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Do you think that Death exists as a being? Is there really a Grim Reaper? Maybe there is a bunch of them like in Dead Like Me. Maybe it does exist as a being but something else we have yet to imagine. I'm not sure what I think but, I would like to know what you think.

As much as I love Psychopomps, I do not think that they exist. Their existance would imply that death is not a natural process or that there needs to be a catalyst for it to occur... kind of an occam razor thing.

grim reaper or death in any sort of a figure was given to that for people not understanding death at the time. like gods for fertility and hunting and etc.

I truley do not believe that death holds a figure , just a natural progression of the life of our body is all that is too be.

You might think it's silly but, I believe that the one who is dying can see death in a human/monstrous or demonic form.

blessedemo > What makes you think that ?

I'll confess my ignorance; only because I never really thought about it:

Why is he 'grim'?
Why was Death considered a 'he'?
Why the cloak?

(I'm off to read about Mr Reaper)

Mmmmm *strokes chin*
maybe im just a freak?
but i find the image of the reaper kinda sexy
hes a fantasy figure well isant he? we all have our own ideas and thoughts on life and death beginings and the end it comes to us all and aint nothing we can do to change nature just enjoy each day as it comes thats what i say what would we do without fantasy?!
xXx

I do not beleave that death is a real person or entity.
The whole story of death with a cload came in to being sometime in the darkages.And in art to explaine the Unnatural way people died or what took them.Also like the boogie man who is also depicted in liture and art it was also made up to scare childern.Death as a being as pointed out by someone here would mean that death was Un natural and that you could kill the grimreaper and defeat death.I know we can sometimes beat it but that is pure luck it all comes for us. No one is immortal and death is not a peson or being.

I do not believe that there is a grim reaper, or any other being in regards to death.

Death is a cycle. It is natural. From the smallest living creature, to the seasons on our earth, we live in a cycle of life and death that is mystical and miraculous all on it's own without the need of any supernatural being lending mysticism to it.

Sinora, what made me think people might think that I thought only people who were dying saw death in a form, was because the people before had wrote that they didn't believe that.

It could be the 'angel of death' as well, we dont have a choice when the time comes, is unpredictable so if we were to live promised years then why there are things that can take our lives in such undesired times and ways..Designed destiny or self-chosen paths? mysterious concept as the birth itself holds..

In the tarot, the ruler of the death card is scorpio.
I think the grim reaper does exist like a guidence, and walks around with a hour glass, which represents a new beginning and an end to something in your life. Starting a new path in life for example put the past behind and move on in life and start a new path and fulfill it.

I think vesper said it quit well, death is not a figure, but a cycle in all living things life.

Death in the minds of the old, looked at death as a god and thus the fgures of death took shape, so every culture has a death angel or god and it is very different in appearance from other cultures.

The Grim Reaper is just a personification of death just like the Dance Macabre. It is a philosophical idea put into the anthropomorphic form. It is shown as male in my opinion because I haven't looked this one up recently, because man is considered the stronger sex by most cultures but in all actuality it is usually a caped skeleton with a scythe and presumed male by a male dominated culture. It is not the angel of death in my opinion, but has been given that name from time to time It's something different representing death itself in physical form. We fear death most of us and this is how it was expressed by artists and others.

I don't know why but I kinda like the idea of there being a grim reaper so even if it's even true its just one of those things you like to believe....like Santa I guess.

Deities will still in our mind cast shaodows of the movies of death and the make up the persona of it. yet specualtaion of death as we know it is the cycle of life.

We have never asked a dead guy, did you see death, when you passed or before the time of dimise.

Specualtions of the gods or figure of death to rationalize the human minds own fear.

I like the grim ripper idea from the 'dead like me' series, where the job of the dead is to plan out the way the individual is going to die and this gargoyle looking creature comes and takes their life, then they pass to another dimension within the love world and live among living but invisible.

I was rather fond of Dead Like Me as well. So much that I own the entire series on DVD as well as the movie.

Is a ghost series, in youtube put it and you will get an idea, this girl dies from the most randomnest way by a "meteorite" right if i can recall... and then she passes to another plane where the dead lives among the living as invisible and they walk around and shit..

