The Denial of Death - Ernest Becker

[Anonymous No.22172385]

Immortality projects are one way that people manage death anxiety. Some people, however, will engage in hedonic pursuits like drugs, alcohol, and entertainment to escape their death anxiety - often to compensate for a lack of “heroism” or culturally based self-esteem - resulting in a lack of contribution to the “immortality project”.

Others will try to manage the terror of death by “tranquilizing themselves with the trivial” i.e. strongly focusing on trivial matters and exaggerating their importance — often through busyness and frenetic activity. Becker describes the current prevalence of hedonism and triviality as a result of the downfall of religious worldviews such as Christianity that could take “slaves, cripples... imbeciles... the simple and the mighty” and allow them all to accept their animal nature in the context of a spiritual reality and an afterlife.

Humanity's traditional "hero-systems", such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason. Becker argues that the loss of religion leaves humanity with impoverished resources for necessary illusions. Science attempts to serve as an immortality project, something that Becker believes it can never do because it is unable to provide agreeable, absolute meanings to human life. The book states that we need new convincing "illusions" that enable us to feel heroic in ways that are agreeable.

Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution. Instead, he hopes that gradual realization of humanity's innate motivations, namely death, can help to bring about a better world.

Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a wellspring for the violence and misery in the world caused by wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one’s core beliefs and sense of security.

[Anonymous No.22172404]

>>22172385
Stupid jew

[Anonymous No.22172440]

>>22172404

[Anonymous No.22172446]

>>22172385
I say we go rapefest and only stop to eat each other. Its the only logical choice.

[Anonymous No.22172478]

>>22172385
>such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason.
>Humans are evolutionary beings
>Median women getting an abortion is out of convenience
These are both true to the atheist. The issue is that we don't live in an age of reason but an age of highly consistent insanity.

[Anonymous No.22172483]

>>22172385
>Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a wellspring for the violence and misery in the world caused by wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one’s core beliefs and sense of security.
You have to realize that Becker is an INCREDIBLE thinker but Jewish people, especially post-WW2, would believe ANYTHING to prevent anti-semitism other than Christianity and so, because the only religion to not totally kill them is the one they hate, these small groups of radical yet unthinking Jewish intellectuals write things like this.

[Anonymous No.22172485]

>>22172385
Becker states in that book that the ideal human form is a woman with a penis lol

[Anonymous No.22172526]

>>22172485
uhhhh... based?

[Anonymous No.22173124]

>>22172483
no one hates christianity lol drop the persecution complex, its just a silly thing to believe and causes people on the stupider end of the spectrum to really embarrass themselves

[Anonymous No.22173146]

>>22173124
You sound like a blithering idiot with no understanding of anything in the last 60 years. Drop the act kike.

[Anonymous No.22173156]

>>22173146
cry more crocodile tears and enjoy that projection. watch out for the war on christmas

[Anonymous No.22173795]

>>22172385
Quality post. We need more exposés like this one.

[Anonymous No.22173836]

>Excreting is the curse that threatens madness because it shows man his abject finitude, his physicalness, the likely unreality of his hopes and dreams. But even more immediately, it represents man's utter bafflement at the sheer non-sense of creation: to fashion the sublime miracle of the human face, the mysterium tremendum of radiant female beauty, the veritable goddesses that beautiful women are; to bring this out of nothing, out of the void, and make it shine in noonday; to take such a miracle and put miracles again within it, deep in the mystery of eyes that peer out-the eye that gave even the dry Darwin a chill; to do all this, and to combine it with an anus that shits! It is too much. Nature mocks us, and poets live in torture
>>With anal play the child is already becoming a philosopher of the human condition. But like all philosophers he is still bound by it, and his main task in life becomes denying what the anus represents; that in fact he is nothing but body so far as nature is concerned.

[Anonymous No.22174486]

>>22172385
>ooooh ooga booga yer gonna die someday!
>HEAR THAT? YER GONNA DIE SOMEDAY AND EVERYTHING YOU DO IS A COPE
Do I need to read the book?

[Anonymous No.22174562]

>>22172385
>Immortality projects are one way that people manage death anxiety.
How do you trace such projects to anxiety? Sounds like fantasy akin to psychoanalytic writing.
>Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution.
Becker gets into circular non-sense. Whatever you say about death shows your death anxiety. There is no way to discuss death with Becker.
It's the same as argument of evolutionary biologists that everything is just because of evolution and that's end of story. Not an interesting discussion.

