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People With University Degree Fear Death Less
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."
Grad studies are worse than any kind of death. I experienced both.
I became an engineer. I work in a cubicle. I bear a slight resemblance to Dilbert when in my work attire. This my friends, is worse than death. Therefore, I have no fear of death because I am beyond it.
But they fear typographical errors much more :-)
Bruce Perens.
Fear of eventually dying and fear of dying young are quite different things, but both get named "fear of death". I read TFA, and it's not clear what fear they're talking about.
IMHO, it's silly to fear the former but good to have some fear of the latter.
People fear what they don't understand. Ignorant people fear more, and are manipulated by their fear en masse.
Bruce Perens.
If we're talking about undergraduate degrees, and the average amount of debt involved, then yeah, if asked if I was afraid of dying right after graduation, I'd be like, "meh."
Maybe belief in the supernatural correlates well with fear of death.
Maybe if you're shit-scared of death all the time you find refuge in faith.
Me, I have a university degree and an IQ in the genius range (I don't think I'm a genius). Count me as someone that is educated, reasonably intelligent and scared of death. Isn't fear of death natural? I mean, I don't want to imagine a world without me, I won't be there. And that's leaving out the part in which you actually die, which isn't going to be any fun either.
Sign me up for immortality treatment please.
Death is inevitable. I don't fear taxes, and I don't fear death.
What I do fear, however, since I live in the United States where suicide and assisted suicide are illegal, is becoming almost completely nonfunctional due to sudden paralysis, stroke, etc. The fear is that if I were locked in and could only communicate one character an hour, they'd still keep me alive for as long as they could, even if I had to lay there awake but bored and paralyzed for 16 hours a day.
A distant second is dying a horrible slow death, perhaps by starvation.
Death itself, though, I don't really fear.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Because that's a false statement (more people can't die than the total number of people born, as those who are not born can't die, due to not existing in the first place), and you're begging the question.
Not a sentence!
"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."
As a thought exercise, its un-nerving to say the least!
"I don't sleep. I hate those little slices of death."
I am quite sure I have been an insomniac for most of my life. I'll sleep enough when I'm dead.
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!)
I am male and have a university degree. I fear death more than anyone I've never met.
Lemme guess -- football scholarship?
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Honestly, I can't for the life of me see why theists think that religion brings peace and comfort
Religion brings money and political power. If you can't derive peace and comfort from those, there's no hope for you!
You can only die once, and I have been dead, so I will live forever now....
You say that, but we all know that Vicious kills you in the end, even if you can stagger down the hallway and shoot a finger gun at the camera.
Monstar L
And if I unexpectedly should be thrown into that lake of fire instead of fading into nothingness, well... That would be the time to go ahead with the full survive, evade, resist, escape program and take the bastard responsible for this on. Let's see who's burning in the end.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Exactly the opposite.
If you believe in after life, you'd probably expect "they" will settle the score once you die, and who isn't a "sinner"?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
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.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Well, circumstances are irrelevant. Like it or not, you will die. The only questions are when and how. As my dad always says: "You're not getting out of life alive, so you might as well enjoy yourself".
I have no fear of death, partly because it's inevitable, and partly because I can think of many cases where living can be much worth than death. The reason people fear death is because of the uncertainty over if there's an afterlife and what it's like - primarily, they're afraid that maybe those religious wackos are right and you really WILL be tortured for all eternity for not following what they say.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
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.
Just wait til you graduate from "I can't even tell anymore whether I'm trolling at any given time."
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.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
From the article:
at present, the education system does not have any formal and systematic method to deal with death in class. If death were introduced in the education system, children would have a more real and intense approach to life, and many of the problems derived from the mourning process in the adulthood would be prevented.
I hope they mean the topic of death rather than death itself. I don't really want our teachers killing anybody as an object lesson.
#DeleteChrome
Oh, I did not mean Satan with the guy responsible for this. Any god condemning a single soul to infiinte punishment for a finite transgression is pure evil. That one would be the target in this unlikely case.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Wait, it's nonconformist to support one of the two dominant political trends in the most powerful country in the world? Lolwhut.
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.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
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.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
People with security clearance fear the law and follow it ruthlessly.
Spoken like someone who has never been around anyone with a security clearance.
People with clearances are like everybody else except they try to not to talk about some parts of their work. You take two people working for the same organization with roughly the same background and responsibilities but one has a clearance and the other doesn't, you aren't going to find a significant variation except the one with the clearance is more reticent about talking about their job. Ain't nothing 'ruthless' about it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"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?
Look, that's certainly true, but we're talking about distributions here. I've seen stupid people in academia, and I've seen smart people in the general population. But here in academia, if I walk up to someone and strike up a conversation about some complex issue that perhaps one or both of us aren't very familiar with, 99% of the time I'll come out with a greater understanding of the issue than I had before. I learn something, just by accessing the intelligence of that other person. In the general population, 99% of the time the best I can hope for is a complete lack of interest from the other person or a few very stupid comments that make me sorry I started the conversation.