Dead Like me-

A teenage girl gets killed by a toilet seat that falls from the sky. The Psychopomp that took her retires so she automatically gets the job (like in the Santa Clause). She's an underachiever and doesn't like killing people, so that creates problems in the outset with her boss. She has to get a real job so she can eat, adn she lives in the apartment of a dead guy.

She sees gremlin like creatures that are responsible for accidents. She soon finds out that preventing accidents pisses them off and they start causing accidents for her. She also finds out that not taking the soul means that the soul is awake through the autopsy and embalming, which is why they try to take the soul just before the death, so there is less trauma.

She tries to go home but her family sees her as a stranger, and every time she goes home she forgets things from her life. Her littel sister, who she ignored while alive has a fixation on her, and after her death she started stealing toilet seats and hanging them from a tree.

Other wackyness ensues. Season 1 is easy to find and is usually on the reduced shelf. Season 2 isn't as easy to find.

It's a good little show, I wish I had my own copy of season 2, I've watched season 1 three times.

Do we as humans put a face to things so that we understand better or comprehend if it is a figure than it is not a freak accident in which we die?

Hm, many ways to describe it.

The Grim Reaper can be a spirit created by the gods/godesses to lead the persons spirit to the place they are ment to go.
Or
It could be a something sent by the devil to help him collect souls so he wont have to.
Or
Like in the Chrstmas Carol, he could be one to show what will happen if one doesn't change their ways.

-thinks- So many options about it. Guess it is just one of those things you believe in, or will find out about.

CreatureGirl~ great deductions,

yet the persona to me is when I die, it is by my own cycle of life concluded or the time I may see fit to die.

Not by the hand of some mysterious figure telling me it is my time, we see so many movies on the occurance of this. to me it is irrelevant when my body says it is time than I must die.

The Grim reaper represents a cycle of life and death, and it also represents a beginning and an end of a path in your life.

actually if you look more closely at most of the tales of the grim reaper, death or the angel of death the entity is neither evil or good nor does the entity actually kill anyone. The grim reaper "collects" souls and guides them to the afterlife whether they be headed to heaven, hell or whatever equivalent depending on religion or belief. As for whether or not I believe in such an entity I'm not sure I've never really given it a lot of thought.

So many good points and such but I think that Vespers said it right with her words.

Death is the beginning and the end of a cycle of life, like was stated in a couple posts above mine.

I think that where most associate Death with the male by saying he; is from the Pale Rider depicted in the bible and movies. One would figure that death would be what ever our minds chose it to be.

There is no grim reaper. What happens at death is very personal and depneds on you belief system.

the belief of death as a figure, whether biblical or lore, Many spculate that their family was taken by the angel for why would it be their time?

As stated many fear the time of death, and grieve and sometimes takes longer to get over than the birth of a child in our society.

Our specualtion that the angel of death( just doing his job) is afigure that lays his hands on the person in question. Why, is this another tale that we were taught to hamper the unknown cycle of death or reasure those that it is an unatural cause of demise.

So why the cloaked figure and not cupid or the easter bunny? Why cause death is percieved as evil or the death figure relating to death itself.

Grim Reaper~ Hedes.

In my eyes death is not evil or good its just that which must happen when you see pictures of Death looking all scary and stuff no. Death is the only thing in life that is certain but its not the end just the beginning of something new but is Death a figure or person im open to it like most things i have seen many things in my life which people have said can never be real in the magicks which i use so im open to it myself.

Death is a path not a person. Death is the path leading to rebirth. Thats all I have to say.

Like the symbols of: "Father Time" and the "New Year's Baby" depicting new beginning, the "Grim Reaper" symbolizes ending, not always death.

Leo

"Dead Like Me" was an interesting series. Each "reaper" had to assist so many "souls" before they could go to their "eternal rest". Hmmmm.... interesting, if such a thing were real.

Leo

Death is a force of nature and the universe the same as life, gravity, and friction. To say such a natural force has an avatar or conciousness maybe pushing the envelope a bit but I do recall a proclaimed psychic once who was very very good I might add, she claimed she could see the aura of people who are going to die and she could see a man in a black suit, perhaps this was simply a way of her mind seeing something that it could not comprehend any other way.

