Sunset

LOOK! NO GOD!

Death This article looks at the positive side of death. Always look on the bright side of death - Monty Python (The Life of Brian)
Back to the Home Page
What's it Like Being Dead? Nobody ever comes back from the dead to tell us about it. Consequently, people have come up with lots of different ideas. According to most religions, for most people, being dead is unimaginably awful. (See the article 'Hell'.) According to the materialist view, however, being dead isn't the slightest bit awful. It's exactly the same as it was before we were conceived. We won't exist after we are dead in exactly the same way that we didn't exist before we were conceived. A common tombstone epitaph is: 'Non fui. Fui. Non sum. Non curo', which translates from the Latin as 'I was not. I was. I am not. I care not.' What's it Like Being About to Die? For someone who is still young and enjoying life, it can be disappointing. It's missing out on part of life and on seeing how things work out, particularly with one's family and descendants, but also often with the world at large. But is it any worse than never having been born? Most people would agree that a short life is better than a very short life or no life at all. When we think of the billions of sperm that could have fertilised our mother's egg, each leading to a different person, then we realise how lucky we are to have been born at all. And for us to have been born, both our mother and our father had to have been born and that was equally unlikely, and likewise with our grandparents and so on. So we should be grateful for the life we had. It is still disappointing, but it's a lot better than being condemned to any type of hell and the universe could have been made differently such that that was an actual possibility. Dying young is sad for those who know you, love you and depend on you: they will have to get by without you. But, once you're gone, it's not at all bad for you. You won't lament what you've left behind. Another consideration is the fact that everything that happens in the universe is beyond our control. (See the article 'Free Will and the Soul'.) If our life or the life of a loved one is short, well, that's the way things are, they couldn't have been any different. And what we had was better than never living at all. For someone who dies at a good age, like in their 80s or 90s, death needn't even be disappointing. It's the end of what was hopefully a good life. And if life wasn't good, then it's a relief. When we are young, we are full of energy and ambition, but as we get older, we achieve many of those ambitions and the energy begins to get a bit scarcer. In one's 20s, the thought of bringing up a family is an exciting one. The thought of doing it again in one's 70s is not - one just doesn't have the energy. In one's 90s one has even less energy and most things we did and enjoyed when we were young we wouldn't want to do now. Resting is a much more enticing prospect. And so is sleeping. Coming to the end of one's life is no longer something one hopes not to have to face. One can be at peace with one's future rest/peace/non-existence. Once we no longer exist, we won't mind that state in the slightest. It will be like being in a deep sleep - and sleep is something we all value. Why Do We Die? The View Based on What's Written in the Bible Romans 5:12 says: Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned - The bible claims that death came into the world because because Adam sinned. However, God had already made man with a genetic make up that ensured he would get old and die. Also, he had already made carnivores that would die unless they killed. So the bible's claim is clearly fiction. Some Christians will argue that, before Adam sinned, the human genetic make up was totally different such that humans were immortal and that lions had digestive systems like cows and lived by eating plants. But the bible makes no mention of this 're-creation' event. Basically converting a herbivore into a carnivore requires a complete reconstruction - not just the digestive stystem, but the teeth, claws, forward-looking eyes, ability to move fast, the brain wiring etc. It would have meant basically getting rid of the old creation and making a new one. The new human would be a different animal from the old one. Then, of course, one might ask, why would the new human be punished for what the old human did? Now let's consider what would have happened had Adam not sinned and death not come into the world. The following paragraphs show that this alternative leads to a ridiculous and impossible scenario. So, either God fully intended Adam to sin (and maybe that's why he planted that tree in the middle of the garden, pointed it out to him and provided a talking snake just to make sure), or the whole story is just a not-very-well-thought-through fiction. God told Adam and Eve: Be fruitful, and multiply . . . [Gen 1:28]. This spreadsheet shows how the human population of Earth would have developed had Adam not sinned, assuming that: no one died, every couple had one child every 2 years from the age of 18 onwards, they continued having children indefinitely (as is suggested by the fact that Eve gave birth to Cain at 130 years of age and had many children after him and that Noah's three sons who accompanied him on the ark were born when Noah was about 500 years old - and all this even after death came into the world!). It shows that, on those assumptions, within 600 years (much less than the life span of Adam even after he sinned), there would have been around 900 people for each square metre of Earth's land. Presumably the same would have happened with all the other animal species, many of which would have bred much faster than people - the pile of rabbits would have been many kilometres thick, not to mention the sheep, hippos and cockroaches! Clearly, humans (and other animals) not dying was never a feasible alternative, even if Adam hadn't sinned. And all these people and animals would have been living off what little bit of vegetation could grow at the bottom of the pile. This was never an option: death had to be part of the world whether Adam had sinned or not. The whole story makes no sense. And, just as an aside, the bible says that it was Adam's sin that changed the world. Eve's sin, which happened first, seems not to have done so. Much of the bible seems to consider women as not really part of humanity, but rather just a possession and 'helper' of men, created as an afterthought because Adam didn't fancy any of the animals. Why Do We Die? The View Based on What We Can See in the World The alternative is what results from a natural origin of life through increasingly complex chemical reactions and evolution to progressively more complex forms. This makes sense in terms of: what we know about the chemicals that have been found in space and that were present in the Earth's early environment, what we know about how such chemicals interact to form entities that can be self-contained and that can divide and replicate, how such replication is not always exact but can produce slight variations, how some variations are more likely to survive and reproduce than others, causing types of organism to change slowly over thousands of generations, how we see these sorts of changes occuring today as a result of this type of natural selection, e.g. with bacteria in response to antibiotics and with dogs, of which there are hundreds of breeds that didn't exist a couple of thousand years ago. how the geological and fossil records are totally in agreement with this view and totally incompatibe with a sudden creation 6000 years ago as posited by the bible. Unlike what's written in the bible, the model derived from what people can see in the world around them makes total sense. Now, one might think that species or organisms that didn't get old and die would have a selective advantage over those that did and thus that evolution should have led to immortality. But let's consider a species where dying of old age didn't happen. The population of that species would have tended to increase until there was insufficient food etc. to keep all individuals alive. This would have led to competition for the imited resources. The individuals that would tend to survive would be those that were biggest, srongest and most experienced, i.e. the older ones. All young would be eaten or starved before getting old enough to reproduce. This would mean that the same individuals would make up the population indefinitely. Meanwhile another species which is in competition with the species of immortals continues to evolve, with types more likely to win the battle for survival gradually replacing those less likely. This species of mortals would gradually become more competitive while the species of immortals remained unchanged. Eventually, the immortals would be totally outclassed by the mortals and would become extint. Thus, evolution favours mortal species and immortality is always an evolutionary dead-end. By the natural model, this is why we die. This all makes perfectly good sense.
Top of this page Home Page