[Anonymous No.22174838]

>>22172385
>>22172404
>>22172478
>>22172483
>>22174486
>>22174562
>Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution. Instead, he hopes that gradual realization of humanity's innate motivations, namely death, can help to bring about a better world.
He literally say become a christcuck in the tradition of kirk to transcend the human condition like a real man

[Anonymous No.22174840]

>>22174838
He thinks there is a solution to something I find to be a non-issue. That's the point.
His response is that I'm trying to ignore my death anxiety when I say that. Not really a discussion at that point.

[Anonymous No.22174949]

>>22174486
The first part is a an out of date weird alt-Freudian slog. But the idea is fundamentally good and I mentally keep coming back to it, personally.

I think he's right that a desire for what he calls "immortality" (imo it's better to think of it as an inherently feeling of being special or meaning to existence) is a fundamental part of the human condition and a major factor in human psychology and therefore wide scale society. Everyone feels it at some point and has to reconcile with it.

[Anonymous No.22174958]

>>22173124

Yeah and white people aren't being replaced either out of spite and bitterness from the minorities, lol.

[Anonymous No.22174959]

>>22174562
The idea behind immortalization is that you don't truly die since something of "you" continues on. This isn't accepting mortality and is rather attempting to rationalize death away.

[Anonymous No.22174969]

>>22174959
>something of "you" continues on
Or just that "you" continue on, since your body, emotions, thoughts aren't you. Even if you believe in this immortalisation, you have to accept death of the physical body, thoughts, emotions.
You can accept death of that which you have for most of your life and still believe in immortal soul for example.
I know, for Beckett that's just a cope and denial of death, since it doesn't view death as the end of all and everything. However, that is still baseless. Just as it would be baseless if I said something like "Beckett was so anxious about dying, he decided to project this fear onto all other people and his project is trying to soothe himself by believing all people have death anxiety and there is no effective solution to this predicament."
I can make stuff up, too.

[Anonymous No.22175077]

>>22172440
Shalom.

[Anonymous No.22176574]

>>22172385
>Humanity's traditional "hero-systems", such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason.
True but research on NDEs undeniably is since, as one NDE researcher said, that he does not know anyone who has read the literature on NDEs who has not been convinced by it. But people like Becker are ignorant of that research.

And NDEs are more real than this world, in every way. For example, they are more consistent experiences, illustrated well by this quote:

>"For me, life is sort of like the haunted house. When you come in, you know it's just an experience. It's small, it's just one night, right? So it's just this one life. You're eternal, you have billions of lives, so knowing that you're going to come in just for one to have an experience, though it may be judged as tough, or difficult, or scary, you actually chose it because you knew it was just going to be an experience, you know it's no big deal. You understand on the other side that this part, life, is actually the dream, and you just wake up after. It's no different than one dream you had last night, out of a lifetime of dreams. This life that you're having right now is just one, it's just a blip."

So just like life is more consistent than our dreams (dreams last a few moments, life has been the same for decades), so too is the NDE reality more consistent than life (life has been the same for decades, the NDE reality has been the same for forever, for way more than trillions of years). Here this point is elaborated more on:

https://youtu.be/U00ibBGZp7o

And it is instantly evident to NDErs that heaven is real too, even atheists:

>"It's real to us when we're in it, but once I was there in heaven I realized that's more real, that felt more real, and it made much more sense to me than anything here. This is kind of nonsensical at times. In heaven, it's so clear, so real, so rational, so logical, but yet emotional and loving at the same time. Immediately I knew that was real and this was not. Immediately."

From https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist

So heaven is undeniably real.

[Anonymous No.22177433]

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.

[Anonymous No.22177491]

>>22172385

[Anonymous No.22177680]

>>22173836
>to bring this out of nothing
Looks like someone didn't start with the greeks.

[Anonymous No.22177708]

>>22172385
>Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a wellspring for the violence and misery in the world caused by wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one’s core beliefs and sense of security.
The Western liberal delusion in one paragraph. It insists upon it's own ideals for the sake of them which is no less illusory or irrational than some religious systems and even at times more so and directly contradicts all empirical evidence for the sake of some utopian vision of humanity. Instead, we're on the brink of war and famine because of secular religious ideologies.