(2024-03-20, 04:29 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: My point of view is that fear of annihilation is deeply instinctual, an integral part of human animal nature, this built-in fear is only made much worse by the cultural materialistic scientism brainwashing, and that consequently for most or many people attempts to overcome such death anxiety will always be only minimally successful.
Ernest Becker had considerable influence in the realization of the importance of instinctual dread of annihilation. The Becker death theory was that the tension generated by our instinct for self-preservation on one hand and the inevitability of our death on the other causes an instinctual profound psychological crisis that lurks under the surface in everbody. If we do not resolve this crisis and instead repress thoughts of death (a very common response), a corrosive “death anxiety” results.
But I think that there are many who (of the minority that by at least some study have become acquainted with the paranormal evidence) do get moderately comfortable with maintaining a sort of cognitive dissonance between materialist scientism combined with instinctive fear of annihilation, and an at least moderate knowledge of the boatload of fairly convincing evidence for an afterlife. This tends to alleviate the anxiety quite a bit.
The rather small minority of the population who have actually experienced a transformative deep NDE or other spiritually transformative experience are in a different category, since their death anxiety has been considerably ameliorated (or even eliminated) by direct intense and vivid personal experience of the beginning stages of an afterlife, whatever the nature of that afterlife may be. This apparently often completely removes fear of death.
Of course there is also the minority of Christian and other religious true believers who I think achieve a similar cognitive dissonance, except that this is between scientism combined with instinctual death fear, and whatever religious faith they have attained.
Honestly I was never particularly fond of Ernest Becker, his ideas about death seemed simplistic and overly nihilistic. An incredibly narrow view attempting to explain the broad attitudes towards death across cultures. The pshycological theory based on his work, Terror Management Theory, continuing to come into trouble when it comes to people not being afraid of dying for no apparent reason makes me think that his way of thinking is the type we need to move beyond. An embrace of death, no longer shunning it, hiding it away from public view or making it seem that much more horrible for no real reason, using that fresh understanding of mortality free from previous religious trappings or depressive simplistic atheistic nihilistic takes. A perspective that celebrates death as much as we do life to hopefully find a way where we can all go towards the end understandably CONCERNED, but not afraid.