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Death. Does it really matter when or is it just superficial?(only important to us)

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
We humans are apparently the only species in existence who can contemplate their own death. That is because we are unique in being able to imagine things in our mind as a possible outcome in the future. Animals live in the present, without a concept of what will happen down the track.They do not have imagination.....they deal with what is, not what might be.
About the first sentence I have no idea. However I do believe that animals can imagine the future for themselves, why else would a cat demand food from its owner? I speak from experience.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
This verse from The Dhammapada springs to mind;

Yellow leaves hang on your tree of life. The messengers of death are waiting. You are going to travel far away. Have you any provision for the journey?
I'm not that much for poetry, but the Dhammapada is something that I cherish.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
I think it is instinctual for animals to want to live as long as possible and I have seen it in my cats, but I do not believe that any animals other than humans are consciously aware of death and I am quite sure they have no conception of an afterlife, as humans do.
I agree.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I wonder if Adam and Eve were the same or if they could contemplate their mortality.
I figure they knew they could die, since they had been told.
I would assume you would have to witness death first in order to understand it.
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
About the first sentence I have no idea. However I do believe that animals can imagine the future for themselves, why else would a cat demand food from its owner? I speak from experience.
Ummmm...it’s called hunger, a present reality that demands the animal’s attention in the present......and an animal knows from past experience where his food comes from and will return to that food source.
I also speak from experience.....
My dog knows when it’s dinner time and will remind me around the same time every day. :D

Hunger and thirst are present physical needs that must be satisfied or any living thing will die.
Eliminating waste is also a need which our bodies demand to be done....ready or not. :eek:
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
Dietary need as with all species, herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. I broadly have a plant based diet. You can speculate what dictates my diet if you like.
Your diet is your conscious choice....a result of your own reasoning. But we humans have to teach our little ones what to eat, and we have to be careful to watch over them because just about anything will go in their mouths..... :eek: Learning about food is very important because we need a balanced diet to stay healthy. We have one of the most varied diets out of all living things. And we cook and follow recipes anticipating the outcome as a future delicious meal. What other creature does this?

Animals eat a balanced diet by instinct, but if left to our own devices, without knowledge and exercising informed choice, we humans could end up digging a grave with our teeth....and despite the health warnings, sadly, many do.....by becoming slaves to their adulterated taste buds, consuming large quantities of empty calories. :(

Inter-species speculation derived from the observation of the same behaviours, yes. Yours is speculation to align with your religious beliefs.
And yours is not? :shrug:

It is not a belief, it is a fact. Only someone wishing to hold on to a certain set of beliefs denies this fact.
- Hominidae - Wikipedia
Ah yes......science!!!! The ‘religion’ of the educated or the optimistic....requiring as much “faith” and “belief” as any other religion. There are no proofs in evolutionary science. That’s what they keep telling me.....so without proof, how do you have reliable facts. It’s all educated guessing.

Let me include a quote from your reference there......

“Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term "hominid" to vary over time. The original meaning of "hominid" referred only to humans (Homo) and their closest extinct relatives. However, by the 1990s both humans, apes, and their ancestors were considered to be "hominids". The earlier restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term "hominin", which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees (Pan). The current, 21st-century meaning of "hominid" includes all the great apes including humans. Usage still varies, however, and some scientists and laypersons still use "hominid" in the original restrictive sense; the scholarly literature generally shows the traditional usage until around the turn of the 21st century.[5]

Is the jury still out or do we have a consensus that might change again tomorrow, or in a few years? You want to bet your life on science? Not me.....no thanks.

Isn’t free will a wonderful thing? We all get to choose our own future....what’s not fair about that? :)
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
I would assume you would have to witness death first in order to understand it.
They did witness death.....animals had a limited lifespan in a natural cycle of life and death, so in the years that God educated Adam before his wife’s creation, he would have witnessed many examples of death.
It is the opposite of life. Adam knew exactly what death meant.
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
Question.—In verse 22 of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians it is written: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” What is the meaning of these words?

Answer.—Know that there are two natures in man: the physical nature and the spiritual nature. The physical nature is inherited from Adam, and the spiritual nature is inherited from the Reality of the Word of God, which is the spirituality of Christ. The physical nature is born of Adam, but the spiritual nature is born from the bounty of the Holy Spirit. The first is the source of all imperfection; the second is the source of all perfection.
I think the Bible answers things quite simply and that too many people overthink everything and make it complicated.

The dual nature of man makes him unique. But why is he alone created in the image of his Maker? Why was he alone given access to a means to keep him alive forever in his mortal flesh? The only cause of death mentioned in Eden was disobedience.

