Argument Against Taking Death As A Genuine Evil

They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they 'd say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn 't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn 't quite dying, because in a curious way, it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself. "

Lucretius in “The Nature of Things” explains that there are only two entities that make up bodies in the universe: matter and void. Matter is ever-present and does not decay while the void is a nothingness that allows for motion and change. Marcus Aurelius in “Meditations” explains that matter and the soul are the components of the universe, with the soul in some sense filling the void. Lucretius’ “void” has a correlation to Aurelius’ “soul.” Both philosophers explain how the concept of the void is responsible and related to death, because it allows for disturbances to the balance within the being. Lucretius believes that the void is the cause of death, yet questions whether the soul travels with it. Aurelius questions how the soul can remain after death. Death is an abstract concept that Lucretius and Aurelius attempt to answer through matter and voids. Lucretius calls the void a nothingness, which is always empty, and matter a solid that is free of any void. Aurelius has an essence of somethingness to his void, the soul, and calls matter a static body. By adding the soul as a third component to reality, the Stoic Marcus Aurelius rejects the binary universe of Lucretius.

Hamlet is strongly held by archetypes that can be revealed throughout the play. Death, itself, is a very strong archetype in the story exploring the social beliefs in that era; superstitions and societies loyalty to religion. Throughout the play, Hamlet experiences his main trifles over the concept of death. Reviewing the murder of his father and the task given to him to kill his uncle, Hamlet becomes fascinated with the idea of existence and afterlife.As a whole, Hamlet is primarily concerned with exploring the individual's relationship with death in which our fear of death comes from the notion that there must be something else, eliminating the fact that we can't ever know for sure if there is. This idea is explored in Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy, which questions the righteousness of life over death in moral terms. When Hamlet utters the pained question, “to be, or not to be: that is the question / Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles” (Act 3, Scene 1 59-61) there is little doubt that he is thinking of death. Although he attempts to pose such a question in a rational and logical way, he is still left without an answer of whether the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” can be eliminated since life after death seems so uncertain. All of this mirrors aspects of human nature as man has always questioned the meaning of life and the events that occur after. Theoretically, one will never understand the full nature of our

What Lucretius’ claims boil down to is that it does not matter the length of life or when dying occurs, death is never bad.

Death is the most inevitable and unknown aspect of life. It is unescapable, and by most of today’s population, it is feared in the utmost regard. Our materialistic views and constant desertion of religious ideals has forced our society to view death as an ultimate end. Socrates and St. Augustine’s views on death differ from many views on the subject in 2017, however, for their time, these men had the power to influence a plethora of individuals with their theories. For Socrates, death should never be feared and should be considered a blessing if our souls were to ascend to heaven, or death could be an extensive slumber without any dreaming whatsoever. With

4.”Is there, or is there not, an opposite to life? It does. What is it - Death. So the soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along as we agree from what has been said.” (105d-e)

Before connecting a person’s fear of death to personal identity, one must first understand the problem of personal identity, which is how is personhood defined and by what criterion is the sameness of identity over time and throughout change identified. The two main theories that attempt to resolve the problem of personal identity are ego theory and bundle theory. Ego theory endorses or espouses a view that there is a stable subject of experiences. Bundle theory means that the self is truly a long line of impressions based off other impressions. He says, “ordinary survival is about as bad as being destroyed and having a Replica,” exemplifying his theory that we are already living with a replica of ourselves from the past

Many people seem to fear death, but philosophers such as Socrates and Epicurus would argue that one has no reason to fear it. Socrates sees death as a blessing to be wished for if death is either nothingness or a relocation of the soul, whereas Epicurus argues that one shouldn't worry themselves about death since, once we are gone, death is annihilation which is neither good nor bad. Epicurus believes that death itself is a total lack of perception, wherein there is no pleasure or pain. I agree with Epicurus because Socrates doesn't give a sound argument for death as a blessing, whereas Epicurus' argument is cogent. I would also argue personally that death is not something to be feared because, like Epicurus, I see no sufficient evidence

“When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life…” When reading Hamlet’s Soliloquy, this line made me question my own opinion on the value of life. If life is such a struggle, and there are so many obstacles that seem impossible to conquer, why not just end it? End the suffering: End the complication: Just kill yourself in hopes that the afterlife holds something better than than this daunting voyage. The answer is most people scared shitless. “But the dread of something after death… No traveler returns, puzzles the will.” When we die, there is no coming back; death is a journey and “No traveler returns.” Not knowing what comes after might be what keeps many of us alive. The fear of the

There are more than one piece of evidence that support the main conclusion in this reading. We should not be afraid of death first because; it does not have any values neither positive nor negative. The author intended for this evidence to support his conclusion by giving an example in page

When people ponder death they wonder about the unknown with trepidation. As a young man, William Cullen Bryant wrote the "Thanatopsis." His thoughts progress from the fear of death to the acceptance of the event. People should not fear death because everyone dies and becomes a part of nature.

One of the most common fears is that of death. This fear does not often stem from the process itself, but rather the question of what occurs after. Do we begin living another life? Will that life be better or worse than the one we previously led? These questions are filled with uncertainty, and the impossibility of answering them produces distress. In Hamlet, Hamlet struggles with the challenge of answering such questions himself when he laments, “To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause. There’s the respect / That makes calamity of so long life” (3.1.66-70). Within Shakespeare’s tragedy, the text signifies the fear of the unknown by exploring Hamlet’s uneasy contemplation of life after death.

Lucretius introduces his argument with an explanation as to why death evokes such fear while at the same time assuring that he will eliminate those fears by disproving

Death is a familiar thing to most of us, whether you’ve had a loved one pass or have seen a lot of pain. The reason I picked this topic is because of all the ways and things that can happen, in our lifetime, what is the most scariest thing people have trouble with and death popped into my head. I asked the question, ‘Are you afraid of dying?’ My belief was that the youth would be less likely to be fearful of dying compared to the older populations I interview and researched. I believed that the youth would see it as a long time away and would be more focused with living rather than focusing on something they can’t control. I believe that the elderly would have a bigger problem with death because of all the problems that come with old age. As you age everything becomes closer and is more realistic.

will.” ( III I, 179-181) The fear of what will happen after death deters him.