west/east culture difference - view of death in religion
 

I have taken part in the religious thread fro some time, and as anyone can clearly tell, it is far more centered around western faiths.

Also a very large difference between the western and eastern cultures is seen there.

The view of death.

My question is.

Why, are western cultures death denying, and that since pagan times, searching for ways of a continuation of life even after death, in afterlives, where our being, if you would call it this way, remains almost virtually unchanged, and our lives continue.

Whereas, many faiths in the eastern lands (for instance hinduism) seek the "final" death, a way to cease existance. For some reason, these cultures are death accepting.

Both cultures use similar ways to attain there ideals, being good being faithfull etc, yet why is there such a large difference between the two. What sparked it in the first place?

Western culture sees death as the end, whilst I see it as just another journey the body dies but the Ka lives on. Hinduism believes in recantation the final death is when they stop being reborn and can now exstist with there Gods forever.

Actually it's a bit different

Hinduism views this final death as a moment when they become one with the god, when they themselves cease to exist.

Whereas western cultures, with their concept of the afterlife, see a sort of life after death.

Their personalities remain virtually unchanged in the afterlife.

Well I tried...oh well learn something new everyday.

Interesting topic. I think both in the West and the East the cultures are not death-accepting, and the existence of religion is proof of that. People are scared and they want reassurances that things will be better when they die.

but the aim of both religions is utterly different.

Hinduism seems to hold with the belief that the essence of your being goes on to become part of something greater than yourself, attaining a sort of immortality and ending the cycle of suffering and gain. It’s not really the same as ceasing to exist.

From what I understand - at least from my 9+ year stay in india, it's actually a sort of ceasing of existence, they truly seek to be freed of life, of sentience if you will.
Of course a part of my knowledge of hinduism comes from a religion teacher, but nevertheless that's what I've been thought that hinduists believe in.
Though I'm not sure what is the exact belief of the afterlife by taoists and konfucianists.

Are they?

The Hindus want to be free of life, because life is painful. The Christians want to be free of life, because life is painful.

The christians try to attain a continuation of life in the afterlife -- even the name insists that it is a life.

The same can be said about a lot of european pagan cultures, islam and others.

Whereas the hindus wish to get out of the eternal circle of life, and reach death.

It is different when you look at it.

Of course, it might be, that my view is skewed, but who knows...

Taoism doesn't really venture a whole lot of answers, essentially it just says not to worry about death as it's a complementary part of life.

"Since life and death are each other's companions, why worry about them? All beings are one."
- Chuang Tzu

Ironically many Taoists spend their time looking for secrets of immortality which I think rather misses the point of the whole thing.

Hindu beliefs still have the person existing after breaking free of the circle of life and death, they just exist as a part of something else. Christian beliefs have a person having a final death (eventually) and existing within God's city on earth (or getting thrown into a lake of fire.) The person does not go to nothing, a continuation of their existence after death in one form or another is central to both beliefs.

I think it's pretty debatable. The result of breaking free of the cycle of death and rebirth is usually described as some sort of blissful, higher state of being, but to hear it some ways it sounds a lot like a metaphor for simply ceasing to exist. One thing that is clear is that religions like Buddhism explicitly reject the idea that a person can keep their own personality after death, whereas religions like Christianity hold that one can, provided that personality is "worthy" of existance.

There are similarities and differences. But then to take any religious symbolism as literal truth, the way I see it, robs it of any meaning it might have, or ever have had. It may be that the afterlife beliefs are not particularly important except in relation to the beliefs regarding people's behaviour on earth.

Basically, Western culture is more individualistic in outlook with the goal being for a person to accomplish as much as he can as soon as he can. Eastern outlooks have always been more d then inward. Even the concept of religion follows the same pattern. People vie for heaven not because attaining the purity to go there would enhance the world around them and bring them peace but because the alternative is eternal punishment. Its all a huge scare tactic.

But the main question is: why?
Why did these cultures evolve to be so different in this?
As you say individuality - yet this is shown in many facets of life - but when and why did this happen?

It's because of Western philosophy--the Greek philosophers.

Religion, or to use a more general term, spiritualism, believes in something that cannot be destroyed, the soul/ka/spirit/etc. The western religions and the eastern religions have similar goals, simply very different means. Hinduism believes in a series of lives and ascension through a sort of caste system based on one's karma, which is dependent on one's proper fulfillment of their darma (duty). Buddhism is similar to Hinduism except that it believes enlightenment can be achieved in a single life time, but it requires a lot more work in that life time. Taoism and Confucianism don't really deal with the afterlife or many higher level spiritual concepts, in fact they're more philosophies than religions, hence why they are allowed to be freely practiced in China; it doesn't put any authority higher than the government.

Like others have said, the east believes more in the group that the individual, but there is some reason to this; India, China & Japan all were isolated from each other and the rest of the world from a long time. So once each region was established under a primary empire there was little to take control away from the government except rebellions which often simply replaced the government rather than breaking up the provinces or putting them under a new faction's control. Europe was divided into a series scattered manors (land with a village with serfs all under 1 lord who's will would be enforced by knights and occasionally the lord would be controlled by someone higher up in the hierarchy, but other than taxes the manors were pretty independent), so given that the government didn't have as much control as in the East (Japan being the exception under the Samurai system up till the Edo period that attempted to mirror control similar to Chin Empire, but ultimately failed a few hundred years later), or at least in such a widespread way.

Essentially, the West had more individuals vying for power and more people taking and giving control on a regular basis than the East leading to individualism where as control in the East lead to a focus on large scale community systems, or communism for short.

Now that's interesting.

So after your definition, due to the division of the western nations.
Starting with the greek islands, city states or inland tribes, that often warred each other we are more individualistic.

In a way, we became more machiavelistic when one looks at it this way. The western cultures where never complacent with the power they had, and always vied for more. In a way it could explain the view of death. Whereas, with the amount of people in power in the western lands there were so many wishing to somehow keep this very power even after death, in contrast the few centralised power groups in easern countries were never too numerous, nor so quickly changing, that this desire to keep the power eternally never manifested itself in such a magnitude.

it's not about keeping power, both believe that they go on to exist, whether it be in one form or as a part of a larger whole (think a drop of water into the ocean), it's about being happy as simply a contributer to something larger versus wanting yourself to be something larger. Those in power in the East felt assured of eternal power; the Chinese and Japanese had clear and definite "after lives" whether that meant as a spirit, or an element, or what have you, it's simply that most normal people were concerned with servicing the leaders figure to their ascension as leaders in the beyond, whereas they were content with meager post death existences like becoming helpful spirits.

So in the West the focus was put on the individual, whereas in the East it was focused on the community or a specific person over the community.

I couldn’t agree more. I take solace in that as well.

What I don’t understand is how anyone would want to live forever. (perhaps personal selfishness?)

ignoring your poke at religion; eternal life grants unlimited options as to what you could do, see, hear, or think. All of those regrets of things you never said, never had time to do, etc. etc. Whereas entering non-existence is just to be nothing, do nothing, feel nothing, empty oblivion that you won't even be aware of, it's an end, and the human mind cannot comprehend what a true end is, perhaps because nothing ever really ends.

The thing here is more like the fact, that you don't know the moment you cease to exist, in a way, you are locked, unable to move, you virtually cease to exist, but your last thoughts are there frozen.