We might each have slightly different notions of what constitutes The American Dream. For most of us, I think it would include these eight building blocks:
1. Being born into a loving family with two married parents and some siblings
2. Living in the family’s owned home, preferably with a nice yard in a safe neighborhood
3. Getting good healthcare with an emphasis on prevention and early intervention
4. Getting a good education including a college degree and/or vocational training in an occupation that offers good pay and growth opportunities
5. Enjoying a good career with fulfilling work that provides health insurance and a retirement plan
6. Finding the right person to love, marry, and have children with
7. Establishing a family and home in which the process will be repeated all over again
8. Being able to retire at a reasonable age and enjoying adult children, grandchildren, and many years of good health
In capitalist America, most of us have to work hard for The American Dream, earning one building block at a time. One of the lessons my parents taught me, and which I only learned with great difficulty, was that the best things in life are usually obtained through hard work and persistence, and if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. I have come to believe that anybody who thinks that achieving The American Dream is easy, must be delusional, and probably won’t achieve it! But now, in the Cyberage, it has become increasingly difficult to discern reality from delusion. Many in our society have been opting for easy shortcuts to The American Dream. Entire industries have evolved that promise golden building blocks of the dream, but actually provide crumbling fool’s gold, heartache, and ruined credit to those whose wishful thinking turns into delusional thinking.
I’ll eventually address all of the delusional shortcuts to obtain the basic building blocks of The American Dream, but in this post I’d like to address two: (1) home ownership and (2) getting a quality college education.
Virtual Home Ownership
As a nation, we are still suffering the pain of high unemployment rates, defaulted mortgages, home foreclosures, bankruptcies, and financially struggling corporate and governmental entities, all brought on by a greedy and unregulated mortgage industry and delusional home buyers. For their conduct, shame on the congressman for all of the deregulation, the investment bankers who traded in credit default swaps, and the mortgage industry that sold subprime mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them. But, more interesting to me, are all of the approximately 8 million American families who wished so hard that they could afford $300,000 (+ or -) homes on their $30,000 (+ or -) salaries that they came to share the delusion that they could get their piece of The American Dream. All of their mortgage loans added up to about $2 trillion. Were they not aware of the adage, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is? I imagine that most of the mass delusional thinking was fueled by wishful thinking, ignorance about the mortgage contracts they signed, and a sense of entitlement to living The American Dream, even if it was not earned through sufficient hard work and persistence.
Virtual Quality College Education
In the USA, the 2.6 million students attending for-profit colleges and universities now represent 10% of the total number of higher education students. I have reprinted my viewpoint on the subject of for-profit colleges and universities which you can read immediately below this post in “What’s Wrong with On-line Universities”. Essentially, I consider the for-profits to be businesses whose primary mission is to make as much profit as possible; providing a good education for its customer-students is actually quite unimportant to them, contrary to their dishonest marketing claims. All the for-profits actually sell is associates, bachelors, masters, and doctoral diplomas, but with very little actual educational growth, to customer-students who often do not have the talents, requisite scholastic skills, or work habits that are needed to actually earn legitimate degrees from traditional bricks-and-mortar universities.
The for-profit universities direct their marketing to the poor, to minorities, to the weakest students, and to prospective customer-students whose families have little or no experience with colleges and universities. They generally charge more than most not-for-profit public/state universities, but less than most not-for-profit private colleges and universities. Most of their customer-students cannot afford the tuition, but these businesses have large staffs of salesmen (called “counselors”) who impress prospective customer-students with the availability of federal loans. Some even tell the prospective students that the lending agencies expect a high loan default rate, suggesting that they won’t even have to pay back the money they will borrow. And, failing to pay off loans is what many of them do- - big time!
