After spending a great amount a time on religious forum boards, I have noticed that some people have a difficult time shoe-horning their religious philosophies about death to a belief, faith or hope that is not only coherent and acceptable to them but to others as well. There are reasons that I am quickly coming to these conclusions.

a)Their god’s purpose or will is undone or unfulfilled.
Nothing is probably more frustrating than promoting a god who purposes love, kindness and guidance for one’s life by giving an entity the gift of a physical existence only to have this life returned by “evil” means. It seems that this god is made a fool of, that it’s word means nothing. Many people try to excuse this reason by promoting an unfair sense of free will in the exchange that the offender (or “evil”) will get his comeuppance and be judged accordingly (eventually) even though this god’s plan, gift or word is already undone. The return of the victim’s physical life by the deity is never granted to continue and the “evil” is allowed to stay and live out their physical existence.


b) The afterlife can’t be all that.
I noticed that people who feel very strong about an “evil” death or a life that ends too soon, do not fully appreciate the concept of their own heaven. Explaining how wonderful it is to be received in the kingdom of their god or sharing the graces of a heavenly paradise does not comfort one who has judged a death as “evil” or unfair.

c) People really believe they deserve to live a physical existence forever.
Or at least be able to choose the most peaceful way to die. It seems that an “evil” death is unacceptable but someone falling asleep in their bed and never waking up (though sad) is adequate. Natural disasters, some diseases, dying from old age, people can seem to come to terms with, but an “evil” death which somehow is judged as a life that is “cut short” is often a bitter pill to swallow. If you ask someone how they would prefer to die, there will be some people who will jokingly answer that they never want to die. There are even some religions who believe that they will never have to pass into or experience death.

d) the selfish outlook
Surviviors will be the first to explain to anyone how much of a tragedy death is. Depending how close their relationship was to the deceased, the living person cannot feel that something that once belonged to them is now taken away or express the unshaking feeling of unfairness. Even the religious solace that some clergymen promote that their god somehow recalled this soul for another purpose does not seem to comfort the understanding of death.

I think as a society we need to re-evaluate the death process and the relationship between GOD and ourselves and come to a new understanding than the way some people are promoting it today. I believe that such an understanding will help us not only teach ourselves and others how to get the best out of this physical existence but also assist in overcoming the sadness that accompanies the process of death.

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"There is one thing that organized religion is not qualified to teach and that is an individual's purpose."-GOD

This is an excellent subject for discussion cardero. At the moment don't have time to put down my thoughts, maybe later.

Maybe others will take advantage of examining the subject. After all, 120 years from now ( being optomistic about human life span) the whole of the present human population will have expired.

To me death is simply the end of the physical existence. That doesn't mean it's over for good, just this life. I was born, I did what I planned on doing, or failed to do what I planned on doing, and then leave this place. Death is part of the circle of the physical life. Each one of us has gone through it before, and we will continue to do it until we are through learning.

I learned that death to a young person is incredibly hard to bear. A friend from high school passed away a few months ago and the way it tore into her family was absolutely horrifying. But it was all clear to me after time to think and talk with a very close friend ( who doubles as an incarnated spirit guide for me ) that it is easier to leave after you have finished your task then to stay and accumulate karma.

*shrugs* But that's just me.

You have my light
- Sean

Probably one of the most ignored concepts is the question of the "quality of death." We are primarily concerned with the quality of life that we simply ignore the quality of death.

Yet for many years on the earth, death wasn't necessary since life on earth was based on mitosis. Only later, sexual division and reproduction which initiated "death" became necessary.

The ancient traditions are aware of the importance of the quality of death at least theoretically if not practically from the results of secular influences. Under these conditions of secularized religion, the quality of death means something like if you say wonderful things and pat God on the back proclaiming how wonderful he is, such a quality of death will lead you straight to heaven. IMO this is naive but doesn't detract from the easily avoided but essential question of the relationship between our quality of life and quality of death in relation to universal purpose. We cannot because we don't realize what objective quality means.

Death is not a permanent end of a persons life but it is actually transfering of
a soul from the physical world to the spiritual world and scientifically you can say that it is the transferring of spirit from physical to meta physical world.

meta physical is an invisible world whose exact location cannot be traced out and it is a place where all the souls reside after leaving the physical world.

As long as LIFE has been there has also been death.
Entropy is ever present.
It is all part of the balance.

Certainly life can be extended as cellular biologists have discovered, death of a cell is caused due to a toxic overload.
So they reasoned, if a cell could be kept clean of this toxic waste it should live longer.
Chicken cells normally live for 7 years, but when they determined ways to keep the cell cleaned of its wastes they extended the life span to 28 years which is 4 times it's norm.
This is all done experimentally and they haven't yet done this with a whole live chicken, just cells, but theoretically it opens a large door for scientists to explore life extension technology.

