No, it has left me bloody furious that the media and the entire apparatus of the state has shut us all down for no good reason, beyond perhaps the first couple of weeks.
Michael Whittock
3 years ago
This article seems to be suggesting that if you keep busy fear of death will go away which I think is mistaken. Even in the midst of your self-sacrificial busyness thoughts of death will loom up in front of you. It’s not just in the dark sleepless hours of the night they come. Also this article seems to take liberties with St.Paul.The phrase “death has lost its sting” comes from his first letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament,chapter fifteen.Nowhere in this chapter does Paul refer to anything connected to our “anxiety of self-preservation”. He is rather proclaiming the historical reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ pointing out that along with the Twelve Apostles,500 others saw the Risen Christ. He is also proclaiming the sure and certain hope for all believers that they will share in Jesus’ victory over death.He talks in terms of the “natural body”necessary for life on earth being laid down in death,and the “spiritual body necessary for life in Heaven being given to believers. ” For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable,and the mortal with immortality”verse 53. It is these and other wonderful,biblical truths about the Resurrection and Eternal Life and my relationship with Jesus in prayer and worship which have given me joy and inner strength through open heart surgery last year and a severe cancer scare during the past few months. I’m not writing out of an obsession with self preservation, but from real spiritual experience.
An important alternative viewpoint, especially being so personal. Thank you, and best wishes.
Alan Hawkes
3 years ago
There is a third type of person reacting to lockdown. Being retired, my wife and I decided that we would go out as little as possible. Suddenly we had time to do all those tasks in the garden, to read the books on the bookshelves, to watch the tv programmes and films that we had recorded when we were busy. Being severed from the rest of society was not a total loss: no committee meetings, no coffee with people because we did it every week In fact, as I was drawn back in, by Zoom, I began, in some ways, to resent the loss of freedom to choose what to do with my day.
Claire D
3 years ago
I think you’re right Giles. Whether someone is religious or not is less relevant than their understanding of their role in relation to humanity. In a way mothers, and fathers, might have an advantage there, because the future is manifest in their children, and most will work instinctively to help them as much as possible in a self-sacrificing way. But I’ve known many single people without children who have understood that as well, who have given themselves totally for the sake of others.
On a purely mundane level, the busier you are looking after others, either hands on or indirectly by earning the money honey, you have less time and energy to brood about death.
Dave Smith
3 years ago
I have always liked the farewell of Odysseus to the wife of KIng Alcinous. If I may I will quote it.From memory. ‘Fare thee well O queen throughout all the years ,till old age and death come which are the lot of all mortals. As for me I go my way but do you in this house have joy of your children and your people and Alcinous the king’ I am old enough to have been in Ireland when it was not uncommon to hear that blessing ‘Peace be on this house and all who dwell within it’ Simple words maybe both but catching the reality of human existence
Mark
3 years ago
Thanks Giles. Super helpful. I’m 54 and about a month ago diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. About 4 years ago pretty much walked away from traditional Christian faith (I was a Baptist pastor and have a PhD in theology). But your article really spoke in a relevant and meaningful way to me.
Lee Jones
3 years ago
Beginning of End Times seems probable to me, having looked at what’s behind the current “apparent” madness (which is actually going very well for those who planned it).
A Spetzari
3 years ago
Religion was for centuries the cosy blanket that allowed us to make some sense of an otherwise baffling world.
Now that the vast majority of what the major religions offered explanations for has been understood – I don’t even need to raise “science” on a pedestal – just common knowledge of certain realities of life – we know longer need the blanket.
Sure we have not replaced its warmth with anything that is perhaps as satisfying, and we can debate all day the cathartic or even evolutionary purpose of religion, but the answer isn’t to crawl back under the sheets in complete denial of what we now know.
Trevor Q
3 years ago
A perceptive and thoughtful argument thank you.
William MacDougall
3 years ago
Manicured gardens and parks might be expensive, but nature isn’t. Just remove sheep and let the land alone, and trees and bushes and wildlife will regrow over time…
But it won’t. Not the way you want it. Read the article again. What will grow is thorn and briar and nettles, a barren rank countryside with trees eaten by rabbits and muntjack and (heaven help us) the about to be reintroduced beavers.
