Psychology Today says of DEATH:
"The fact that the mind is dependent on the brain essentially rules out survival outside a physical body - no heaven, no hell. It also rules out reincarnation, as reincarnation requires the persistence of a mind without a brain between incarnations, a mind that can be transferred from one brain to another. Furthermore, as the philosopher Robert Nozick pointed out, even if survival of death were possible in principle (a doubtful proposition), ‘there would be no selective pressure for the survival of bodily death, for this would not lead to greater reproductive success'. It seems that we must conclude, along with the writer Vladimir Nabokov, that ‘our existence is but a brief crack of light
between two eternities of darkness'. Brains that think otherwise - brains that deny they are brains and believe instead that they are eternal souls - are brains that hold false beliefs about themselves.
Having established this point, we might want to ask why people so consistently fear death. If death is nothing, then surely there is nothing to fear. We do not regret our past non-existence, so why do we regret the prospect of our future non-existence? We do not mourn the fact that our loved ones did not exist before they were born, so why do we mourn their non-existence after they die? To a purely logical mind, these questions would seem perfectly reasonable. But given the importance of survival for evolved beings, it is hardly surprising that we instinctively fear death and mourn our loved ones. According to the philosopher Derek Parfit, ‘In giving us this attitude, Evolution denies us the best attitude to death'. The fear of death is an unpleasant - and ultimately unfounded - gift from natural selection." PsychologyToday
God says of DEATH:
Our life is but a brief crack of light, or better put, a vapor-
(For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James 4:14). And before are two possible eternities (And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel 12:2).
Also, For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing... Ecclesiastes 9:5.
"The fact that the mind is dependent on the brain essentially rules out survival outside a physical body - no heaven, no hell. It also rules out reincarnation, as reincarnation requires the persistence of a mind without a brain between incarnations, a mind that can be transferred from one brain to another. Furthermore, as the philosopher Robert Nozick pointed out, even if survival of death were possible in principle (a doubtful proposition), ‘there would be no selective pressure for the survival of bodily death, for this would not lead to greater reproductive success'. It seems that we must conclude, along with the writer Vladimir Nabokov, that ‘our existence is but a brief crack of light
Having established this point, we might want to ask why people so consistently fear death. If death is nothing, then surely there is nothing to fear. We do not regret our past non-existence, so why do we regret the prospect of our future non-existence? We do not mourn the fact that our loved ones did not exist before they were born, so why do we mourn their non-existence after they die? To a purely logical mind, these questions would seem perfectly reasonable. But given the importance of survival for evolved beings, it is hardly surprising that we instinctively fear death and mourn our loved ones. According to the philosopher Derek Parfit, ‘In giving us this attitude, Evolution denies us the best attitude to death'. The fear of death is an unpleasant - and ultimately unfounded - gift from natural selection." PsychologyToday
God says of DEATH:
Our life is but a brief crack of light, or better put, a vapor-
(For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James 4:14). And before are two possible eternities (And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel 12:2).
Also, For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing... Ecclesiastes 9:5.
Death is NOT part of some sort of natural selection, but rather a consequence of sin... the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ezekiel 18:4
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1 Thessalonians 4:16
