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Definition Essay - 11/12/2008

Ali Kilinc – 900235909
ENG 191 – 3:30PM – 20424

Death
What then…?

Everyone has to experience death. Every living thing must

eventually die sooner or later. Death is a part of life, but is not

something you can “try” or “experiment” with. Nevertheless, for many

living things, life revolves around death itself. It may seem frightening

for some, but it might not even seem slightly frightening for others. In

all reality, one must ask oneself: What is death? Many different people

of different beliefs see and define death in different ways, but there are

two important views of death, one side sees it as an end and the other

side sees it as a beginning.

One way people look at death is as an end to everything. They

see it as termination of everything they know and have come to love.

They see it as a loss of all their belongings and earnings. For those who

believe that there is no hereafter, this life they are currently living is

the only life that they will ever live. They believe that one only lives

once, and that they must do everything possible in this life to

experience different events. Whether those events are good or bad,

they must live through them; otherwise they would never be able to

experience them. They see a cessation of contact with their loved ones

(friends and family), a forever loss which they will never regain.
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Basically, they see death as an end to all these events and

experiences.

Another way people see death is a beginning to everything

important and significant. Simple math tells us that anything divided

by infinity amounts to zero; to those people, this life is insignificant

when compared to the afterlife. They see it as a window to everything

they don’t know yet, but want to find out. Death to them is a beginning

of everything they could need, want, desire, and so much more. For

people who believe in life after death, death has many things to offer

after death itself. They see an infinite afterlife, which offers them more

than their imagination withholds. To them, death is a transition, from

one finite world to another infinite world. They perceive death as a

means to be with their loved ones forever. Basically, they see death as

a beginning to all these events and experiences.

When one compares these two beliefs of death, one observes

many difficulties in the process. The two beliefs are quite different and

have little similarity. For each belief, death is fundamentally defined in

a different way. One thing both beliefs agree on is that, when one dies,

one leaves everything, possessions and loved ones, in this life. The

things one loses can never return to them again if they don’t believe in

the hereafter, or to return to them if they do believe in the hereafter.

Other than that, there are little similarities in the perception of death

by different beliefs.
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In the end, one must understand that death is something

everyone must face. There are many ways one can define death, and

there are many public beliefs of the view of death. Some see it as a

forever absence from everything they know and love, while others see

death as a transition from one world to another. A definition that

everyone agrees on when defining death is that it is an end to this life.