RE: Et Si ? #2 - Il y avait une vie après la vie
Sorry that I'm commenting in English. My French sucks. I can only understand "la mort" at most. Life after death is a very interesting topic even to ancient Egyptians and ancient Chinese people. In the past, people used to accumulate so much wealth for the burial chamber so much so that I can't help but wonder whether wealth is really so effective in buying one's way out of sins. Moreover, the weigh for determining one's fate in entering heaven or hell was very often depicted in ancient Egyptian papyrus scrolls. As for me, I am not afraid of death. I've been to the morgue to identify a dead kin. I'm unsure where I read this, but according to a religious text, the soul of a person who committed suicide will be stuck in a certain parallel dimension, will not be reborn but bound to suffer the consequences of the acts of similar repeated suicidal attempts over and over again for eternity. A paradox to me is the French people thoughts on death. Perhaps French people have a much grandeur idea about death such as it is a sublime way to end life. The suicidal rates in France is one of the highest in Europe despite having better social welfare than most parts of the world combined.
No problem, I will try to make next posts in both languages.
All cultures have descriptions of what happens after death, I know Tibetans have a book (an old one) where it's described almost exactly as in this study. Egyptian and Chinese must have abundant literature on the subject too. Do you have any reference to propose (maybe on the Chinese side, but something that has been translated to English at least) ? I'm trying to acquire more knowledge on the subject.
For suicide, being "blocked" could be a reprimand for disturbing the plan (maybe not destiny, but just the plan for you to be alive) of a higher force (God, the Universe, Karma, any collective conscience, or whatever it may be). Same for murder. In fact, I don't know, that's just an "educated guess".
For French people suicidal tendencies, I don't really know where it comes from. We are also the biggest antidepressant users in Europe (maybe that's the link, but which is the cause ? which is the effect ? Hi to Big Pharma). We don't have much of a "death culture" (compared to a lot of others), at least not anymore, that could be another reason.
Thanks for your comment !
Please read the given website for a brief overview about life after dead in the Chinese culture.
http://www.deathreference.com/Ce-Da/Chinese-Beliefs.html
There are many references in there that you might be interested to do further reading.
In regards to ancient Egyptians, I've copied a paragraph from the Book of Dead on wikipedia for you
"The path to the afterlife as laid out in the Book of the Dead was a difficult one. The deceased was required to pass a series of gates, caverns and mounds guarded by supernatural creatures.[40] These terrifying entities were armed with enormous knives and are illustrated in grotesque forms, typically as human figures with the heads of animals or combinations of different ferocious beasts. Their names—for instance, "He who lives on snakes" or "He who dances in blood"—are equally grotesque. These creatures had to be pacified by reciting the appropriate spells included in the Book of the Dead; once pacified they posed no further threat, and could even extend their protection to the dead person.[41] Another breed of supernatural creatures was 'slaughterers' who killed the unrighteous on behalf of Osiris; the Book of the Dead equipped its owner to escape their attentions.[42] As well as these supernatural entities, there were also threats from natural or supernatural animals, including crocodiles, snakes, and beetles.[43]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead
In the past, before the discovery of vaccines and antibiotics, the life expectancy used to be much lower. Human beings could only lived up to 30 years old at most. Hence, half of their life span will be spent preparing for their life in the afterlife. Sadly ironic!
The statements you made about collective conscience could be true. Perhaps for murder too. Will need to do further reading on this issue.
French suicidal tendencies could also be linked to inability/refusal to diffuse stress effectively. I've noticed that French people enjoy discussing about ideas but not necessarily so keen when it comes to thinking or executing solutions to solve problems. A meeting could go on for hours without strategies or action plan put in place. In other words, many enjoy complaining without wanting to change maybe because French people value their human rights or freedom too much. The favorite sentence for a French person is "C'est pas possible!"
Thanks a lot for the documentation. Chinese culture really intrigues me, so I'll begin there, but first I need to make a little research on the books cited in your article, to be sure to choose something that I will be able to fully understand.
Egyptians are interesting too, but I have much more doubt about the exactness of the translations and the authenticity of their texts. I don't have this problem with ancient Chinese texts. But that's purely subjective on my part (even if I could argue about why I have this opinion).
For "Frenchies", we clearly are more of a "thinking" civilization than an "acting" one. For the stress, I think the problem is the same for all "developed" countries, as we lost our links to our root culture, and more than that we never had a real "spiritual" base as our mentality was only forged by paganism and christianism (no confucianism, buddhism or other "fullness" (holistic) religious traditions - I don't know if I'm making myself clear on that point). Maybe we're just more suicidal around here because of our tradition of social protection - making injustice more difficult to support (but that's the french side of me speaking).
For the meetings, in France we have a different approach. A meeting is more a place to exchange ideas (like the roman agora) than a place where decisions are taken. We sure love complaining, but it's not all bad, we also have a tradition of compromise and listening to all points of view before taking a decision based on only one person's will or vision (Macron is changing that, because as you said, you never advance with that kind of thinking, but that's also what makes French People (and more generally France) the persons / country they are / it is).