As it turns out, most of the customer-students at for-profit universities never actually graduate, leaving them with debts, but no degrees. Of those who do graduate, they often have difficulty getting jobs in the fields for which they think they have prepared. The standards at these for-profits are so low that they accept students who often are unable to pass state licensing or certification exams, or to even qualify to take these exams. And, if the graduates can’t obtain the employment and salaries they expected, their inability to pay off their loans is exacerbated.
Now comes the news in USA Today (8/1/10) http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2010-08-02-editorial02_ST_N.htm that even though the for-profit universities account for just 10% of all college and university students in the USA, these students actually account for 44% of all student loan defaults. The U.S. Department of Education reported that 77% of the revenue at for-profit universities comes from federal grants and loans. Just the loans added up to $24 billion for the 2008-2009 academic year. Apparently, one in five customer-students who borrow money to attend for-profit universities go into default within three years of leaving school, whether by drop-out or by graduation.
According to TIME (6/29/10) in an article by Elizabeth Dias entitled “For-Profit Colleges: Educators or Predators?” www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2000160,00.html there could be $330 billion in student loan defaults in the coming decade. The article went on to note the similarities to the subprime mortgage collapse in the sense that the federal regulation has been very lax, that the borrowers have been targeted by aggressive predators, and that the customers often do not end up with the product (education, degree, and credentials) that they expected.
I would mention one other similarity between the subprime mortgage collapse and the for-profit university student loan default fiasco: both involve naive customers who were hoping to get their building block of The American Dream without the requisite hard work and persistence. After all, in the Cyberage, what kind of a person doesn’t consider the probability that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is? It is in the nature of mass delusions that those who are deluded do not recognize the folly while everybody else sees it as plain as day.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
What's Wrong With On-Line Universities
This is a reprint of my March 15, 2010 post at GradeInflation.Blogspot.com
On-line universities (OLUs) look much different than traditional bricks-and-mortar universities (TBAMUs). First, they lack physical campuses including classrooms, residence halls, libraries, fraternities and sororities, and athletic teams, although some have single buildings or suites in office buildings, scattered across the country like banks or fast food franchises. Second, they are for-profit businesses whose primary goal is to make a profit for owners or stock holders. Third, they make heavy use of part-time or adjunct faculty who typically hold other full-time jobs. These instructors tend to be more practical and less idealistic but, unlike the full-time faculty members at TBAMUs, do not usually devote their professional lives to studying, researching, and teaching their chosen field. Finally, being profit-driven, they market themselves more aggressively, accept virtually all applicants who can pay the tuition, aggressively help applicants obtain tuition loans, sell college credits for life experiences, permit students to re-take failed exams, and help students obtain 4-year degrees in as little as 1½ or 2 years.
At for-profit OLUs, grades are grossly inflated, giving even the weakest students the feeling that they have finally arrived at a place that understands them and recognizes their “true abilities”. Student weaknesses in math, reading, and spelling, as well as a general lack of knowledge, are downplayed as being unimportant. Much like rats in a Skinner Box, they continue to pay tuition to gain high grades and a degree as repeated affirmation that they are the equal of any successful student at TBAMUs. When asked, the on-line students adamantly defend their on-line education, even though they usually do not have the experience to actually compare it to a TBAMU experience.
It is instructive to consider the very clever Kaplan University TV commercial in which an actor plays the role of a distinguished professor at a TBAMU. In the ad, the actor/professor apologizes to all of the students in his audience for his university’s old-fashioned educational practices, and then promises to take a more modern, more relevant, ostensibly better approach from now on. To all those viewers who have not done well in school, who do not have the attention span to stay focused on lectures or read textbooks, or whose lifestyle makes it difficult to sustain their studies at a TBAMU, this ad offers them hope that they can succeed in school, get a college degree, gain access to good occupations, and have successful careers. At all levels of education, testing and grading practices are subjective, variable, and ambiguous enough that it is easy to toy with people’s perceptions. If the endeavor were the 100 meter dash, the results would be much clearer because a good stopwatch doesn’t lie. After a few slow races, an individual would know that the training regimen, which promised world-class times and Olympic medals, was making false claims. In the world of higher education, I routinely meet graduates of OLUs who had 3.8 and 4.0 cumulative GPAs and are completely unaware that their scholastic skills are below the level of the average high school graduate.
