Stephen Cave talks about our experiences of death. As a child we don’t quite understand, we just know that the person is not walking around with us anymore. Mr. Cave talks about his experience of death as a child as a black hole that he was afraid. He didn’t want to go to the black hole. My first experience of death was when my grandpa died when I was 10. I don’t really remember asking what happens when we die but I do remember my grandma tell me that grandpa was in Heaven with God. It wasn’t until I started going to church with a friend at age 13 that I learned what grandma meant about Heaven.
Stephen Cave talks about 4 types of immortality stories or beliefs-elixir, resurrection, soul and legacy. Since there is no real proof of what happens when we die, people fear it because it is the unknown. Relying on these immortality ideas helps us cope with the loss of our loved ones and helps us with our final decisions. We believe these stories because we are so afraid of death.
Since most of us want to avoid death because we don’t know what if feels like, we believe in elixirs to make our death easier or prolong our death. People even believe the elixirs will heal us from cancer, old age, or other fatal illnesses. Most cultures believe in elixirs that will ensure our life. Nowadays we even believe that the scientists can prolong our lives by medicines, treatments or even freezing our bodies to bring us back when they find a cure for our disease. The Greeks even believed in special drinks and food would give them immortality.
If you believe in Resurrection if meant you believe that you would die but that you would rise again, live again or even come back to earth. Just like Jesus. This idea of immortality is passed down to each generation and there are different versions in each family. Even though most believe this is basically a Christian belief, Stephen Cave mentioned that other types of religions believe this also.
The majority of people believe we have a soul. Many stories have been told about near death experiences where we leave our bodies, see our bodies surrounded by people, see a bright light, someone on the other side might talk to us but then we return to our body and continue to live. Epicurus believed that the soul died when the body died. So he believed we have a soul but it didn’t move to another dimension but stayed with the dead body.
Legacy is leaving behind your story through children, writings, even videos of your stories. Legacy is a questionable way of immortality to me. I’m not sure if I understand how a legacy can be immortality because to me immortality is surviving but leaving a legacy is something that’s done after you die. Stephen Cave said that sceptics doubt legacy as an immortality. I am one of those sceptics.
I loved his definition of terror management theory, “We develop our world views, that is the stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, in order to help us manage the terror of death.”
Hum 115: World Mythology 
I like your first paragraph. I believe that you are the only one who put an experience that you’ve personally had with death in your post. I would of put more examples of death that we see in rituals throughout the myths we have read, but I think you did an amazing job discussing the main points of the blog post. You also put your own opinion in this about legacy, how you are skeptic. Great job!
LikeLike
When we are children death is a heavy subject that is hard to wrap our heads around. I think the same thing could be said for adults as well. Nobody can actually say definitively what death is like. Many people can come up with ideas and writings on what death is like, however, this cannot be confirmed. Due to this the fear of the unknown comes into place. I enjoyed Mr. Cave’s Ted Talk, he was engaging without feeling like I was being talked down to. I found it fascinating how he broke down almost every death trope down to 4.
Great post!
LikeLike
Did anyone else here get their first understand of death from Disney films? I remember crying because Bambi’s mother died (spoiler) and my parents trying to comfort me by telling me that everyone died.
That did not help.
In case anyone is looking for a way to respond to this week’s posts, I’ll throw this question out here: Do you think that the rituals we read about in Egyptian and Greek myths are more about helping humans prepare for whatever comes after death or more about giving the living a way to grieve? What about modern funeral rituals: more for the dead or for the living?
LikeLike