Death

This article looks at the positive side of death.

Always look on the bright side of death

- Monty Python (The Life of Brian)

What's it Like Being Dead?

Nobody ever comes back from the dead to tell us about it. Consequently, people have come up with lots of different ideas.

According to most religions, for most people, being dead is unimaginably awful. (See the article 'Hell'.)

According to the materialist view, however, being dead isn't the slightest bit awful. It's exactly the same as it was before we were conceived. We won't exist after we are dead in exactly the same way that we didn't exist before we were conceived.

A common tombstone epitaph is: 'Non fui. Fui. Non sum. Non curo', which translates from the Latin as 'I was not. I was. I am not. I care not.'

Grave

What's it Like Being About to Die?

For someone who is still young and enjoying life, it can be disappointing. It's missing out on part of life and on seeing how things work out, particularly with one's family and descendants, but also often with the world at large. But is it any worse than never having been born? Most people would agree that a short life is better than a very short life or no life at all.

When we think of the billions of sperm that could have fertilised our mother's egg, each leading to a different person, then we realise how lucky we are to have been born at all. And for us to have been born, both our mother and our father had to have been born and that was equally unlikely, and likewise with our grandparents and so on. So we should be grateful for the life we had.

It is still disappointing, but it's a lot better than being condemned to any type of hell and the universe could have been made differently such that that was an actual possibility.

Dying young is sad for those who know you, love you and depend on you: they will have to get by without you. But, once you're gone, it's not at all bad for you. You won't lament what you've left behind.

Another consideration is the fact that everything that happens in the universe is beyond our control. (See the article 'Free Will and the Soul'.) If our life or the life of a loved one is short, well, that's the way things are, they couldn't have been any different. And what we had was better than never living at all.

For someone who dies at a good age, like in their 80s or 90s, death needn't even be disappointing. It's the end of what was hopefully a good life.

Einstein

And if life wasn't good, then it's a relief.

When we are young, we are full of energy and ambition, but as we get older, we achieve many of those ambitions and the energy begins to get a bit scarcer. In one's 20s, the thought of bringing up a family is an exciting one. The thought of doing it again in one's 70s is not - one just doesn't have the energy. In one's 90s one has even less energy and most things we did and enjoyed when we were young we wouldn't want to do now. Resting is a much more enticing prospect. And so is sleeping. Coming to the end of one's life is no longer something one hopes not to have to face. One can be at peace with one's future rest/peace/non-existence. Once we no longer exist, we won't mind that state in the slightest. It will be like being in a deep sleep - and sleep is something we all value.