Priceless TBAMU Life Lessons: Hard to Replicate at OLUs
I have taken on-line continuing education courses that seemed entirely appropriate in the format they were offered. I must admit, that I was typically able to review the multiple choice exam first, skim the reading materials, and then answer all of the unchallenging questions with ease. Nevertheless, I believe that there is a place for some on-line coursework in both undergraduate and graduate education. But, to get any degree with all, or virtually all, on-line courses would detract from one’s experience and possibly result in uneducated graduates. In thinking about the various courses I have taken in my nine years as a student at three universities, I came up with a long list of courses and related experiences that could not be matched by on-line study. Here is a partial list of those experiences:
University of Pittsburgh, freshman year, Professor Buckwalter’s intro to geology course. A field trip by bus, an hour or so outside the city. We chipped sedimentary rock on the bank of a river, collecting fossils from varying layers of rock. I understood right then and there that Evolution was no longer just a “theory”. It was a fact. This educational experience shaped my beliefs and made it hard for me to allow that “Intelligent Design” should be included in grade school science textbooks.
Pitt, sophomore year, Professor Stern’s Interdisciplinary Humanities course. Showed slide of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and practically sang and beamed with enthusiasm as he pointed out the symbolism and the magnificent shade of blue. I did not share his enthusiasm at that time, but something significant was imprinted in me. 40 years later, as I strolled with my wife through the Uffizi, I was drawn to Boticelli’s masterpiece and noticed the rainbow of national origins crowding in to take a look. It was then that I realized that great works of art are threads that connect people of all nationalities and generations as they share aesthetic experiences.
Pitt, junior year, Professor Levitt’s Physiological Psychology course. Sitting next to another psych major, Alan, who always got better grades than me in the many psych courses we took together. After class, I asked how he managed to earn such good grades and he described his impressive study methods. I realized that I would have to step-up my effort to compete for admission to a good Ph.D. program. He invited me to join a study group of other similarly motivated psych majors, and this led to sharper focus, higher grades, and eventually, my Ph.D. My fellow students in almost every course I have ever taken have been a source of valuable information, insights, competition and friendship. This can't occur at an OLU because you don't have this kind of interaction with classmates when everything is on-line.
Pitt, junior year. The study group members were talking about finding a psych professor who would allow us to assist with his/her research. This extra work would demonstrate strong interest, initiative and commitment, help me learn more about psychological research, and establish a relationship with a professor who could write a good letter of recommendation for grad school. After knocking on almost every psych professor’s office door and being told that they needed no more research assistants, I approached Dr. Voss whom I had heard was very tough and intimidating. I did not find him to be anything but gracious and helpful, and he gave me some significant work to do under his supervision and that of another psychologist, Dr. Janus. I put subjects through an experimental verbal memory procedure, tabulated and statistically analyzed the data, and wrote a draft of the article which was eventually published. What great preparation for my master’s thesis, doctoral dissertation, and research publications in my future.
Teachers College, Columbia University, first year of master’s program in Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling, Professor I. I. Goldberg’s Psychological Aspects of Disability course. Dr. Goldberg was a brilliant, warm-hearted hulk of a man who spoke with an eastern European accent and who had only one arm. Every class involved exposure to another type of disability. Sometimes a person with a severe orthopedic disability, or a neurological disability, or a hearing impairment was invited to class to demonstrate the ingenious methods and persistent effort he/she used to accomplish everyday tasks such as eating, grooming, or using the telephone. In other classes we would simulate our own disability by walking through the Horace Mann Building with blindfolds and white canes or maneuvering in a wheelchair. The experiences took me far beyond the lectures, textbooks, and research papers that were also required.
