Fear of Death

We all have a tendency to fear the end of our own lives. Things may be rough, while we're alive, but since we don't know about what happens after we die, if anything, we're terrified by it.

This fear, no matter how irrational is something that all living creatures feel. I believe that it is, and I mean no pun here, a survival instinct. Since our desire to survive is the most powerful drive we have, it seems reasonable that we've built up death to be something that we fear and detest and dread.

This is where religion steps in.

Religions all across the spectrum deal with death in very specific ways, but most have a way to avoid death, make it less frightening or fulfill some way to lessen death.

Think of these three random examples:
Asatruism, the religion based on the Norse Mythologies, claims that if a man lives a brave and bold life, and dies in battle for something he believes in, he will be brought to Valhalla by angels called Valkyries, where he will be considered Einherjar. He will live and fight and be born again every day in Odin's battle hall for eternity.
In Christianity, a religion based mostly on Biblical scriptures, a person either goes to eternal torment in the afterlife or to Heaven to sing the praises of their Holy God, Yahweh. The deciding factor between these two is whether a person accepts Jesus Christ, the human version of Yahweh, sent as a human sacrifice to pay for the sins of mankind. If you believe in Jesus, and live by his laws, you can go to Heaven.
Buddhism, like it's earlier root of Hinduism says that if we can throw off all attachment and desire in our lives, we will be born again into another life, that is easier and this reincarnation will continue to happen until we become one with everything, called Nirvana.

In each of these three examples, there are ways that the living can have some control over their own deaths and their afterlives. And that may just be the point. It offers us a reason not to fear and goes one step farther by providing a means to change the way we live in our current lives.

While all of these religions I've mentioned are not bad, in their own right, the focus they put on death and what happens in the afterlife have profound affects on  their specific individualities in life. So, while a Viking who believes in Valhalla may have little fear of death, because of what he believes will happen in life, he very well may throw his life away in some vain attempt to die in battle. Asatru, in it's classic formal belief system, valued this kind of rash behavior.
In Buddhism, those who follow this religion or philosophy look forward to being one with everything.
And finally, in Christianity, once we add the rule that we must convert others to the same belief system, we are focused on not going to Hell and going to Heaven instead.

What each of these fail to do, however is help us have a healthy understanding that death is natural, normal and actually, in some cases, not a bad thing at all. But we have to look at things differently. We cannot be rash and throw away our lives erratically, but we also must understand that it is going to happen.

To me, that means we need to be smart about how we live every day, to both lengthen our lives and to get as much out of it as possible. To be coerced 'at the gunpoint of Hell' to live a certain way, is one of the best cons ever played on humanity. Since we are not focused on doing good or being moral for the sake of being good and moral and instead out of fear, we actually become even more selfish and shallow.

But a rational and healthy understanding of death, and the fact that we really don't have any knowledge of what's after death regardless of the claims of religions, helps us to be more willing and able to live a full, moral life without irrational or undue fears of the afterlife.

The freedom that this provides in daily living can mean the difference between a negative and unhealthy personal philosophy and a positive and compassionate one.