|
Editorial: A few thoughts on mortality
Commentary by Joe McWilliams
for South Peace News
Some folks turn to the comfort of religion when faced with the prospect of death. Observing this, other folks conclude that fear of death is what spawned and maintains religion.
There’s no denying that people take comfort in the notion that a departed loved one is ‘in heaven with the angels’, or whatever. Others, however, refuse this comfort and insist on taking their grief on the rocks, as it were.
I saw this once when one relative of a deceased person angrily rejected any such words of comfort. It was taken as a cheap effort to ease pain that should not be eased.
Belief in an afterlife can definitely take some of the sting away, but of course that belief doesn’t make it any more real.
The abhorrence of death seems to be a more or less universal human trait. Cultures across the board developed elaborate myths to help soften the blow and allay fears about what was coming. At least that’s how a social scientist might describe it. Others would see those efforts as attempts to explain and understand the actual existence of an unseen force that beckons from beyond the grave.
Well, well! You can say a lot of things about the human lust for assurance of eternal life, but you can’t say it’s boring.
Take the pyramids, for example. Egyptian, Mayan or otherwise, they speak of the desire for eternity on the part of the rich and powerful. Whatever they may have accomplished, in fact, for the actual souls (if souls are, in fact, actual) of the rulers whose names and bones they bear is questionable.
But they are certainly fine monuments that make the world a much more interesting and indeed mysterious place. We seem to like a bit of mystery, don’t we? Oddly enough, some people cling to it, as if the mysteries themselves confer a sort of certainty in uncertain times.
Thus it has always been.
Meanwhile, we’re still digging ancient dead people out of bogs and other burial sites. As often as not, interred with the bodies are various trinkets, apparently aimed at improving the dead guy’s prospects in the next life. The evidence is there as it is virtually everywhere; ancient people believed in an afterlife. Some people take this as proof, or at least strong evidence, that an afterlife exists. That’s just wishful thinking, of course. They hope, but they can’t ‘know.’
The same goes for the deniers. Their faith runs in the opposite direction, and can result in something resembling ‘certainty’, based on the lack of scientific evidence to the contrary. But where human belief and emotion are concerned, the absence of scientific evidence doesn’t really prove anything.
So what’s my position? One of firm uncertainty! I know this fence-sitting act of mine frustrates and annoys certain people. But I prefer the view from here, and really, it’s not as uncomfortable as you might think. I think I’ll stay here for the time being.
One thing we should be able to agree on, though: we’re only here for a short time and ought to use that time to be good to each other.
Previous
Home
Next >
|