Why Do We Die? The View Based on What's Written in the Bible

Romans 5:12 says: Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned -

The bible claims that death came into the world because because Adam sinned. However, God had already made man with a genetic make up that ensured he would get old and die. Also, he had already made carnivores that would die unless they killed. So the bible's claim is clearly fiction.

Some Christians will argue that, before Adam sinned, the human genetic make up was totally different such that humans were immortal and that lions had digestive systems like cows and lived by eating plants.

Lion eating plants

But the bible makes no mention of this 're-creation' event. Basically converting a herbivore into a carnivore requires a complete reconstruction - not just the digestive stystem, but the teeth, claws, forward-looking eyes, ability to move fast, the brain wiring etc. It would have meant basically getting rid of the old creation and making a new one. The new human would be a different animal from the old one. Then, of course, one might ask, why would the new human be punished for what the old human did?

Now let's consider what would have happened had Adam not sinned and death not come into the world. The following paragraphs show that this alternative leads to a ridiculous and impossible scenario. So, either God fully intended Adam to sin (and maybe that's why he planted that tree in the middle of the garden, pointed it out to him and provided a talking snake just to make sure), or the whole story is just a not-very-well-thought-through fiction.

God told Adam and Eve: Be fruitful, and multiply . . . [Gen 1:28].

This spreadsheet shows how the human population of Earth would have developed had Adam not sinned, assuming that:

no one died,
every couple had one child every 2 years from the age of 18 onwards,
they continued having children indefinitely (as is suggested by the fact that Eve gave birth to Cain at 130 years of age and had many children after him and that Noah's three sons who accompanied him on the ark were born when Noah was about 500 years old - and all this even after death came into the world!).

It shows that, on those assumptions, within 600 years (much less than the life span of Adam even after he sinned), there would have been around 900 people for each square metre of Earth's land.

Crowd

Presumably the same would have happened with all the other animal species, many of which would have bred much faster than people - the pile of rabbits would have been many kilometres thick, not to mention the sheep, hippos and cockroaches! Clearly, humans (and other animals) not dying was never a feasible alternative, even if Adam hadn't sinned.

And all these people and animals would have been living off what little bit of vegetation could grow at the bottom of the pile. This was never an option: death had to be part of the world whether Adam had sinned or not. The whole story makes no sense.

And, just as an aside, the bible says that it was Adam's sin that changed the world. Eve's sin, which happened first, seems not to have done so. Much of the bible seems to consider women as not really part of humanity, but rather just a possession and 'helper' of men, created as an afterthought because Adam didn't fancy any of the animals.

Why Do We Die? The View Based on What We Can See in the World

The alternative is what results from a natural origin of life through increasingly complex chemical reactions and evolution to progressively more complex forms. This makes sense in terms of:

what we know about the chemicals that have been found in space and that were present in the Earth's early environment,
what we know about how such chemicals interact to form entities that can be self-contained and that can divide and replicate,
how such replication is not always exact but can produce slight variations,
how some variations are more likely to survive and reproduce than others, causing types of organism to change slowly over thousands of generations,
how we see these sorts of changes occuring today as a result of this type of natural selection, e.g. with bacteria in response to antibiotics and with dogs, of which there are hundreds of breeds that didn't exist a couple of thousand years ago.
how the geological and fossil records are totally in agreement with this view and totally incompatibe with a sudden creation 6000 years ago as posited by the bible.

Unlike what's written in the bible, the model derived from what people can see in the world around them makes total sense.

Now, one might think that species or organisms that didn't get old and die would have a selective advantage over those that did and thus that evolution should have led to immortality. But let's consider a species where dying of old age didn't happen.

The population of that species would have tended to increase until there was insufficient food etc. to keep all individuals alive. This would have led to competition for the imited resources. The individuals that would tend to survive would be those that were biggest, srongest and most experienced, i.e. the older ones. All young would be eaten or starved before getting old enough to reproduce. This would mean that the same individuals would make up the population indefinitely.

Meanwhile another species which is in competition with the species of immortals continues to evolve, with types more likely to win the battle for survival gradually replacing those less likely. This species of mortals would gradually become more competitive while the species of immortals remained unchanged. Eventually, the immortals would be totally outclassed by the mortals and would become extint.

Thus, evolution favours mortal species and immortality is always an evolutionary dead-end. By the natural model, this is why we die. This all makes perfectly good sense.

Top of this page Home Page

Image Acknowledgements

Grave: Wikimedia Commons
Einstein: PxHere
Lion: Flickr
Crowd: Flickr
Dogs: JSPuzzles.com on rawpixel.com