So yeah, academia ain't no intellectual utopia, but there is a difference...
weinersmith
I really like the story with the Devil and God throwing him out. And God being good and the Devil being bad.
Good versus Evil. Great storytelling.
But what if the Evil guy had won and then says He is the good guy? If I were the evil guy, I certainly would mess with peoples head and say that I was good, although I was evil. Say to two different persons that I am their only God and kill the other one and see who wins. Just because I can.
Let people die and the few who live must thank me for my mercy.
All the while the Devil who tries to come back, I will tell the worst stories about. And all the the Devil want to do is you to have fun.
Or is this just a matter that absolute power corrupts absolutely?
Anyway. Nice and entertaining stories. Lots of violence and sex, so great to turn into movies.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"I can see you are a swordsman. Therefore you are educated. If you are educated, you must know you are Mortal! CLEARLY you would put the poison furthest away from YOU!"
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
It also trumps torture.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's a lot easier in the pulpit than it is in the pews.
Hell, you just have to pass around a plate and people put their hard-earned money on it. As a former altar boy I was fascinated by the collection. In my church, they had guys come down the aisle with these baskets with long handles, because they were afraid to pass a plate and tempt the believers with actually handling a dishful of money. It seemed like a great racket, and I may have gone into the church business, until I learned that the Priests got zero pussy. I remember asking my older brother what kind sex Father Moran was getting, and when he answered "None", I thought he said "Nun" and figured he was banging Sister Margaret Mary. Well, Sister Margaret Mary was a dead ringer for Dick Cheney, so I figured maybe there were better rackets to make an easy buck. That's when I decided to become an English major. Well, it was a long while before I started making any real money, and by then I had to join another kind of priesthood called "Academia", but I got to bang a lot of goth chicks (or what would be called goth today), who looked a whole lot better than Sister Mary Margaret. By the way, if you're college age and you're staying away from the goth chicks because you think they'd be no fun in the sack, don't be a dope. The pale makeup and dour expression both come off when they get a few drinks in them and they turn into more fun than Chucky Cheese on weed.
Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah. Religion. Fuck them. And if you're an altar boy wondering what kind of sex your priest gets, stop wondering right now and run away because it's a trap!
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't know where you folks got your information, but that's not the story I heard. I'm not even religious, but at least I did pay a little attention when I was a kid.
There was no "God vs Devil" death-match as this thread suggests. My understanding was that God created "everything", both good and evil. It never was a matter of who would win, it was simply that good could not exist without evil.
The whole thing with Lucifer was about trying to get the other angels to follow "him" instead of God, not about kicking God's butt, which even he had the sense to know could not happen.
As I said, I'm certainly no Jesus freak (I tend to think Bill Maher has it about right), but folks, at least get the story straight.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
it's because (statistically) the more educated, the less religious. While one would think that the religious person, hoping for life after death, would fear it less, I think the opposite is true. The atheist can take comfort in believing that everything just stops when you die, that is you just cease to exist - no pain, no awareness, no anything. A religious person who believes in the after life has to worry about whether they're going to heaven or hell, will it hurt when I'm dead and (for some) maybe even a little fear about the cracks in their faith (i.e. could I be wrong?)..
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Read a fascinating (and funny) book called "Sympathy for the Devil" by Holly Lisle. It's available for free from the Baen Books Free Library. (baen.com) (Baen is a large SF publisher specializing in fantasy and military SF, not a religious books place, so fear not that I'm trying to convert you...) I believe Holly Lisle is a Fantasy author, although I have not read her other work.
In the book a young nurse asks the very same question of God after a rough day at work and offers up her very soul to stop it. She gets a very interesting (and funny) response from God. No bible quotes, no Jesus, no proselytizing of any sort... (I promise.) It covers Damnation, Satan, Fallen Angels, the lack of competent IT Techs in Hell, and the demonically-designed highway system of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Is it theologically sound? Does it conform in any way with scripture? This agnostic is the wrong person to ask... But it's a short, quick, read, and will waste no more than a few hours of your time if you don't like it... (Feel free to flame me afterwards.)
That's not the whole story either - hard to pull the "good needs evil" thing out of the bible either. The whole Lucifer/Satan thing is rather apocryphal anyway and more based on Milton than on the bible itself. The words "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" are by Milton originally, spoken by his Satan. Milton didn't write Paradise Lost as a piece of Christian fiction - given how heavily influenced he was by Greek and Pagan ideas and how much of that shows in the poem. Amusingly, he is still the main source for the popular picture of hell and Satan.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I mean one of the symptoms of clinical depression is willingness to consider suicide. (Which I would think would mean that you feel death less.) Isn't depression more common among people with degrees? (Isn't it also more prevalent among those with higher IQ's as well?)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
If you got infinite power, you'll soon be infinitely bored. Why not mess with some people for entertainment?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
if you're an altar boy wondering what kind of sex your priest gets, stop wondering right now and run away because it's a trap!
