Religion+And+Education,+Evolution+of+Death+and+Anxiety

Home Different Views on Death Top **Religion and Education, the Evolution OF Death And Anxiety **

** Introduction ** Almost all things in the world are subject to change. Everything grows, evolves, and eventually erodes. But Death is different it may happen in different forms but the result is always the same. When you die You don't come back you don't move, speak or exist in the same form you used to do. How can finite beings accept this? How can we be comfortable with the fact that one day we’ll dead and have no idea how that will feel? Traditional humans have adopted mechanism to find solace or acceptance of this fact. In the past this was religion. For most religions there is an afterlife and when you die and you did good you are rewarded with a paradise that’ll never end. This serves to ease the anxiety and fear we feel towards death because it eliminates all the negatives of death. Even If there's no expressly said after life it provides individuals with a means to live a meaningful life even if it so the concept of death is not as intimidating. But as times change so does everything and in this case religion has lost the prevalence in our lives that it once did, a reason behind this may be an increase in education or new philosophies. But regardless of the reason it has put society in a situation in which individuals are faced with dealing with their own mortality in their their own ways. This has created a warped view on death and caused an anxiety in society that has only grown, because we have no implemented any other facilities to replace religion in its duty of relieving our anxieties.


 * Educational Changes **

Edo-Gual, Tomas-Sábado & Aradilla Herrero stated that a “Society has adapted poorly to death, evolving from attitudes of acceptance and coping towards an aura of taboo regarding the subject (Edo-Gual, Tomas-Sábado & Aradilla Herrero, 2011) 1 .” To start education was once a rare commodity in America “In 1869–70, there were only about two persons receiving high school diplomas per 100 17-year-olds (Table 19). While this ratio increased to 9 per 100 during the ensuing 40 years, high school graduation remained an atypical occurrence, at least in most areas of the country”(William C. Sonnenberg) 2 . That is a 2 percent graduation rate for high school students, and that granted that young people made it that far in their education. In the coming 40 years “During the 1910s, the 1920s, and the 1930s, the graduation ratios increased rapidly. In 1939–40, the ratio rose above 50 percent for the first time. During World War II, the graduation ratio dipped as some young men left school to join the armed forces. Immediately after the war, the graduation ratio resumed its upward trend, reaching 70 percent in 1959–60. A peak ratio of 77 percent was attained at the end of the 1960s. After falling to around 71 percent in 1979–80, the ratio has returned to about the same level as the late 1960s. “(William C. Sonnenberg) 3 . This unprecedented growth that we see is exponential in relatively such short amount of time. Where we see a rise from a 2 percent graduation rate to 77 percent in just a hundred years. .


 * Religious Changes **

In a survey conducted by Gallup “In 1966, some 98 percent of Americans said they believed in God….When Gallup and Pew Research surveyed Americans in 2014, the number had dropped to 86 percent and 89 percent respectively. Among the youngest adults surveyed by Pew, those born between 1990 and 1996, the share of believers was just 80 percent. Nearly one in three Americans under 35 today are religiously unaffiliated, meaning they do not identify with any formal religious group. As a whole, these “nones” comprise the second largest religious group in the U.S. behind evangelical Protestants.” (Antonia Blumberg) 4. The consequences of this are the absence of death security and education in America has not taken the initiative to circumvent the abuses of security. These two in conjunction results in a warped view of death.

** Cited **
 * 1) Martí-García, Celia, et al. "Facing Death. Student's Thoughts Towards the Feeling of Their Own Death." ["La muerte ante uno mismo. Respuestas de jóvenes estudiantes ante el pensamiento de la propia muerte"]. Anales De Psicología, vol. 33, no. 3, Oct. 2017, pp. 630-640. EBSCOhost, doi:10.6018/analysis.33.3.248351
 * 2) Snyder, Thomas D. 120 Years of American Education: a statistical portrait. United States Department of Education, 1993.
 * 3) Snyder, Thomas D. 120 Years of American Education: a statistical portrait. United States Department of Education, 1993.
 * 4) Blumberg, Antonia. “American Religion Has Never Looked Quite Like It Does Today.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Apr. 2016, [|www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/american-religion-trends_us_570c21cee4b0836057a235ad].
 * 5) // Education Week // ‘s Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center (2012)

back to top  In my 12 years of schooling in America never have I been educated on death and how to cope with it. Nothing has come close to even attempting to do so. As stated by Edo-Gual, Tomas-Sábado & Aradilla Herrero “Society has adapted poorly to death, evolving from attitudes of acceptance and coping towards an aura of taboo regarding the subject (Edo-Gual, Tomas-Sábado & Aradilla Herrero, 2011).” To start education was once a rare commodity in America “In 1869–70, there were only about two persons receiving high school diplomas per 100 17-year-olds (Table 19). While this ratio increased to 9 per 100 during the ensuing 40 years, high school graduation remained an atypical occurrence, at least in most areas of the country”(William C. Sonnenberg). That is a 2 percent graduation rate for high school students, and that granted that young people made it that far in their education. In the coming 40 years “During the 1910s, the 1920s, and the 1930s, the graduation ratios increased rapidly. In 1939–40, the ratio rose above 50 percent for the first time. During World War II, the graduation ratio dipped as some young men left school to join the armed forces. Immediately after the war, the graduation ratio resumed its upward trend, reaching 70 percent in 1959–60. A peak ratio of 77 percent was attained at the end of the 1960s. After falling to around 71 percent in 1979–80, the ratio has returned to about the same level as the late 1960s. “(William C. Sonnenberg). This unprecedented growth that we see is exponential in relatively such short amount of time. Where we see a rise from a 2 percent graduation rate to 77 percent in just a hundred years. But despite this rapid growth seldom can you find the individual education of death available to students. At the same time this rapid development in the education system there has been a stark decline in the religious affiliation in America.


 * 1) Martí-García, Celia, et al. "Facing Death. Student's Thoughts Towards the Feeling of Their Own Death." ["La muerte ante uno mismo. Respuestas de jóvenes estudiantes ante el pensamiento de la propia muerte"]. Anales De Psicología, vol. 33, no. 3, Oct. 2017, pp. 630-640. EBSCOhost, doi:10.6018/analysis.33.3.248351
 * 2) Snyder, Thomas D. 120 Years of American Education: a statistical portrait. United States Department of Education, 1993.
 * 3) Snyder, Thomas D. 120 Years of American Education: a statistical portrait. United States Department of Education, 1993.