Death and the question of immortality

AbstractThanatology today hardly can be accused of being a springboard of eternity; it is not a discourse on the nature and the immortality of the human soul. The human awareness of death is separated from the question of immortality. This essay shows that there is a weakening of the philosophical connection between the study of death and the question of immortality even when the question of immortality is considered in contemporary thanatology. According to Scheler, the main reason for the decline of the belief in immortality can be found in the modern human tendency to deny death itself. People today do not live in the presence of death but retain just an abstract knowledge of death in general; they repress the intuitive certainty of death. If there is no death, then there is no need either for immortality as the victory over death. The concern with immortality in contemporary thanatology comes about more as a personal, experiential conviction and as a religious faith attitude. This shows that the question of immortality, like the meaning of death, calls for a human decision and a philosophical judgment based on living and interpreting basic human experiences with a sense of mystery and not with the haste for mastery.