Life and Death: the View From Perspective of Religion

Death as a concept, is one of the most important phases that religion deals with. It is the fundamental of religion. Every single faith, offers adherents an explanation to the concept of death and dying, combining this with a guidance to live by, a moral standard. Religion views the understanding of death and dying as vital, in order to find meaning in human life and existence. Dying is often seen as a ‘process’, or a next phase in religious faiths, compared to an atheistic view of death being an endpoint with no meaning, except for scientific regulation. Religion heightens the mental wellbeing of an individual in need of integration and spiritual reasoning, to unexplainable circumstances, in the hope for something more. It provides a purpose for life and in turn a social construct of regulation. Overall this is “Life and Death” essay where will be discussed the concept of death and life within religion point of view. 

The concept of death has no meaning without a concept of life. Religion, science and the law may all have different definitions of ‘life’, but it is further divided within the streams of religion. For a catholic, life starts at conception and any interference from that point on is classified as murder in the eyes of the church. It is believed that life starts through the soul of conception, into atoms and so forth, and thus remains a life, even when the body has ‘died’, as the soul moves on. Catholicism believes that when material, body and spirit join this is when you have ‘new life’. Buddhism deals with a complex identification of ‘life’. The term anatman - no soul, teaches that the physical body is not possessed with an intrinsic self, and the persistent sense of self as separate from the rest of the universe is misleading. This does not mean that it is a nihilistic teaching, the Buddha himself taught that if we can see through the delusion of the small, individual self, we ‘realize’ a boundless 'self' that is not subject to birth and death but goes beyond. Buddhism, unlike Christianity or Islam, view death contradictory to Eastern structures. Rather than a sad passing, Buddhism rejoices in the cross over to a “new cycle”. Monk B explained this process as “It is simply a new start for us. It is very positive because we know we have only finished their current mission and are going on to start their new one… it was like a music concert, everyone came and we celebrated, with all their favourite music… it was a very happy environment.” Islam’s approach to the concept of life from the aspect of theology, is that whatever hears, sees, has sense, has knowledge and so forth, “even if they are not fully developed, in a diminished state, like the fetus in a womb we say that’s a life.” Anything that has a connection to the senses even in reduced capacity is classified a life.

The notion of these beliefs formed by each religious tradition is to provide a guidance for humans to live by, a moral standard. There are two forces governing society; one being integration and the other regulation. If a culture ‘y’ has a rule of ‘x’, that would be a regulating factor, if someone was wanting to follow rule ‘x’, to be involved in culture ‘y’, that would be an integrating factor. Humans naturally feel a need for integration, it is human behaviour. Thus, being a distinguishing factor to why there are so many people brought into religious denominations that don’t practise their faith. For example, a ‘Baptised Catholic’ and a ‘practising Catholic’; the baptised catholic would be there as a form of integration into that community, but the practising catholic would be a socially regulating factor as they put their religious practises to use. Religion is used as a tool of social regulation because it might be problematic if everyone was not following the rule ‘x’, causing societal imbalance.

Many religious traditions, whereby they believe in the soul's existence in another world, like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism or in reincarnation as Hinduism and Buddhism do, all believe that one's status in the afterlife is a reward or punishment for their conduct and actions during life. This determination of ‘reward’ and ‘punishment’, then compels adherents to live a ‘successful’ life by the definition of their belief system. Although religion provides adherents with an explanation for life and death, it also holds ‘recommendations’ or ‘expectations’ to reach any afterlife proclaimed in their faith. All religious leaders answered that they are not afraid of death, with 33 survey respondents saying they, also, are not afraid of death. A further 29 respondents declared that they are afraid of death. Within these answers, all religious groups held an adequately similar result in adherents being afraid or not afraid of death. The biggest contributing factor to differentiation within religious groups were relating to age. Aspects of continuity and change in society was evident here, as 89% of respondents who declared “not afraid of death” were over the 35-44 age bracket, showing the religious decline in practising adherents through generational gaps and advancing society. Traditional, religious views are being shunned for their prudency in today’s changing society, as we are seeing less of a traditional approach in moral living. Survey responses gained, allowed me to actively prove this theory; “I am baptised Catholic, and my family is Catholic, but I don’t practise my religion. I am afraid of death because I believe in my religion and if its right then I will be punished. My actions are not in conjunction with my faith”. “Islam provides me with a sense of belonging and meaning in life. Through religious texts I am comforted having an insight into the afterlife and our final resting place. I think I have lived a good, fulfilling life so I am not afraid.” Conversely to all these religious perspectives, on the question of ‘fear of death’, 5 out of 7 Atheist or Agnostic responders said “Yes” to fear of death. Further commentary from these groups included things such as “yes, because I have nothing further to look forward to” … “death is the end for me” …. “no prospect of afterlife” … “fear of losing what I have already is greater than any hope for reward…”.

Further analysis of the result relating age distinction to religious practise, showed that from the above 89% declaring “Not afraid of death”, over 70% were female. This religion gender gap would complement the many theories social scientists have been investigating, through study that women are “biologically more inclined to faith.” Investigation of a social “time lag” in which modern secularization has affected men and women, arguing that men have historically spent more time outside the house and so were exposed earlier to social forces and propaganda undermining religion.           

To conclude essay about life and death, death, once one is disconnected of those senses you no longer call that a life. Someone with a defect, for example, one who is in a vegetative state, is still a strict formation of life, but not a ‘complete’ form of life. The concept of death in Islam is effectively a ‘separation from the body and soul’. Islamically, sleep is a form of disconnect, but a minor one, whereas death is the complete separation from body and soul, where the soul lives on and the ‘vessel’ no longer lives. Buddhism talks strictly on rebirth. Their concept of death is just a passing of physical body, where the spirit will continue into the next form as human, animal, hell or heaven, dependant on a person’s karma. Progressive ‘karma’ through speech, thought and action will continue as a determination of success in the ‘next life’. The concept of cause and effect is the outlying factor, with death simply as a rebirth. Catholicism has a closely linked idea of death to that of Islam, with death being the direct separation of body and soul, where ‘body’ decomposes, and soul lives on in heaven or in hell. The ending of life theoretically for a Catholic, is when material, body and soul break a part. “Death is not an endpoint, rather a transition into eternal life”.