The Neuroscience of Being Human
The Neuroscience of Death, Afterlife and Eschatology
Terror management theory, the default mode network, mortality salience, how belief in Jannah, Moksha, Olam Ha-Ba, Nirvana, heaven and ancestor veneration modulates the brain's response to the certainty of death
1,037-word article with 8 Harvard references.
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The human brain is the only brain on earth that knows it is going to die. This knowledge, which no other species possesses with comparable clarity, creates a fundamental problem for the neural systems responsible for motivation, planning, and emotional regulation. How does a brain that is designed to pursue survival respond to the certainty that survival is temporary? Terror management theory, developed by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, proposes that cultural worldviews, including religious beliefs about the afterlife, serve as anxiety buffers against the terror of mortality. This article examines the neuroscience of how religious beliefs about death and afterlife modulate the brain's response to mortality, explored across the concepts of Jannah, Moksha, Olam Ha-Ba, Nirvana, heaven, ancestor veneration and resurrection.
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