Perhaps, religion as an institution and faith, as well as religious organisations on the internet can ease our fear of death. (That is assuming that our fear needs overcoming). There are various websites which claim to help people in their battle against their anxieties towards passing away, many of them Christian. http://www.walking-wounded.net . Such Christian help websites use copious amounts of biblical passages in the hope of giving a sense of reassurance. For instance Psalm 23 verse 4 which states “ Even though I walk through the darkest valley… I will not fear , for you are with me and you comfort me”. As well as doing this they write absurd statements such as “God is in control, he can be trusted”. This does nothing to make me feel better, does it you?. If God is in control of my death, and I am not then I will smoke, drink and become grossly overweight. Its interesting how on these sites, it is an transcendent being which holds the key to our demise. Whereas, on others www.deathclock.com, our hour of death is determined by the social factors and health issues that we incur throughout life.
Nevertheless, Christian support websites http://www.everystudent.com/wires/inevitable.html offer testimonies, prayer requests and testimonies, in an endeavour to comfort and relieve us with death, which for them is just another ingredient of life, another journey. Is this the function and purpose of religion? To provide safeguards against the trepidation of the end ? . The emphasis tends to be that in order to overcome ones fear of death they must find peace with God and the bible. Therefore, if we read Romans 6 verse 23 which reads “ The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life”, we will not fear death. However, this is a far reaching claim as in order to do this we have to have a pre-understanding and belief in a life after death.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment