Does The Western Religious Worldview/Mindset* Cause More Death Anxiety? (hell, church)

[Trimac20]

Not sure if this fitted here or in the psychology forum, I guess it could be both, so I'll leave it here.

Anyway, by the western religious worldview (WRW) this is what I mean:

a Judeo-Christian/Greo-Roman linear view of time, where we only have one life here on earth and after that one of three things happens:

We go to heaven or hell, depending on our deeds/faith.etc. Only the righteous spend eternity with God.

We 'sleep' for a period until the judgement.

Death is the end of consciousness for all, good and evil alike.


Those are the ONLY 3 options. No rebirth, no reincarnation, no Universalism no second chances. I'm aware Universalism has been a minority view within the Church but it's not mainstream enough to be considered by most believers.


I'd argue it does cause more death anxiety because it limits the only real positive outcome to going to Heaven and worshipping God. The other two outcomes are cessation of existence, punishment and destruction or eternal punishment. As Pascal's wager says, if a Believer dies believing in something false the worst that can happen is non-existence (of course this ignores the possibility of other religions being correct), while the best a non-believer can hope for is cessation of existence (there's still a chance of some other kind of afterlife).

While the fear of death is universal, it's sometimes said that Easterners do not fear death as much. I remember this comment in reference to the Viet Cong in either a movie or a documentary. Do you think the WRW is largely responsible for this heightened fear of death we have, among atheists and theists alike? It's sometimes said that AGNOSTICS fear death the most because they're uncertain of so many things, and being sort of agnostic myself I can agree with that. Many claim not to fear death, yet I think the percentage who truly do not is a lot smaller than those who claim not too. It seems Western culture and philosophy in general is afraid of 'mortality', and sees death as the 'end', there's more of a sense of FINALITY than in Eastern, more cyclical religion and belief.