Man has interfered with the countryside for thousands of years and until about one hundred years ago, more or less to the good. That is what we have to go back to, natural,light touch farming without artificial fertilisers or chemicals. Just a natural farming cycle.
The question is, as this excellent article asks, how is that paid for? Ideally, by consumers paying a proper price for healthy sustainable food. How do we get to that? There’s the question.
And trees. How do you think we got trees in the first place?
Drew
3 years ago
So, this time, in the Corexit crisis, rather than the post war austerity years/crisis, we farmers need another new deal? Renewed taxpayers’ support and more/better/different Whitehall regulations? Just in a more ecological friendly way?
Gimme a break. Have you never heard a single episode of The Men from the Ministry?
Dependence is what put us in this mess. For gosh’s sake, Bill Mollison screamed this for years. Get off the government teat and start treating the land like it was here before you.
And this post is coming from an Alabama farmer. Yea, that podunk place in the deep American South.
jdcharlwood
3 years ago
To philosophize is to learn how to die! Would that we could all end up feeling like Wittgenstein!
Andrew Baldwin
3 years ago
I never heard of Shona Maclean but I found an interview with her online, and she is quite charming. Unfortunately none of her Seeker novels are available from the Ottawa Public Library, only “The Redemption of Alexander Seaton”, which also seems to deal with Scotland in the first half of the 17th century. I will try to read it when I have a chance. Thank you, James.
Ian Barton
3 years ago
I suspect that much of the angst around death is caused by people who have previously been sold an “afterlife story” and can’t bring themselves to accept that they really know that it is tosh.
Free yourself from this biblical nonsense, and much of the turmoil just falls away …
Free yourself from consciousness; perhaps then. Philip Larkin had certainly freed himself from ‘this biblical nonsense’ but in his poem Aubade could still write of ‘ the dread of dying, and being dead ( which)/ Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.’
My comment is not suggesting atheism as an answer, but merely that the quicker you get your mind to accept that death (like tax) is inevitable, the happier you are likely to be …
People who do this are far more likely to address the real-life issues (like Power of Attorney) that will help them – and everyone that is dear to them …
To be fair any religion of any depth faces those questions quite directly and often provides acceptance and consolation. Of course non believers can find meaning other ways but I don’t believe they are better prepared than anyone else.
Warren Alexander
3 years ago
I takes a godist to write such unmitigated drivel.
No, it has left me bloody furious that the media and the entire apparatus of the state has shut us all down for no good reason, beyond perhaps the first couple of weeks.
This article seems to be suggesting that if you keep busy fear of death will go away which I think is mistaken. Even in the midst of your self-sacrificial busyness thoughts of death will loom up in front of you. It’s not just in the dark sleepless hours of the night they come.
Also this article seems to take liberties with St.Paul.The phrase “death has lost its sting” comes from his first letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament,chapter fifteen.Nowhere in this chapter does Paul refer to anything connected to our “anxiety of self-preservation”. He is rather proclaiming the historical reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ pointing out that along with the Twelve Apostles,500 others saw the Risen Christ. He is also proclaiming the sure and certain hope for all believers that they will share in Jesus’ victory over death.He talks in terms of the “natural body”necessary for life on earth being laid down in death,and the “spiritual body necessary for life in Heaven being given to believers. ” For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable,and the mortal with immortality”verse 53.
It is these and other wonderful,biblical truths about the Resurrection and Eternal Life and my relationship with Jesus in prayer and worship which have given me joy and inner strength through open heart surgery last year and a severe cancer scare during the past few months. I’m not writing out of an obsession with self preservation, but from real spiritual experience.
An important alternative viewpoint, especially being so personal.
Thank you, and best wishes.
There is a third type of person reacting to lockdown. Being retired, my wife and I decided that we would go out as little as possible. Suddenly we had time to do all those tasks in the garden, to read the books on the bookshelves, to watch the tv programmes and films that we had recorded when we were busy. Being severed from the rest of society was not a total loss: no committee meetings, no coffee with people because we did it every week In fact, as I was drawn back in, by Zoom, I began, in some ways, to resent the loss of freedom to choose what to do with my day.
I think you’re right Giles.
Whether someone is religious or not is less relevant than their understanding of their role in relation to humanity. In a way mothers, and fathers, might have an advantage there, because the future is manifest in their children, and most will work instinctively to help them as much as possible in a self-sacrificing way. But I’ve known many single people without children who have understood that as well, who have given themselves totally for the sake of others.
