Why Death?

TurkeyOnRye said:

Try not to think of it as death. It is merely change. Nothing that 'is' has ever died, merely changed.

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I'm not sure if that's not even worse. Change can be terrifying. Or perhaps people understand somehow that death is change and vice versa, and that's why we're so troubled by both.

But there is real loss associated with death, even if it is, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman, only the end of a point of view. To not acknowledge that seems to me to be a great disservice.

standing_on_one_foot said:

I'm not sure if that's not even worse. Change can be terrifying. Or perhaps people understand somehow that death is change and vice versa, and that's why we're so troubled by both.

But there is real loss associated with death, even if it is, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman, only the end of a point of view. To not acknowledge that seems to me to be a great disservice.

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I'm not interested in sugar-coating words. I said it merely in the interest of understanding it. We are made up of countless atoms. We are not dying. Our atoms are simply being rearranged.

TurkeyOnRye said:

We are not dying. Our atoms are simply being rearranged.

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How do you define dying, then, out of curiosity?

There is no point in sugar coating it death is merely a transition fromone form to another. However this is also the separating point for me from my agnostic concurence. For yes as the body dies science has proven atoms merely change. But for the spiritual it is not just the mortal husk that goes through a change but rather the spirit no transitions as well. At this point your soul discovers what it is to be without a mortal form.

The question of the strand is why death? My answer would be death is a neccessity in order to strengthen the soul and make it pleasing to Yahweh.

Consider for example a young child learning how to walk. At first they use objects to balance and understand the neccesary actions in order to walk. But it is only when they give up this crutch that they finally understand and start to truly walk.

The same to applies to the spirit, we must give up our mortal crutch so that our spirit can learn to walk alone. And then imagine, once it learns to walk to soon you will run,then fly and when finally the strength of your soul can go no further it will gave finally reached the end... Yahweh and the promised kingdom.

I like to think of things (truth, I guess) on two different levels:

1. Broad, all-encompassing and "as-is" (this is how I defined it)

2. Human level, general accepted "truth"s, human perspective and emotionally-charged.

We can't escape our own humanity, so I live mostly in such a state; I go to the store, ride my bike assuming that the wheels will take me there. I eat food and speak the English language. There is, however, another part of me that knows that my life is experienced only through a keyhole.

lilithu said:

Why death? Entropy.

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Yes. What divides the day-old and the million year-old organism in the battle against entropy?

Perhaps I'm confused over nothing.

lilithu said:

Why death? Entropy.

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:biglaugh: Thanks for the chuckle.

Why Death? For the same reason as "Why Life?"

One comes with the other.

ChrisP said:

Why Death? For the same reason as "Why Life?"

One comes with the other.

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I know it may sound daft asking why things 'die'. Considering though the idea that a living organism is a self-preserving chemical system that can draw energy from its interaction from the environment, it would seem plausible that the system would persevere until the energy runs out (i.e. starvation).

Jared Diamond summed up my perspective pretty well. I'll paraphrase:

It's far more advantageous to the species for individual organisms to devote most of their energy to reproduction than it would be to focus on repair. Extensive genetic diversity and more explosive population growth with small generation times is 'money', from an evolutionary perspective.

Jaiket said:

I know it may sound daft asking why things 'die'. Considering though the idea that a living organism is a self-preserving chemical system that can draw energy from its interaction from the environment, it would seem plausible that the system would persevere until the energy runs out (i.e. starvation).

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Doesn't sound daft to me Kilt-boy, but then again I'm weird like that

In a situation with a question that to me, is a subjective one, I usually turn my thoughts to the opposing subjective question. It's a balance thing.

Jaiket said:

Yes. What divides the day-old and the million year-old organism in the battle against entropy?

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Several orders of magnitude in time, but ultimately not much besides different strategies for temporarily delaying the inevitable. Complexity and regenerative abilities of the organism have something to do with determining duration. But basically, staying alive and complex takes more energy than dying and losing complexity, and lower energy always seems to win out in the end. There's a joke about thermodynamics with some truth to it about how you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game. Plus, given sufficient complexity, things are bound to break down eventually in the stressful environments you get with living, and if you depend on all your systems functioning precisely to work, this can be something of a problem.

I still hold that there is more to death than the rearrangement of atoms. Among other reasons, a persons atoms are constantly rearranged without them dying, and a person can die without significant immediate rearrangement of atoms. That's not merely an emotionally charged view, I shouldn't think.

I would like to repeat my question to TurkeyOnRye as to how you define dying, given the statement "We are not dying. Our atoms are simply being rearranged." I'm interested in knowing what you mean by dying, if what we traditionally think of as dying is not?

Jaiket said:

Yes. What divides the day-old and the million year-old organism in the battle against entropy?

Perhaps I'm confused over nothing.

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I'm the one who's confused. What's a million year-old organism? Does such a thing exist?

Are you talking about species or an actual organism? If species, I'd say that each organism within that million year old species faces the same battle as an organism of the day old species.


Every living organism fights against entropy, and sooner or later loses.

Jaiket said:

I know it may sound daft asking why things 'die'. Considering though the idea that a living organism is a self-preserving chemical system that can draw energy from its interaction from the environment, it would seem plausible that the system would persevere until the energy runs out (i.e. starvation).

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No, because things break down. (I was serious about the entropy Chris.) And the amount of energy that it would take to repair everything that breaks to good as new is more than any living system can sustain. So the damage accumulates until the system can't run anymore.

Basically, within the "self-preserving chemical system" mistakes accumulate.

lilithu said:

I'm the one who's confused. What's a million year-old organism? Does such a thing exist?

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I should think not. It was a theorised organism.

THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS ONLY ME.

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It's the body breaking apart.

Jaiket said:

What are the scientific and religious perspectives?

I'm not at all sure why we should die.

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ROMANS 5;12
That is why, just as through one man(adam) sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned............. a dent in the bread tin makes a dented loaf every time . but no worries Jehovah has every thing in hand to get rid of the dent and it will all come about through his son jesus christ and the Ransom .

Why life?

lilithu said:

Why life?

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As Jehovahs name means ..................He causes to become ............. it was Gods purpose

If we have a beginning, then we must also have an end. My death will make room for yet another soul to experience the wonder that is life. Good for them, and rest for me.

Greetings!

From the Baha'i view, death is the equivalent of graduation, when we proceed on to the Next Life (and a far fuller and wonderful existence than we have here, totally analagous to a child in the womb being born into this life)!

And from a purely practical standpoint, without death, how are you going to feed all the new mouths?! (not to mention where to house them). We can barely feed all the folks who are here now!

Peace,

Bruce