Humanism and Death

Humanism and Death

"We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one."

- Attributed to Confucius.

Watch the video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR7e0fmfXGw&feature=youtu.be

Try to think about what it was like before you were born...

"Look back at the eternity that passed before we were born, and mark how utterly it counts to us as nothing. This is a mirror that Nature holds up to us, in which we may see the time that shall be after we are dead. Is there anything terrifying in the sight – anything depressing – anything that is not more restful than the soundest sleep?"

-Lucretius

Open Ended

Do you agree with the Humanist view about what death is like? Give reasons for your answer.

We are part of the world

Humanists do not believe human beings have a soul. Unlike the body, they do not see any evidence for it. The word ‘human’ comes from the Latin word ‘humus’, which means ‘soil’, so ‘Homo’ as in ‘Homo sapiens’ means earth-being. For humanists, people are not distinct from nature. We are part of this world and this world alone. 

Open Ended

Do you agree with the Humanist view that human beings are part of nature and not separate? Give reasons for your view.

Open Ended

What would you like people to remember about you when you are gone? Feel free to include things you hope to learn/achieve.

We live on in others

To die completely a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.

- Samuel Butler (Author)

It's uncomfortable to imagine the people we love so much as simply dead. But we can take them on with us, with their genes and the lessons they have taught us.

- Ellie Harrison (TV presenter)

Open Ended

Do you agree with the Humanist view that we live on in others? Give reasons for your view.

Open Ended

Do not act as if you were going to live for ten thousand years…

While you live, while it is in your power, be good.’

Marcus Aurelius, philosopher 121–180

We are all going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia.

Richard Dawkins, scientist 1941-

What do you think Marcus Aurelius and Richard Dawkins are saying about the meaning of life?

Open Ended

‘Believing that there is no afterlife gives this life more meaning.’

Do you agree with this statement? Give reasons for your view.

I fall asleep in the full and certain hope 

That my slumber shall not be broken; 

And that, though I be all-forgetting, 

Yet shall I not be all forgotten, 

But continue that life  

in the thoughts and deeds  

of those I have loved. 

Samuel Butler 1835-1902 

Is it so small a thing 

To have enjoy'd the sun, 

To have lived light in the spring, 

To have loved, to have thought, to have done; 

To have advanced true friends,  

and beat down baffling foes;  

That we must feign a bliss 

Of doubtful future date, 

And while we dream on this 

Lose all our present state, 

And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose? 

Hymn of Empedocles, Matthew Arnold 1822-1888



Open Ended

Write your own poem to express what you think about death and the meaning of life.