The movie titled "Death Makes Life Possible" follows an anthropologist, author, and scientist, Marilyn Schlitz, on her quest to find out what happens to our consciousness after death, and whether humans can benefit from acknowledging death as part of a natural life process in order to live happy and fulfilled lives. The documentary offers a rich insight into opinions of a panel of experts that voice their beliefs and personal experiences regarding the afterlife and how to embrace life's each moment to the fullest. In her journey to find the answers to questions that she had been looking for over thirty years, Marilyn Schlitz interviews doctors, speakers, scientists, religious scholars, psychologists, and psychiatrists about their opinions regarding …show more content…
Throughout the movie, Marilyn Schlitz discovers various relevant topics that pertain to life and death as a human experience, and she also consults various experts regarding what might happen to human consciousness after death. Based on Schlitz's interviews, the movie finds that most of the experts not only believe in the continuity of our consciousness after dying, but that each person's ‘soul' or consciousness is a part of a massive, collective intelligence that is a part of the universe that we live in. In addition, many of the interviewed scholars voiced their thoughts and opinions regarding how it is important to be aware of one's mortality as such awareness can lead to living a life that is gratifying and satisfying. According to many of the experts, one of the reasons for people coming to terms with their own death is not only believing in being a part of something that is larger than humans, but also realizing that if they live worthy lives, they will be more at peace with moving on to their next …show more content…
Dr. Michael Shermer who is the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society stands out throughout the movie with his firm opinion that when people die nothing else happens to them. Although Dr. Shermer says that he is ‘against' death, he believes that unless there can be a proven scientific fact that afterlife exists, he is widely skeptical about its existence and the existence of any paranormal phenomena. Although Dr. Shermer's views vary from most of the other experts interviewed throughout the movie, they offer a fascinating insight into a mind of someone whose personal beliefs prevent him from seeing life as a part of the major cosmological
The fourth Chapter of Estella Blackburn’s non fiction novel Broken lives “A Fathers Influence”, exposes readers to Eric Edgar Cooke and John Button’s time of adolescence. The chapter juxtaposes the two main characters too provide the reader with character analyses so later they may make judgment on the verdict. The chapter includes accounts of the crimes and punishments that Cooke contended with from 1948 to 1958. Cooke’s psychiatric assessment that he received during one of his first convictions and his life after conviction, marring Sally Lavin. It also exposes John Button’s crime of truancy, and his move from the UK to Australia.
The book “Dead Girls Don’t Lie” written by Jennifer Shaw Wolf focuses on a variety of different ideas and topics, mostly fixating the murder of the main character’s best friend Rachel. With this also comes gang violence, lost and found relationships, and the fact that some people will go to great extents in order to keep a lethal secret from the public eye. Rachel and Jaycee were best friends up until 6 months before where the book started. But, an altercation between them caused the breakup of their long lasted friendship. It is soon found out that Rachel was shot through her bedroom window, which is at first suspected to be gang violence. When Jaycee doesn’t answer her phone on the night Rachel was murdered, she received a text that circulates
After her diagnosis of chronic kidney failure in 2004, psychiatrist Sally Satel lingered in the uncertainty of transplant lists for an entire year, until she finally fell into luck, and received her long-awaited kidney. “Death’s Waiting List”, published on the 5th of May 2006, was the aftermath of Satel’s dreadful experience. The article presents a crucial argument against the current transplant list systems and offers alternative solutions that may or may not be of practicality and reason. Satel’s text handles such a topic at a time where organ availability has never been more demanded, due to the continuous deterioration of the public health. With novel epidemics surfacing everyday, endless carcinogens closing in on our everyday lives, leaving no organ uninflected, and to that, many are suffering, and many more are in desperate request for a new organ, for a renewed chance. Overall, “Death’s Waiting List” follows a slightly bias line of reasoning, with several underlying presumptions that are not necessarily well substantiated.
Personal immortality seems to be a paradox that many people address and distinguish in different ways. Through outlets such as religion, science, or personal belief this topic is often argued and habitually facilitates strong arguments. Weirob and Miller explicitly explain their dualist/physicalist outlooks on personal immortality as they have a conversation at the hospital where Weirob slowly succumbs to her injuries received in a motorcycle accident. As Weirob patiently awaits death, Miller explains how due to Weirobs realist view on life he will not try to “comfort [her] with the prospect of life after death” (Perry, pg. 65). Due to Weirobs state of unavoidable demise she asks Miller to entertain her with the argument for life after death,
Death and Grieving Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss.
Johnson, Christopher Jay., and Marsha G. McGee. How Different Religions View Death & Afterlife. Vol. 2. Philadelphia, PA: Charles, 1998. Print.
