• eddiedean
    3
    I'm not educated in the field. These ideas come to me when the mind runs freely while doing dishes or walking the dog. So, i hope to express myself clearly and i hope to find answers to some thoughts I've had with myself.
    Death anxiety, which i have briefly explored to my capabilities, explain that the human condition is programmed on the basis of death denial. Every state of mind to way of thinking can be traced back to the unwillingness to accept the inevitable decay of ourselves.
    How does this idea fit into extreme jihadist ideology that embrace and also expects death. Sure enough, in their mind, death is a moving on towards gods presence and eternal paradise, much more explored and intensely fabricated in other religions.
    To me this is a counter position in which those who fear death convince themselves that it is actually what they strive for. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well enough, English is not my first language.
    What i think is that the inevitable fear of death which to them, preoccupied with it as they are, is so scary that they convince themselves, with the power of the group, that death does not hold a negative connotation. The highest level of death denial makes a full circle to come back to the full embrace of it.
    I hope I've expressed myself to a valuable extent, and that this though of mine might find some explaining here, be it configuring what I've seen as the answer, or even better- a different, better answer.

    How do you explain death denial in the world of death seekers.



    PS: should i add? I hope this conversation, of it goes anywhere, does not move towards explaining, exploring and approving or denying the presence and action of extreme jihadists. This is a narrow group I've found myself thinking about because i happened to watch a documentary when i was reading Becker at the same time. religious discussions, i hope, will take only a necessary presence. Otherwise, be is Muslim or christian, it doesn't matter.
  • BC
    13.1k
    Every state of mind to way of thinking can be traced back to the unwillingness to accept the inevitable decay of ourselves.eddiedean

    I think it is a mistake to take one thing, death anxiety for instance, as the root of all our thoughts and behavior. Certainly, worrying about death is a factor in what we do, but it is just one of several.

    Some people (atheist, christian, hindu, moslem, martyrs, saints, communist, nazi, etc.) value The Great Cause (whatever that is) over their own lives. They locate all that is good in the cause, and all that is good is clearly more important than everything else, including their own lives. (I don't believe that, myself, but some people do.)

    It takes a group to make a "fanatic hero". Everyone in the group is jumping up and down with excitement about the great cause, the great jihad, the great war, the maximum leader, the great prophet, the great god, "the great this, that, and the other". We get carried away with the enthusiasm of the crowd, the mob.

    Fanatics of all kinds are at least somewhat crazy, a little insane.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    After 9-11 I did a lot of speculation about why somebody would run an airplane into a skyscraper. My thought was that the notion of being all caught up in a cosmic plan would bring intensity and drama to life. I was sharing this with a friend who told me I was overthinking it. His view was that it was just aggression. Baboons don't attack one another because of a death complex or the need for drama. Humans aren't really much more complicated. I think there may be something to that.
  • unenlightened
    8.7k
    It's not uncommon or peculiar. Think of the thousands of soldiers walking into machine-gun fire during WW1.

    All it requires is an identification with nation, religion, or whatever, that is stronger than the identification with the body. This happens quite easily as a social psychological process. If I tell you enough times that if you are not with us, you are against us and that all our problems are their fault, you will find it hard and eventually futile to resist. If you do resist you become one of them, and your death follows anyway with added ignominy.

    Try here for a somewhat less simple-minded exposition.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    I delved into this a bit in a post on my blog, and for those curious (and in a fit of shameless self-promotion; and because I'm too lazy to repeat myself) my unworthy speculations may be found here:
    https://theblogofciceronianus.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-curious-belief-that-its-good-thing.html
  • unenlightened
    8.7k
    So, the ancient Christian death seekers were clearly different from those Muslim death seekers who kill themselves now intending to kill others as well. There's a difference between wanting to be killed and wanting to kill others while killing oneself.

    But it would seem that in each case it's believed that dying is good, and that God wants us to die in a particular way or will reward us if we do so. And these are dangerous thoughts indeed. Once we think God wants us or others to die, or that it's good that we or others die, we not only accept but seek death; our death or the death of others, or both. Worse, we think we should kill. Death becomes a moral imperative.
    — unworthy speculator

    The death or not others is surely a trivial difference compared to my own death. My own death is in my language an act of identification. Rome, as the secular power is being invited to 'ratify' the identification by performing the office of executor and thus promoting the mere faithful to the status of martyr.

    It's not even really a matter of what God wants, since He can doubtless shift for himself, it's more a badge of identification. Which of course is why jumping off a cliff will not do at all. For mass suicides you need something extra in the way of collective hubris.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    The death or not others is surely a trivial difference compared to my own death. My own death is in my language an act of identification. Rome, as the secular power is being invited to 'ratify' the identification by performing the office of executor and thus promoting the mere faithful to the status of martyr.

    It's not even really a matter of what God wants, since He can doubtless shift for himself, it's more a badge of identification. Which of course is why jumping off a cliff will not do at all. For mass suicides you need something extra in the way of collective hubris.
    unenlightened

    I think the injunction against suicide may have been in play as well when these particular Christians confronted the doubtless bewildered proconsul. Does a person kill himself/herself when they ask a person to kill them and they do so? I'm not sure.

    But I feel that the belief God would think it good that they died and honor them for it, granting them a special place in heaven must have been a factor. I suppose that by dying and seeking death they would became part of a kind of elect, though, so you may be right.

    I can't help but find this event amusing, though. I can imagine Monty Python doing a skit about it.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    What i think is that the inevitable fear of death which to them, preoccupied with it as they are, is so scary that they convince themselves, with the power of the group, that death does not hold a negative connotation. The highest level of death denial makes a full circle to come back to the full embrace of it.eddiedean

    Sounds kind of like what I have heard some climate change deniers say: climate change is a good thing because every place will have Florida weather.
  • Nils Loc
    1.3k
    It's not hard to imagine the state of being and existential conditions in which one would die or kill for a cause.

    There are some crazy historical scenarios of ritual suicide and sacrifice. Indian kings cutting off parts of their body in front of everyone, Native Americans joyfully (?) being killed by their captors, Japanese sticking a knife in their gut in a public display of Seppuku, wives being burned alive with deceased husbands (Sati), Mayan ball game winners partaking in voluntary sacrifice, a sacrifice to the cornerstone of the city state, entire servant retinues being killed and interred with the a king...

    I think we fear death too much in our Western culture.
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