Ohio State University, second year of Ph.D. program in Counseling Psychology, Professor George Taylor’s course on group therapy. Class size was limited to 12 students. There were no lectures. Each class was like a group therapy session with Dr. Taylor as the facilitator. He set the stage for productive group process, sometimes asking us to participate in structured activities. As we experienced all of the phenomena that occur in therapy groups, Dr. Taylor provided both commentary on the process and an excellent model of how to be a group therapist. During the 30 years following my graduation from Ohio State, I taught about 30 sections of a similar graduate-level course at two universities, delighting in seeing my students learn about themselves and the beautiful way in which groups of people can evolve into helping, compassionate, and growth-producing entities. I was shocked to hear that some psychology graduate programs now offer this course on-line. What a sad turn of events for the students, their future patients, and my beloved profession!
Ohio State, second year. As a teaching associate, I taught three sections of Psychology of Personal Effectiveness, which was actually a study skills course. Along with four fellow grad students, I taught this course under the supervision of Dr. Francis P. Robinson, the developer of the SQ3R study method and author of our textbook, Effective Study. The five of us met once per week in Dr. Robinson’s seminar, learned some of the finer points of how to teach, the details of the SQ3R method, and the research behind it. I was very nervous for the first couple of classes, but I quickly became more confident and really enjoyed teaching. For most of the years since, I have been a professor at three different universities. It never occurred to me that I would want to be a university professor when I chose to attend graduate school to become a psychologist. I doubt I would have made this choice if I didn’t have this outstanding experience at a TBAMU.
The above seven experiences were just a small portion of the many that rounded out my education. None of them could have occurred without having great professors who devote their lives to academia. Many of these experiences depended on having direct contact, competition, and cooperation with fellow students who knew more than me. None of them would be possible had I logged-on to courses in an exclusively OLU. I believe every TBAMU student has similar priceless experiences, some subtle and some profound. I believe students have far fewer of these critical experiences at for-profit OLUs and this would seriously diminish the world in which our graduates live, work, create, and educate future generations.
On-line universities (OLUs) look much different than traditional bricks-and-mortar universities (TBAMUs). First, they lack physical campuses including classrooms, residence halls, libraries, fraternities and sororities, and athletic teams, although some have single buildings or suites in office buildings, scattered across the country like banks or fast food franchises. Second, they are for-profit businesses whose primary goal is to make a profit for owners or stock holders. Third, they make heavy use of part-time or adjunct faculty who typically hold other full-time jobs. These instructors tend to be more practical and less idealistic but, unlike the full-time faculty members at TBAMUs, do not usually devote their professional lives to studying, researching, and teaching their chosen field. Finally, being profit-driven, they market themselves more aggressively, accept virtually all applicants who can pay the tuition, aggressively help applicants obtain tuition loans, sell college credits for life experiences, permit students to re-take failed exams, and help students obtain 4-year degrees in as little as 1½ or 2 years.
At for-profit OLUs, grades are grossly inflated, giving even the weakest students the feeling that they have finally arrived at a place that understands them and recognizes their “true abilities”. Student weaknesses in math, reading, and spelling, as well as a general lack of knowledge, are downplayed as being unimportant. Much like rats in a Skinner Box, they continue to pay tuition to gain high grades and a degree as repeated affirmation that they are the equal of any successful student at TBAMUs. When asked, the on-line students adamantly defend their on-line education, even though they usually do not have the experience to actually compare it to a TBAMU experience.
