Immortality and Death
Immortality and Death
For many people, death is not something to be taken lightly. People go their entire lives wondering and worrying about what comes after they die; some even longing to avoid death and live forever. Many philosophers and writers in history had strong beliefs on death and the fantasy of immortality. Epicurus (341�270 B.C.), an ancient Greek philosopher discusses the irrationality and pointlessness of fearing death in his Letter to Menoeceus. Death, he explained, should not concern anyone because we do not have to deal with it if we are living and when we face it we do not exist. Jorge-Luis Borges (1889-1986), an Argentine writer, expressed a realistic view of ...
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or remembrance of the life they previously had and would seize to exist. Though Epicurus did not deny the existence of a God or gods; he did not believe that they had any influence over the life or death of any humans. In �Epicurean� philosophy there is no Heaven, Hell or afterlife where souls were judged for their sins and evils. With no judgment day at the end of one�s being, there should be no stress over what that person has done in their lives. The main goal, in Epicurus� belief, was to achieve individual happiness during one�s life, without overindulgence. This required virtue, wisdom and above all tranquility. Tranquility, Epicurus believed, meant not having fear or anxiety towards death. In order to live a happy life one needed to focus on living life and worry about death when it happened. In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus explains that death is nothing to worry about for the living. He states:
�So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long ...
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be eternal. In Borges� short story, the main character Marcus Flaminius Rufus, a Roman soldier, meets a mysterious dying man that was searching for a magic river that could grant immortality in the City of Immortals. Intrigued by the man, Rufus and his soldiers set out on a long difficult journey to find the city. Because of the harsh conditions, many of the soldiers refuse to go any farther and eventually Rufus, alone, reached the City and its mystical river. Exhausted and dehydrated from the journey, Rufus accidentally drinks the mystical water and becomes immortal.
At the river he meets a group of immortals called the troglodytes. These troglodytes lived in the caverns along the ...
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"Immortality and Death." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 6 May. 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Immortality-and-Death/98944>
"Immortality and Death." Essayworld.com. May 6, 2011. Accessed December 1, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Immortality-and-Death/98944.
"Immortality and Death." Essayworld.com. May 6, 2011. Accessed December 1, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Immortality-and-Death/98944.
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