The Bible’s answer is simple.....man was created to be a caretaker of this planet and of his fellow creatures. Being given God’s moral qualities and gifted with free will, he would be able to reflect his Creator’s care for his surroundings and his creatures, being able to make decisions regarding their welfare and to take care of one another as well. Humans were originally to fill the earth with their children, and transform the whole planet into a garden of Eden. They were to share the earth with its living creatures, none of whom posed a risk to the welfare of any others. All creatures were originally vegetarians. (Genesis 1:30)

The Christ sacrificed Himself so that men might be freed from the imperfections of the physical nature and might become possessed of the virtues of the spiritual nature. This spiritual nature, which came into existence through the bounty of the Divine Reality, is the union of all perfections and appears through the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is the divine perfections; it is light, spirituality, guidance, exaltation, high aspiration, justice, love, grace, kindness to all, philanthropy, the essence of life. It is the reflection of the splendor of the Sun of Reality.
So many people fail to understand why Christ came from heaven to be born as a human. (John 6:38)

God’s law was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life”. Whatever was taken had to be atoned for by an equivalent....one cancelling the other out.

Adam’s sin caused him to forfeit his life, but he also lost perfect sinless life for his children....an equivalent life had to be offered to balance the scales of God’s perfect justice because his children inherited his debt through no fault on their part. Jesus came from heaven because he had to be sinless in order to pay the redemption price. No sinful human could do so because all of Adam’s descendants were now sinful. (Imperfect, subject to wrong conduct)

Jesus' death payed the price demanded and freed the human race of Adam's debt. But because this was all brought about by the rebellion of one of God’s angels, the lesson is learned in universal time, not earth time. So the ransom has been paid, and all of Adam’s children are waiting to go “home”...back to the paradise that their original father lost for them.

It is my belief that we are in the death throes of this world right now and that very soon “the end” will come and the way will be cleared for the reintroduction of the rulership that we should have enjoyed at the beginning. There will be some survivors of these end times, but the majority of earth’s citizens will be raised to life in the resurrection that will be carried out once this old world system with all its woes is taken away, and the new world will fulfill the purpose for which it was created in the first place.

Humans will live an unending life in paradise, free from sin and death, with no worries about the future. (Revelation 21:2-4) I look forward to that time.....
 
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Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Other animals, even insects, appear to have a fear of dying.


They appear to not have a concept of aging, life span, etc. This last part is just my observation. I really can't say 100%.

The Reaper spares no one and everything knows.
If they do have a fear they are not quaking in their boots worrying about it like we do. Once danger is over, life goes on as if nothing happened. Fear only kicks in when trouble brews and triggers the fight or flight response.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
They did witness death.....animals had a limited lifespan in a natural cycle of life and death, so in the years that God educated Adam before his wife’s creation, he would have witnessed many examples of death.
It is the opposite of life. Adam knew exactly what death meant.
I don't recall any particular passages that reflect that.

Maybe in the apocryphal volumes somewhere?
 

Viker

Häxan
If they do have a fear they are not quaking in their boots worrying about it like we do. Once danger is over, life goes on as if nothing happened. Fear only kicks in when trouble brews and triggers the fight or flight response.
That's because they can't or don't want to over think the situation. It's a slight advantage we have in most cases. We can prepare for the next monster, probably involving a Mossberg for the beast.
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
I don't recall any particular passages that reflect that.

Maybe in the apocryphal volumes somewhere?
Its all there in Genesis actually.....
The creative "days" were not 24 hour periods as scientists will confirm....we live on an ancient planet which had ancient creatures now long extinct.
The Hebrew word "yohm" (day) has more than one meaning. It can be a 24 hour period, or it can be a period of undetermined length. (as stated in Genesis 2:4 where the whole of creation is spoken about as occurring in a "day".)
Even in English, we use the term to indicate a period of time much longer than a literal "day". (e.g. "in my grandfather's day")

So in Genesis 2:19-20 we see that there was a considerable period of education where the man was without a mate....

"Now Jehovah God had been forming from the ground every wild animal of the field and every flying creature of the heavens, and he began bringing them to the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man would call each living creature, that became its name. 20 So the man named all the domestic animals and the flying creatures of the heavens and every wild animal of the field, but for man there was no helper as a complement of him."

We can see that all the birds, other flying things (which would include bats and all the different flying insects), and the wild and domestic animals were brought to Adam for him to observe them and give them an appropriate name....not something done in a mere 24 hours.

Only after that assignment, did God present Adam with a mate. He had observed that every creature had a mate, except him. (Genesis 2:18)
 
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