It is instructive to consider the very clever Kaplan University TV commercial in which an actor plays the role of a distinguished professor at a TBAMU. In the ad, the actor/professor apologizes to all of the students in his audience for his university’s old-fashioned educational practices, and then promises to take a more modern, more relevant, ostensibly better approach from now on. To all those viewers who have not done well in school, who do not have the attention span to stay focused on lectures or read textbooks, or whose lifestyle makes it difficult to sustain their studies at a TBAMU, this ad offers them hope that they can succeed in school, get a college degree, gain access to good occupations, and have successful careers. At all levels of education, testing and grading practices are subjective, variable, and ambiguous enough that it is easy to toy with people’s perceptions. If the endeavor were the 100 meter dash, the results would be much clearer because a good stopwatch doesn’t lie. After a few slow races, an individual would know that the training regimen, which promised world-class times and Olympic medals, was making false claims. In the world of higher education, I routinely meet graduates of OLUs who had 3.8 and 4.0 cumulative GPAs and are completely unaware that their scholastic skills are below the level of the average high school graduate.
Priceless TBAMU Life Lessons: Hard to Replicate at OLUs
I have taken on-line continuing education courses that seemed entirely appropriate in the format they were offered. I must admit, that I was typically able to review the multiple choice exam first, skim the reading materials, and then answer all of the unchallenging questions with ease. Nevertheless, I believe that there is a place for some on-line coursework in both undergraduate and graduate education. But, to get any degree with all, or virtually all, on-line courses would detract from one’s experience and possibly result in uneducated graduates. In thinking about the various courses I have taken in my nine years as a student at three universities, I came up with a long list of courses and related experiences that could not be matched by on-line study. Here is a partial list of those experiences:
University of Pittsburgh, freshman year, Professor Buckwalter’s intro to geology course. A field trip by bus, an hour or so outside the city. We chipped sedimentary rock on the bank of a river, collecting fossils from varying layers of rock. I understood right then and there that Evolution was no longer just a “theory”. It was a fact. This educational experience shaped my beliefs and made it hard for me to allow that “Intelligent Design” should be included in grade school science textbooks.
Pitt, sophomore year, Professor Stern’s Interdisciplinary Humanities course. Showed slide of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and practically sang and beamed with enthusiasm as he pointed out the symbolism and the magnificent shade of blue. I did not share his enthusiasm at that time, but something significant was imprinted in me. 40 years later, as I strolled with my wife through the Uffizi, I was drawn to Boticelli’s masterpiece and noticed the rainbow of national origins crowding in to take a look. It was then that I realized that great works of art are threads that connect people of all nationalities and generations as they share aesthetic experiences.
Pitt, junior year, Professor Levitt’s Physiological Psychology course. Sitting next to another psych major, Alan, who always got better grades than me in the many psych courses we took together. After class, I asked how he managed to earn such good grades and he described his impressive study methods. I realized that I would have to step-up my effort to compete for admission to a good Ph.D. program. He invited me to join a study group of other similarly motivated psych majors, and this led to sharper focus, higher grades, and eventually, my Ph.D. My fellow students in almost every course I have ever taken have been a source of valuable information, insights, competition and friendship. This can't occur at an OLU because you don't have this kind of interaction with classmates when everything is on-line.
Pitt, junior year. The study group members were talking about finding a psych professor who would allow us to assist with his/her research. This extra work would demonstrate strong interest, initiative and commitment, help me learn more about psychological research, and establish a relationship with a professor who could write a good letter of recommendation for grad school. After knocking on almost every psych professor’s office door and being told that they needed no more research assistants, I approached Dr. Voss whom I had heard was very tough and intimidating. I did not find him to be anything but gracious and helpful, and he gave me some significant work to do under his supervision and that of another psychologist, Dr. Janus. I put subjects through an experimental verbal memory procedure, tabulated and statistically analyzed the data, and wrote a draft of the article which was eventually published. What great preparation for my master’s thesis, doctoral dissertation, and research publications in my future.