Guess we'll all find out some day for certain!
You can run, but you can't hid from the reeper, when the bell tolls, your time is up!


glitter-graphics.com

I don't believe that there is a grim reaper but for some it may just be to symbolize a passing and the reaper is the guide to that passing on.

Don't know for certain, but working 3rd shift in Nursing We all have seen some very strange things.
Those little black guys seen in the movie "Ghost", I thought they were just for the perspective of the issue dragging a soul off.
But we (3rd shift) employees have often seen such a dark shadow moving along the border of walls when one is about to pass on.
Scares me enough to believe. And I don't scare easily.

i do believe in a being known as death /the grim reaper iam not sure there is more then one but it would seem as many people in the world as there is he would be mighty busy... lol then again i just said he but i have this thing that sence woman are the bearers of life they are also the bringer of death so the grim reaper is female

yeah i think that it's possible that the grim reaper exists as a being but as you said a being that one has yet to comprehend.

I have as much difficulty believing in a "Grim Reaper" as I would in taking seriously the belief in any being or beings that supposedly rule or cause any other natural phenomena.

If a "Grim Reaper," then why not also a god and/or goddess of day, night, thunder, lightning, illness, etc.? And if we proceed down this path, can there be any doubt but that we would soon be relegated back to the Dark Ages where all natural phenomena were considered supernatural in origin and superstition and religion ruled uncontested by Reason and science?

What's next... the god of burping? ;)


- Upir'

I honestly believe that the idea for a grim reaper heralds from Greek mythology. That the image that is depicted come form the myths of Carnos the ferryman of the river Styx. He is the persona of death and decay, sullen in dark robe and pale skin from travailing the caverns of the River Styx through Haties. As the ferryman it was his responsibility yo collect the souls along the river, those that had their coin for passage were allowed on the boat to the underworld. Those without were doomed to walk the earth until they could pay for passage.

While it is quite a romantic idea for there to exist an omnipresent being who gently guides us down our River Styx, that is all it is in my opinion, a comforting notion that in the end, no matter what, we never die alone. This is one of our most base fears and if believing that some animated skeleton draped in black will give you his hand and face with you the maw of the inevitable, eternal abyss helps my fellow man endure that looming prospect of ultimate demise than I'm all for it. I will not try to dissuade you from that but to me, the Reaper is like Santa, a personification of a hoped for recognition of our specific, mortal existence.

-GalFriday

I wish they were real, like the ones from dead like me.
I love that show and what it's about!
But I don't think they actually are real.
I believe there are angels of death that come to a person to take their soul to wherever they are going, but not an actually person!

I don't think there is really a Grim Reaper, as a way to humanize something we are afraid of or don't understand there has to be an embodiment to it. That makes things easier for people to handle.

My grandfather saw the reaper waiting in his hospital room in a chair, he said, "he's waiting for me see him in that chair in the corner with the black cloak on" my grandfather had lung cancer and was on morphine 4 the pain till he died of the illness.

A set Grim , doubt it. An being(s) set to take you to your final destiny yes. Is there someone in charge of the "list" checking it out - to hollywood for me.

From thousands accounts of "near death" or coming back from being pronounced dead, most see a bright light. I do believe that quite possibly an energy force may guide souls after leaving their human transport.
I would consider that perhaps a person dying may see that energy force in whatever way the dying's mind will accept it.

Guardian

The Grim Reaper is real. He/She can take many forms. I believe it is a Spiritual Being that can invade anyone. All the murders where the murderers don't recall there actions at the time and they say "I felt like something just took me over" are labeled as insane. But in fact are very sane and every day people that death had do its work.

I think the grim reaper or angel of death is just something humans created to deal with their fear of death and to create a fear of death.

I believe death to be a natural process that needs no guide or mythical being to help you through the process.

All good thoughts.

i think death is always around us it just happens to be pricely around when it your time

I do not think a grim reaper but i do think that maybe when we die we see angels or guides to the other side.. Depending on your side..