That is one info blurb.
Personally, I think that death is something that you will live through.
Your present incarnation and its ego will not, as it is material.
But your spiritual component, IMO, lives on.
I believe that the "spirit" is eternal and that is the life force which animates these bodies we live, move and have our being in.
"Such a great treasure hidden within vessels of clay".

There are other opinions which are quite different, and I respect each individuals right to have their own opinion.
Even evolutionary ideas are still largely unproven and thusly are still speculations, however learned and accepted.
You still need to take them with a grain of salt as being learned speculations.
So too with creationism which is largely myth.

The "truth" most likely is somewhere between these two positions.

Mitosis is a process of continual division without necessary death as in sexual reproduction. It is hard for strict evolutionists to explain the driving force of this transition since self sustaining mitosis is not deficient in any way for the purposes of the earth.

cardero...

your post seems to sum up the old humerouse question "If heaven is such a great place why is no one in a hurry to get there?"

i have been exposed to death a good deal, both in work and in personal life, and i find not all people die with the same attitude, some go with a self grace and dignity, some with simple acceptance and some with bitterness.

It may be surprising to know, animals leave life with the greatest surrender, they increasingly withdraw into themselves, first seeking a quiet place and then waiting.

In my fast appoaching old age with a life much exposed to the deaths of friends and family my own mortality is no longer an abstract thought, death and i have tea at the table every morning, and by virtue of it's many visits to those i loved and my own growing infirmity it's become a tolerated guest if not a welcome one.

What determines the view of an evil or good death is determined by what our expectations are regarding the worthiness of the dead person's right to life.

The young, it's felt, should be exempt from death.
As should be those who fullfill a worthy need for the rest of us
or those who live lives of noble example, and
even those who have a talent or beauty that moves us.

These deaths are counted as a waste, untimely, unjust as they do not fit into the niche we collectivly agree would be harmoniouse to the group. In some sense the group lives vicariously thru these, as the coming generational future or as the pleasantly priviledged.

On the other hand, the old are percieved to haveing fullfilled thier purpose, and thier appearance is a reminder of the future of us all, and the antisocial contribute nothing. So thier dying is no big deal.

That death doesn't follow the rules or is a respecter of people and messes up the above expectations leads to a sneaky suspicion that the god of our teachings may not be so much in controle or he is arbitrary and can't be counted on. There for it brings into question, consciosly or unconsciously, the sureity of a heaven and one's place earned in it.
And if heaven cannot be assured then only the unknown exists beyond death. Ultimatly this is feared. Then the doubt is feared as being unworthy of being an elect to heaven and it's back to appeasement.

When death approaches, there is a well known and observable reaction that one cycles thru, denial, anger, bargaining, grief and acceptance. This is usualy very rapid, and sometimes happens more then once. If acceptance is delayed or it never reaches that stage the dying person dies with rage and bitterness. i saw it happen once...it deeply scarred the woman's family.

What it all comes down to is this....death is looked upon not as a natural end to a body that cannot support life, ( whether it's old age or a car accident)but as a punishment.
Rather then life supports death and death is the fullfillment of life, life is seen as a reward and death as an accidental or divine retrobutional end to life. i think there is somekind of species egoic self importance or pride that tells us we should not be subject to the same law as other species so we make up reasons to compensate for it.

Those that seem to die with grace are those who have lived life to the hilt and not all selfishly. Surprisingly they did not seem at all sure what might lie beyond but said it might be an "adventure" one lady was a quaker and the other a professional clown.

In a discussion on another forum someone asked if i could be certain about life after death....i cannot. If i am right that will be pleasing, if i am not i won't be disappointed now will i?

Perhaps, in part, say, for when we observe children who die, we think, they went before their time, this has to do with how our society is structured.

There are 3 distinct grouping, the young, the adults and the old.
The young are deemed lacking in what it takes to be an adult and so are treated differently as they do not have sufficient knowledge or "maturity" to contribute to our adult society.
The old, at the other end, are done their run, they are retired, (basically, tossed out like an old part) and are considered infirm or feeble and also not good contributors to "adult" society.

Life is like that though.
Even though children do have meaningful contributions, they are downplayed and our society is not structured to include them other than as adults in training, so their "pre-mature" deaths then are seen as a waste of potential talent.
They didn't have a peak life experience and so it is viewed as tragic.
In a way this is true as their life from our subjective perspective wasn't complete.
But then this is just our take on things and we all are still very mystified as to life's true purpose.

If life is a training ground for young spiritual beings (who are not subject to the same laws of time and space), then the apparent randomness of our human existence becomes more understandable as lessons are learned regardless of age, and the biased goals of human society are not as important as the processes which we humans are going through to attain to them.

These are just some thoughts and comments and not an argument per se.

To tell you the truth...I don't care about death. I don't think about it...nor fear it. I see it as a natural part of human life. I also don't care what or if anything comes "hereafter". I live my life without regrets...and every day as if it were my last/first.

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May your awareness be perfection