All one need do is to believe that they are in sync with their true self and that, on the other side of the grave, this true self carries on as a soul for all of eternity in one or another paradise or Nirvana.
Sure, if you really want to put months and years into the mental disciplines practiced by these folks, go ahead. Or, again, go to a place of worship every other Friday, Saturday or Sunday, read from the Scriptures occasionally, try to practice what you preach and merely believe that immortality and salvation awaits you.
That is really all that is necessary for the faithful: believing it.