Around Tokyo Heading for Xmas
Socrates and Christ Jesus Claimed Not To Fear Death
Socrates (470-399 BC) said that there were two possibilities about what would happen after death.
One is complete nothingness like sleep without a dream. Another is transition of one's soul to another world or life after death.
He argued that whichever happened after death, it was better than continuing life in this world with bad incidents day after day and bad dreams night after night. Socrates also stressed that people did not have wisdom of ignorance while they were afraid of death they did not understand although he admitted that he did not completely understand death. So, Socrates said that he had at least wisdom of ignorance.
Socrates also said that especially good-natured people should not be afraid of death, since gods would surely accept them in the afterworld. Accordingly, Plato, one of followers of Socrates, developed his philosophy based on the notion that human souls should enter into the afterworld.
However, this notion that human souls would enter into the afterworld after death in this world did not save the world.
Then, 400 years after Socrates, Christ Jesus came to this world telling people that everybody could enter into the spirit world after his physical death in this world but only souls of poor men could be accepted in Heaven while those of rich men should go to the hell.
In other words, Christ Jesus came to save this world by saving poor people, since rich people did not have any requirement that this world should be saved. So, Christ Jesus tried to save this world by giving assurance to the poor that their souls would be surely accepted in Heaven in the spirit world after their death in this world.
In this regard, Christ Jesus' claim that He had been dispatched by the God to the human world is critical, since the God created the spirit world and the physical human world.
Put simply, if we admit the existence of the God, we have to admit and believe what Christ Jesus said about what would happen to men after their death in this world.
If Socrates had believed in the God, the sole creator of the universe, he should have clearly said that men, poor and rich alike, should enter into the spirit world after death. So, nobody should be afraid of death, he must say.
But, Christ Jesus must have thought that saving this world meant saving poor people. And, to save the poor people, He told them that they could surely be accepted in Heaven, where they would be happy, through the spirit world after their deaths in this world.
Anyway, the greatest figures both in philosophy and religion in Europe assured that men, especially poor men, should not be afraid of death.
++++ ++++ ++++Luke 11, King James Version
8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?