Teachers College, Columbia University, first year of master’s program in Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling, Professor I. I. Goldberg’s Psychological Aspects of Disability course. Dr. Goldberg was a brilliant, warm-hearted hulk of a man who spoke with an eastern European accent and who had only one arm. Every class involved exposure to another type of disability. Sometimes a person with a severe orthopedic disability, or a neurological disability, or a hearing impairment was invited to class to demonstrate the ingenious methods and persistent effort he/she used to accomplish everyday tasks such as eating, grooming, or using the telephone. In other classes we would simulate our own disability by walking through the Horace Mann Building with blindfolds and white canes or maneuvering in a wheelchair. The experiences took me far beyond the lectures, textbooks, and research papers that were also required.
Ohio State University, second year of Ph.D. program in Counseling Psychology, Professor George Taylor’s course on group therapy. Class size was limited to 12 students. There were no lectures. Each class was like a group therapy session with Dr. Taylor as the facilitator. He set the stage for productive group process, sometimes asking us to participate in structured activities. As we experienced all of the phenomena that occur in therapy groups, Dr. Taylor provided both commentary on the process and an excellent model of how to be a group therapist. During the 30 years following my graduation from Ohio State, I taught about 30 sections of a similar graduate-level course at two universities, delighting in seeing my students learn about themselves and the beautiful way in which groups of people can evolve into helping, compassionate, and growth-producing entities. I was shocked to hear that some psychology graduate programs now offer this course on-line. What a sad turn of events for the students, their future patients, and my beloved profession!
Ohio State, second year. As a teaching associate, I taught three sections of Psychology of Personal Effectiveness, which was actually a study skills course. Along with four fellow grad students, I taught this course under the supervision of Dr. Francis P. Robinson, the developer of the SQ3R study method and author of our textbook, Effective Study. The five of us met once per week in Dr. Robinson’s seminar, learned some of the finer points of how to teach, the details of the SQ3R method, and the research behind it. I was very nervous for the first couple of classes, but I quickly became more confident and really enjoyed teaching. For most of the years since, I have been a professor at three different universities. It never occurred to me that I would want to be a university professor when I chose to attend graduate school to become a psychologist. I doubt I would have made this choice if I didn’t have this outstanding experience at a TBAMU.
The above seven experiences were just a small portion of the many that rounded out my education. None of them could have occurred without having great professors who devote their lives to academia. Many of these experiences depended on having direct contact, competition, and cooperation with fellow students who knew more than me. None of them would be possible had I logged-on to courses in an exclusively OLU. I believe every TBAMU student has similar priceless experiences, some subtle and some profound. I believe students have far fewer of these critical experiences at for-profit OLUs and this would seriously diminish the world in which our graduates live, work, create, and educate future generations.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
The Most Grandiose Shared Delusion of Them All
My car was hurtling down the steep mountain road, faster and faster. I was powerless to steer, unable to brake, and unable to see clearly through my cataract clouded eyes. All was a blur as I descended completely out of control in, of all things, a Lincoln Towncar. Wriggling, kicking, and screaming, I had no control whatsoever over the inevitable crash through the barrier and into the abyss. I was not going gently into that horrific night. A split second before the crash, I lurched from my nightmare, my body in a cold sweat. You don’t have to be Freud to interpret the fear of death symbolism in my frightful dream.
Awareness of the certainty of one's eventual death. It’s what separates humans from other species. As Schopenhauer observed, “Unlike man, animals…live without knowing death.” Death gives meaning to our existence. Children and adolescents give little thought to their own mortality, living, daring, and risking as though they will never die. As we get older, thoughts of our own demise intrude with increasing frequency as we lose loved ones and friends and we experience health scares that force us to contemplate the great existential questions. As we close in on the inevitable, many of us experience bouts of death anxiety that change the way we choose to live out our remaining time. Some work harder to leave a lasting contribution to the world. Some start on their bucket lists. Some step-up their visits to the doctor, exercise, and use of health supplements. Some more actively try to right the wrongs they have committed. And, most people in the world turn to their gods to prepare for a good afterlife.
