A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF DEATH IN ESAN CULTURE

Idea. Studia nad strukturą i rozwojem pojęć filozoficznych

The author argues that, contrary to received wisdom, neurotypical humans (a.k.a., the folk) do not conceive of death as the annihilation of the individual. If that received wisdom were true, then afterlife beliefs, which have proven to be intuitive to the folk and ubiquitous across the vast time and space of human religious cultures, are a straightforward, blatant contradiction in the minds of the folk. To alleviate and ameliorate that contradiction, those who accept the received wisdom have argued for one of two theories regarding how and why the folk create, accept, and enforce their cultural afterlife beliefs: through cognitive dissonance or explanatory coexistence. The author argues, however, that these cognitive explanations fail to explain the intuitive and ubiquitous nature of afterlife beliefs. Contrariwise, the author argues that the folk has three different concepts of death—the folk biological concept of death, the existential concept of death, and the concept of social death—which apply to different experiential domains: the fate of the body, the fate of the individual, and the social fate of the individual, respectively. Finally, the author argues that these integrated concepts allow afterlife beliefs to be held coherently and consistently in the folk's mind and accounts for their intuitiveness and ubiquity.

There is a pattern to the way most humans live, that of how their actions will affect their future, and in most cases, how their actions will affect their journey after death. Different cultures and religions may have formulated different benchmarks or guidelines to this effect, but one thing remains clear, the purpose of these rules and guidelines for the way we live are done keeping in mind what we want to happen to us after death. We know for a fact that Human beings, like all other organic creatures, die and the physical body perishes. But, there is a widespread and popular belief that in some way this death is survivable, that there is a possibility of life after death. This concept of some kind of journey after death has become possibly the most debated topic, and has created countless theories over time. On different levels, human actions are guided by the enigma of what will be in store for them after death. This paper looks in to the various teachings and beliefs of different cultures and religions and how they have shaped the understanding of death and how this thought process was furthered through literature and has been used to manipulate the emotions of audiences through history and changed the way people perceive death and the consequences on the way they live their lives.

The issue of death has been confrontational to man since he discovers himself on earth .Some argue that death is the passage to the world of the ancestors while some disagree with this view and argue that death is not the passage, but that the burial rites are the real access to the ancestral land. However, some contend that there is reincarnation (coming back after death to start another life.) There are divers questions on death that remain unanswered, some of which are these arduous ones: Why should man die? Where does man go after death? Will a dead man still be seen around after death as some claim? Why is there age imparity in death? (i.e. some die at birth, some at childhood, some at a youthful age and yet some at old age?).As many attempts to find conclusive answers to these questions, there arise again the issue of afterlife. If a man dies where is his final destination? Is there really a place of rest for the soul that departs this world? In an attempt to find answers to some of these questions, the researcher made a research on the thought of the Edo people on death and afterlife, with a particular reference to the Otuo and Afuze people.. Data was collected using a structured questionnaires. A total of four hundred and fifty questionnaires were distributed among selected persons in the capacity of lecturers, non- teaching staff, students, artisans, traders and farmers among the Otuo and Afuze populace, Owan East Local Government, Edo state, and findings were made using the simple percentile method. Out of the number of questionnaires distributed, only three hundred and ninety respondents’ questionnaires were valid for this work Findings revealed that 100% of the Afuze and Otuo people believe in the existence of death but 97% were left discombobulated on the issue of afterlife (i.e what happens to man after death) but upheld the belief that a chock-full observance of the traditional burial rites will have powerful influences in determining the destiny of the deceased. It was also found that not all deaths are accepted. For example, the death of children is a taboo and attributed to some evil forces. These children are not allowed into the ancestral land but asked to come back with more powers to fight the evil forces and fulfill their destinies. The conclusion is that man has a limited life to live and that the life lived here is a determinant in afterlife.

About death, grief, mourning, life after death and immortality. Why should we die like humans to survive as a species. "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new." (Steve Jobs)

2016

This study is an ontological inquiry into the phenomenon of death in Esan culture before the advent of imported religions and other Western incursions. It does not busy itself with life after death per se but on death itself. It examined how the phenomenon of death informs the Esan worldview and influences the concrete behaviour of the Esan people. It discussed the reasons why Esan people feared dead, the deceased, and why they avoid seeing the dead. It also extended its discussion to mourn generally, mourning of a deceased spouse, burying the dead and the concrete steps people take in Esan to impede or prosper the journey of the deceased to after life and his concrete life in the hereafter. It then discussed the people's attitude toward death and the dead. It argues further that the occurrences of death, the agony of dying and the belief in life after death have some moral implications which influence the moral disposition of the Esan people toward their neighbor, the sick, the...

Modern Theology, 1997

Hardly any other moment in life besides death provides a subject for theological reflection that brings to such clear focus the precise force of a theologian's anthropological proposals. This essay addresses certain issues in theological anthropology, both material and formal issues. It focuses the issues by seeing what can be gleaned from comparing two mid-20th century theologies of death: Why select death as the lens through which the issues are brought to focus? It is because death focuses attention on the interconnections among three major ways in which Christianity has traditionally said human persons are related to God: the relation of creature to creator, the relation of redeemed to redeemer, and the relation of glorified to consummator. Each relation is constituted by God actively relating to us on God's own initiative. The dynamic character of these "relations", God's active relating, is crucial in Christian belief. For that reason, I shall generally write of "God creating", "redeeming" and "consummating" us rather than write more abstractly of God's "creation-relation" or "redemption-relation" or "consummationrelation" to us.

Islam and Christian - Muslim Relations, 2007

In an age in which vast progress has been made in organ transplant technology, it isimperative to determine the point at which a human being is considered dead, for transplantationcannot occur until after death. Traditional religious views imply that a human being is dead uponthe departure of the soul from the body. Taking the biological death of the body as a conclusivesign of the soul’s departure is not an option. Biological death refers to decomposition, and thiscannot equate to the death of the person as such, for this would make the concept and practice of transplantation absurd, for transplantable parts of a biologically dead—i.e. decomposing—bodycould not be used. On the other hand, if parts of the human body are themselves still biologicallyalive, could it not be said that taking such parts would amount to murder?Two conclusions follow from this predicament. First, death as a ‘normative’ concept stands insharp distinction from a purely biological concept. Second, a normative concept of death isentangled with a normative concept of personhood. That is to say, from the moment that a humanbeing is not considered a person as such, parts of the body could be removed for transplantationor, indeed, for any other justified medical purpose. In this regard, various theories of the personare put forward. Which of these theories is compatible with a workable concept of death? In this paper two principal theories of the person will be discussed and it will be argued that a brain-based theory of death is conducive to a normative concept of death, thus allowing for organtransplantation.

2017

Idea. Studia nad strukturą i rozwojem pojęć filozoficznych