On a purely mundane level, the busier you are looking after others, either hands on or indirectly by earning the money honey, you have less time and energy to brood about death.
I have always liked the farewell of Odysseus to the wife of KIng Alcinous. If I may I will quote it.From memory.
‘Fare thee well O queen throughout all the years ,till old age and death come which are the lot of all mortals. As
for me I go my way but do you in this house have joy of your children and your people and Alcinous the king’
I am old enough to have been in Ireland when it was not uncommon to hear that blessing
‘Peace be on this house and all who dwell within it’
Simple words maybe both but catching the reality of human existence
Thanks Giles. Super helpful. I’m 54 and about a month ago diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. About 4 years ago pretty much walked away from traditional Christian faith (I was a Baptist pastor and have a PhD in theology). But your article really spoke in a relevant and meaningful way to me.
Beginning of End Times seems probable to me, having looked at what’s behind the current “apparent” madness (which is actually going very well for those who planned it).
Religion was for centuries the cosy blanket that allowed us to make some sense of an otherwise baffling world.
Now that the vast majority of what the major religions offered explanations for has been understood – I don’t even need to raise “science” on a pedestal – just common knowledge of certain realities of life – we know longer need the blanket.
Sure we have not replaced its warmth with anything that is perhaps as satisfying, and we can debate all day the cathartic or even evolutionary purpose of religion, but the answer isn’t to crawl back under the sheets in complete denial of what we now know.
A perceptive and thoughtful argument thank you.
Manicured gardens and parks might be expensive, but nature isn’t. Just remove sheep and let the land alone, and trees and bushes and wildlife will regrow over time…
But it won’t. Not the way you want it. Read the article again. What will grow is thorn and briar and nettles, a barren rank countryside with trees eaten by rabbits and muntjack and (heaven help us) the about to be reintroduced beavers.
Man has interfered with the countryside for thousands of years and until about one hundred years ago, more or less to the good. That is what we have to go back to, natural,light touch farming without artificial fertilisers or chemicals. Just a natural farming cycle.
The question is, as this excellent article asks, how is that paid for? Ideally, by consumers paying a proper price for healthy sustainable food. How do we get to that? There’s the question.
And trees. How do you think we got trees in the first place?
So, this time, in the Corexit crisis, rather than the post war austerity years/crisis, we farmers need another new deal? Renewed taxpayers’ support and more/better/different Whitehall regulations? Just in a more ecological friendly way?
Gimme a break. Have you never heard a single episode of The Men from the Ministry?
Dependence is what put us in this mess. For gosh’s sake, Bill Mollison screamed this for years. Get off the government teat and start treating the land like it was here before you.
And this post is coming from an Alabama farmer. Yea, that podunk place in the deep American South.
To philosophize is to learn how to die! Would that we could all end up feeling like Wittgenstein!
I never heard of Shona Maclean but I found an interview with her online, and she is quite charming. Unfortunately none of her Seeker novels are available from the Ottawa Public Library, only “The Redemption of Alexander Seaton”, which also seems to deal with Scotland in the first half of the 17th century. I will try to read it when I have a chance. Thank you, James.
I suspect that much of the angst around death is caused by people who have previously been sold an “afterlife story” and can’t bring themselves to accept that they really know that it is tosh.
Free yourself from this biblical nonsense, and much of the turmoil just falls away …
Free yourself from consciousness; perhaps then. Philip Larkin had certainly freed himself from ‘this biblical nonsense’ but in his poem Aubade could still write of ‘ the dread of dying, and being dead ( which)/ Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.’
Fear of death is primordial, predating religion. I doubt atheism offers any superior tonic to it.
My comment is not suggesting atheism as an answer, but merely that the quicker you get your mind to accept that death (like tax) is inevitable, the happier you are likely to be …
People who do this are far more likely to address the real-life issues (like Power of Attorney) that will help them – and everyone that is dear to them …
To be fair any religion of any depth faces those questions quite directly and often provides acceptance and consolation. Of course non believers can find meaning other ways but I don’t believe they are better prepared than anyone else.
I takes a godist to write such unmitigated drivel.
Do you mean a theist?
Splitting hairs methinks …
What would you call someone wasting their time reading something they believe to be unmitigated drivel?