Please never mention sex in the same sentence as "it's a trap!" again - horrifying mental images result!
if I walk up to someone and strike up a conversation about some complex issue that perhaps one or both of us aren't very familiar with, ... I learn something
If you've done that in the "general population" more than a couple times and think they're mindless sheep because they won't entertain you, then you've had an opportunity to learn something but simply haven't done so.
And that's leaving out the part in which you actually die, which isn't going to be any fun either.
Have you ever considered the possibility of being shot in bed at age 90 by a jealous husband?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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?
I don't like music. I listened to some once, and it didn't appeal to me, so I can't see how anybody would actually enjoy listening to music of any kind. ;-)
The fire and brimstone business is symptomatic of the kind of thinking that produces zero tolerance policies. Can't think of what to do about students using drugs, so lets get something really harsh policies on paper. I don't have much faith, so I'd better make the little I have go as far as possible by making it harsh as possible. Since I'm afraid of dying, I'll believe in a literal afterlife where people who aren't like me are tortured for eternity, what's more they'll be tortured for no particular reason other than they don't have the same opinions I have. That'll make it easier for me to be confident in those opinions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I was driving around one day and found myself hungry and wanting something to eat and I thought to myself, "Taco Bell! I haven't eaten at a Taco Bell in years!" I drove to the nearest Taco Bell and got a taco, a tostada, and an Enchirito(tm), my old favorite. Man, was I disappointed. "That's why I never eat at Taco Bell!"
So a couple years later I'm driving and thinking how I'm kinda' hungry and I see a Taco Bell. "Taco Bell! I haven't eaten there in years!" I go in and order up my favorite meal and end up thinking, "Geez, that was awful! So that's why I never eat a Taco Bell!
So a couple years later I'm driving and thinking how I'm kinda' hungry and I see a Taco Bell. "Taco Bell! I haven't eaten there in -- wait, I hate Taco Bell!"
I've found this applies to many things in life and have thus dubbed it the Taco Bell Syndrome.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
It's the old correlation vs. causation thing again.
No, getting a master's degree in physics did not give you any additional understanding or perspective. However, you being the type of person to get a master's degree puts you in a group that is more highly correlated with having that perspective...
No, getting a master's degree in physics did not give you any additional understanding or perspective. However, you being the type of person to get a master's degree puts you in a group that is more highly correlated with having that perspective...
I agree, I believe this is how it generally goes with studies that correlate something with education. However, I also believe education does have some effect. (Or what exactly am I doing as a teacher? :) In my personal experience, dealing with experimental data improved my ability to cope with uncertainty. It is an ability I already had, but it made me appreciate it more than before.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I think there is a part of the Bible that says the only unforgivable sin, the only thing that can keep you from going to heaven, is the complete and absolute rejection of God. However, since God is infinite and unknowable you can't really reject him completely. You can reject the parts you know about, but not the parts you don't know about. You might not even want to reject those parts if you did know about them. Ergo, no one goes to hell.
Your point here about strict judgment was important to me personally. By relaxing my beliefs for or against things, and just leaving them in whatever state of ambiguity seemed to be justified by the available facts at the time, all kinds of possibilities opened up that weren't there otherwise.
Of course, too much of this sort of thing too early leads to a sloppiness or fuzziness in thought that's not very constructive either. And everyone is at a different place with that. As a teacher, I started off trying to get people to explore and think about things from different directions. But I think there was a large portion of the class that I wasn't serving very well. A lot of people really do need clear, rote steps that they can follow, and only after it becomes sufficiently familiar that way do they have a chance of thinking more flexibly about it.
Not really a huge surprise that people who are smarter and better educated have a more healthy outlook towards the one thing that will happen to us all, without exception.
I'd imagine that if you believed that there was a coin toss chance that you would not actually die, but rather spend an eternity in agonizing torment, death may be a little more worrying.
In the vast majority of cases, higher education = less of a chance that you're frightened by the myths of bronze aged, goat herding, middle-eastern desert nomads.
This is just a corollary of humans apparent inability to understand abstract concepts they cannot readily define. Humans define things with boundaries. Heck by the very meaning of "define" it is to explain by limitation, the reduction to the point of understanding. In fact that is why we have arguments that make no sense with absolutes, as while we may have created an abstract concept of absolute values (never, forever, infinity, largest, smallest, etc...) humans have trouble using them logically. This is "why" Good needs Evil. Because these concepts are absolute values we cannot define without boundaries, which are provided by using another absolute value to try and make it make sense.
Cyclic logic and all that. Absolute power cannot pick up an infinitely heavy rock. The universe is expanding, but into what? Nothingness? We are obsessed with encapsulating stuff, we need fences and walls and boundaries. I am not sure if it has to do with how we think, our language or what, or even if we will able to ever overcome it due to how we exist.