You prepare for death by living each day as if it's your last and it could be even for the comparatively young and healthy?

And by staying true to yourself and seeking only the truth in all things, rather than this or that confirmation bias.

Every year more people are killed by brain cancer than the national road toll. And in spite of advances, the remission rate has remained stubbornly similar for the last thirty years! AND NOT BECAUSE THERE'S NO CURE!

Other death sentence cancers include pancreatic cancer, myeloid leukaemia and the type related to asbestos contamination, remain virtual death sentences!

So, these folk don't need to be told to prepare for death by some massively misguided bible bashing scholar who would know truth from a barfly!

Resolutely refuses to even contemplate the possibility they could be wrong and given that's the very probable case? Do far more harm than good Or wouldn't recognise the truth if it were a dog that bit him or her in the bum?

Given he or she is completely corrupted by typical brainwashed from birth by religious induction/indoctrination. When the answer has to be to spit in its face and refuse to yield or give up hope.

That somewhere out there are folk with the power to bring in change for the better and as completely unselfish Christians living the master's message. rather than ENDLESSLY TALKING ABOUT THEIR PREFERRED VERSION OF IT! Or euthanasia. Peter.
Alan B.

Thanks, Peter, this is perceptive and useful. I am heading to New Norcia this weekend for a retreat on The Imitation of Christ, the 15th century classic (the second most translated book after the Bible). This book was the favourite of a 19th century missionary priest, whose biography I am writing, and was very widely read as a way to live and as a preparation for death. My missionary priest always wanted to die in New Norcia (and succeeded) because the 'monastics' as you call them showed a way to live that, while it is not for all as is, it challenges us all to examine the ways we shape our lives. Thank God the monastics are still here!
One quibble. Yes, belief is not enough without practice of faith. But that practice cannot be purely an act of the will - prayer, mediation, worship and study - because if my preparation for life and for death depends on the strength of my will, then I am worried. Faith must become an experience, of an event that comes from outside me, and must be sustained by shared living with others.
Keep well.
John

JJK
Thanks for the the comments, I accept your quibble. Enjoy NN, give me regards to Chris P.
Peter

Sells: We live in a time of crisis in meaning. Without a robust practice of faith we find ourselves in bondage to the primal fear: nonexistence.

Personal view Sells.

I don't fear death. When ya dead, ya dead. That's it. There's no great glorious Heaven where every one is standing around dressed in a White Robe singing, "Fa, he's a jolly good Fella." for eternity.

The only people who are unhappy about death are the people left after someone's died, & then, only for a week. Or, in the case of my sister 20 years for her daughter, who was going to die early anyway & she knew it.

Oh, I can hear it now. No compassion, terrible, terrible.

When I kark it, me old Carcass is going to a Teaching Hospital down the Gold Coast & what's left over is going to the Forensic Paddock in SA. Thence it'll turn into dust & get recycled into Stardust eventually. That's what Heaven is, if you want a heaven. So the cycle continues.

Come to think of it. Our Planet is an electron in a Solar System which is only an Atom in a Molecule in an organism which is part of an even bigger something, & on & on ever upwards & downwards. This, I believe.

I do not fear death, given I know that there is life beyond the grave. And as a returning eyewitness! Yet would postpone for as long as I can until my job here is done.

That job? To somehow convince those with the power to make a difference! To use it to make changes for the better for all humanity!

Or if you will walk the Christian message, rather than retreat from it into some august monastery or sanctuary?

That's just a place where the Pagan sun worshiper Contitine's initiated BS is confirmed and recycled!

Study it as much as you like, it won't make you a better person or save your immortal soul!

Nowhere in his teachings (his) did the Rabbi Jesus instruct his devotees that they had the power to hear confessions or absolve sin, or speak for God.

Instead, he said stuff like, suffer little children to come unto me. or, render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's and render unto God what is God's.

Or, live by the sword and die by the sword, or, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven within(learn to meditate) or, inasmuch as you do unto the least among you, you also do unto me.

Finally and to quote Roman General Maximus in the film Gladiator.

Death smiles at us all. When he smiles at you, all you can do is smile back!

Until he does, trouble him not, but live every day and in the real world, not in your head or volumes of patent control freak propaganda!
Alan B.

Three references on really preparing for death, rather than consoling one's presumed separate self with naive consoling childish illusions.

Preparing To Die by Andrew Holecek - based on Buddhist Wisdom Teachings.

Erasing Death by Sam Parnia - extensive multi-disciplinary research on the all important topic of death.

And of course this one featuring the most beautiful prose every written about what death (and thus life) requires of us. http://www.easydeathbook.com/purpose.asp