Without a shred of empirical evidence, most people in the world believe in an afterlife as a matter of faith. Of the world’s 6.9 billion people, the vast majority practice religions that promise a better life after death. Here are the major religions, their populations, and their concept of an afterlife:
RELIGION POPULATION AFTERLIFE
Christianity 2.1 billion Heaven or Hell
Islam 1.5 billion Paradise or Hell
Hinduism .9 billion Reincarnation
Buddhism .4 billion Reincarnation
Sikhism 23 million Reincarnation
Judaism 14 million None (for most denominations)
Baha’i 7 million Soul to Heaven or Hell
Shinto 4 million Spirit joins Kami
The adherents of these religions add up to about 5 billion people, or 72% of the world’s population. One way to cope with death anxiety is to believe that you will move on to a better afterlife, provided you have lived your mortal existence according to the tenets of your religion. As Camus explained, “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.”
Most people embrace the notion that they will live on, in one form or another, after they die. To me, this is a shared delusion of massive proportions, encouraged by most religions to help believers cope with death anxiety. This mass delusion causes people to behave irrationally, and even to sacrifice their lives. I knew an otherwise healthy 68 year-old man who refused routine surgery for early stage throat cancer, even though he was told by a surgeon that there was a 99% success rate, believing that he would soon be in a better place. Less than two years later, he went to his grave. Would the 9/11 terrorists, and others like them, go so zealously to their suicide deaths if they had not been indoctrinated from childhood with the belief in an afterlife in paradise? To the unbeliever, death is the end; to the believer, it is just the beginning. I wonder if true believers suffer with death anxiety and death nightmares.
Awareness of the certainty of one's eventual death. It’s what separates humans from other species. As Schopenhauer observed, “Unlike man, animals…live without knowing death.” Death gives meaning to our existence. Children and adolescents give little thought to their own mortality, living, daring, and risking as though they will never die. As we get older, thoughts of our own demise intrude with increasing frequency as we lose loved ones and friends and we experience health scares that force us to contemplate the great existential questions. As we close in on the inevitable, many of us experience bouts of death anxiety that change the way we choose to live out our remaining time. Some work harder to leave a lasting contribution to the world. Some start on their bucket lists. Some step-up their visits to the doctor, exercise, and use of health supplements. Some more actively try to right the wrongs they have committed. And, most people in the world turn to their gods to prepare for a good afterlife.
Without a shred of empirical evidence, most people in the world believe in an afterlife as a matter of faith. Of the world’s 6.9 billion people, the vast majority practice religions that promise a better life after death. Here are the major religions, their populations, and their concept of an afterlife:
RELIGION POPULATION AFTERLIFE
Christianity 2.1 billion Heaven or Hell
Islam 1.5 billion Paradise or Hell
Hinduism .9 billion Reincarnation
Buddhism .4 billion Reincarnation
Sikhism 23 million Reincarnation
Judaism 14 million None (for most denominations)
Baha’i 7 million Soul to Heaven or Hell
Shinto 4 million Spirit joins Kami
The adherents of these religions add up to about 5 billion people, or 72% of the world’s population. One way to cope with death anxiety is to believe that you will move on to a better afterlife, provided you have lived your mortal existence according to the tenets of your religion. As Camus explained, “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.”
Most people embrace the notion that they will live on, in one form or another, after they die. To me, this is a shared delusion of massive proportions, encouraged by most religions to help believers cope with death anxiety. This mass delusion causes people to behave irrationally, and even to sacrifice their lives. I knew an otherwise healthy 68 year-old man who refused routine surgery for early stage throat cancer, even though he was told by a surgeon that there was a 99% success rate, believing that he would soon be in a better place. Less than two years later, he went to his grave. Would the 9/11 terrorists, and others like them, go so zealously to their suicide deaths if they had not been indoctrinated from childhood with the belief in an afterlife in paradise? To the unbeliever, death is the end; to the believer, it is just the beginning. I wonder if true believers suffer with death anxiety and death nightmares.
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