This bonus episode features a lecture by Luke Galen entitled Terror Management: How Our Worldviews Help Us Deny Death. For a pdf of Luke's lecture slides click here. Forty years ago Ernest Becker theorized in his "Denial of Death" that our culture and our cherished worldviews serve the purpose of maintaining our self-esteem and sense of meaning in the face of inevitable death and insignificance. More recently a body of work in the social sciences called "Terror Management Theory" has lent empirical evidence to these provocative ideas. The unconscious anxiety about our own mortality has been linked to group conflict, aggression against those who challenge our worldview, denial of our animal nature including the theory of evolution, and the unreasonable belief that the world is predictable and just.
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6 comments:
...A newcomer to Reasonable Doubts, very much enjoyed the talk on denying death. Podcast highly recommended to all who subscribe to science and fact over superstition.
For those looking for the movie the clip was from it's "Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality" It's not on Netflix yet but is on Amazon as DVD and VOD
This was excellent, thanks for sharing it. It made a lot of sense and was well presented. I learned a lot, as I almost always do with your podcast. :)
thank you
Eternal Return (why Christians don't really want to "live forever")
FF: The Philosophy of Nietzsche - Joseph Brisendine
http://www.blubrry.com/atheism/94364/ff-the-philosophy-of-nietzsche-joseph-brisendine/ reat!!!
Bummer, the youtube link is down.
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