After the Bomb written by Gloria Miklowitz is a thrilling novel that takes place before, during, and after a bomb which supposedly was sent from Russia by accident. L.A. and surrounding cities are all altered by the disastrous happening.
There are many policy issues that affect families in today’s society. Hunger is a hidden epidemic and one major issue that American’s still face. It is hard to believe that in this vast, ever growing country, families are still starving. As stated in the book Growing Up Empty, hunger is running wild through urban, rural, and even suburban communities. This paper will explore the differing perspectives of the concerned camp, sanguine camp, and impatient camp. In addition, each camps view, policy agenda, and values that underlie their argument on hunger will be discussed.
“I never found myself needing that piece of paper,” is a remark actor Johnny Depp made back in 2010 about his relationship with longtime partner Vanessa Paradis. Depp and Paradis have been in a relationship since 1998 and have two children together, Lily Rose and Jack. Another member of Hollywood’s elite, Latin singer Shakira, shares a similar view saying that marriage is like a contract, and that is unromantic. However, celebrities living like Shakira and Depp are also committing fornication and already view themselves as being married; the marriage is just not official. This draws comparisons to Ernest Gaines’ novel 'A Lesson Before Dying'. Two of the novel’s main characters, Grant and Vivian, have sex outside of marriage because they cannot be married since Vivian is still legally married to another man (Gaines 29). Even though of Vivian’s situation differs slightly from that of Depp’s, the act is still the same. These adults are conducting the act of sex outside of marriage; they are either ignoring what their religion teaches on the subject or do not care what religion has to say.
Herman published The Meaning of Death in 1959 a piece of writing that would galvanize the interest for psychologists to study death. Prior to publication, Feifel joined the Air Force in 1942 as a psychologist for pilots during WWII and became very intrigued that the best pilots didn’t think about death (Herman, 1990). In addition, during the screening of pilots they were never asked about how they felt about death, what would happen to their family if they die, and what they would consider a dignified death (Herman, 1990). During the Holocaust Feifel witnessed the manslaughter of the Jewish population, he was surrounded by death. Throughout Feifels experiences and the death of his mother in 1952, he wanted to investigate the thought process of death at the conscious level and the unconscious level (Herman, 1990). Until Feifel began investing the psychology of death and how people felt about death itself, there was very little research on death. His research and commitment revealed the importance of studying death attitudes, and those actually facing life-threatening
In the book by Carl Rogers, A Way of Being, Rogers describes his life in the way he sees it as an older gentleman in his seventies. In the book Rogers discusses the changes he sees that he has made throughout the duration of his life. The book written by Rogers, as he describes it is not a set down written book in the likes of an autobiography, but is rather a series of papers which he has written and has linked together. Rogers breaks his book into four parts.
In his book “Between the World and Me”, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores what it means to be a black body living in the white world of the United States. Fashioned as a letter to his son, the book recounts Coates’ own experiences as a black man as well as his observations of the present and past treatment of the black body in the United States. Weaving together history, present, and personal, Coates ruminates about how to live in a black body in the United States. It is the wisdom that Coates finds within his own quest of self-discovery that Coates imparts to his son.
He begins by looking at the very common views of death that are held by most people in the world, and tells us that he will talk of death as the "unequivocal and permanent end to our existence" and look directly at the nature of death itself (1). The first view that
In John Donne’s sonnet “Death, Be Not Proud” death is closely examined and Donne writes about his views on death and his belief that people should not live in fear of death, but embrace it. “Death, Be Not Proud” is a Shakespearean sonnet that consists of three quatrains and one concluding couplet, of which I individually analyzed each quatrain and the couplet to elucidate Donne’s arguments with death. Donne converses with death, and argues that death is not the universal destroyer of life. He elaborates on the conflict with death in each quatrain through the use of imagery, figurative language, and structure. These elements not only increase the power of Donne’s message, but also symbolize the meaning of hope of eternal life as the ultimate escape to death.
One way humans have devised for dealing with the tragedy of death and the knowledge of mortality is to develop complex visions of what might follow death. In the religious tradition of Christianity, a focus on the belief of life after death is a central and indispensable tenet of their faith, however a wide range of ideas can exist. Christianity bases their beliefs of the afterlife on the various interpretations of biblical passages. Many times death in Christianity is followed by the admission to either heaven or hell, an ideology that is determined through how one behaves throughout their obeying God’s rules and regulations (Sumegi, 2014, Pg.111). Within the religious aspect of Christianity, great emphasis is placed on the ‘soul’ of the individual.