Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. Use your own language.(5x4 = 20)
Human Beings feel afraid of death just as children feel afraid of darkness; and justas children’s fear of
darkness is increased by the stories which they have heard about ghosts and thieves, human beings’ fear of
death is increased by the stories which they have heard about the agony of the dying man. If a human being
regards death as a kind of punishment for the sins he has committed and if he looks upon death as a means of
making an entry into another world, he is certainly taking a religious and sacred view of death. But if a human
being looks upon death as a law of nature and then feels afraid of it, his attitude is one of cowardice.
However, even in religious meditation about death there is something a mixture of folly and superstition.
Monks have written books in which they have described the painful experience which they underwent by
inflicting physical tortures upon themselves as a form of self-purification. Such books may lead one to think
that, if the pain of even a finger being squeezed oppressed is unbearable, the pains of death must be indescribably agonizing. Such books thus increase a Man’s fear of death. Seneca, a Roman Philosopher, expressed the view that the circumstances and ceremonies of death
frighten people more than death itself would do. A dying man is heard uttering groans; his body is seen
undergoing convulsions; his face appears to be absolutely bloodless and pale; at his death his friends begin to
weep and his relations put on mourning clothes; various rituals are performed. All these facts make death
appear more horrible thanit would be otherwise.
Questions:
(1) What is the difference between human beings’ fear of death and children’s fear of darkness?
(2) What is a religious and sacred view of death?
(3) What are the painful experiencesdescribed by the Monks in their books?
(4) What are the views of Seneca about death?
(5) What are the facts that make death appear more horrible than it would be otherwise?