Why Do We Die?
Why Do We Die?
Science and religion both offer origin stories of death.
It is tempting to set up religion against science in any discussion
of life, death, and purpose. But religion and science are different
kinds of things and one can find spiritual
truths in both of them. Why we die is a question for which both offer
an answer. Science answers in relation to the mechanics of life, which
are based on the inferences we can make from material experience.
Religions, to differing degrees, offer explanations for what lies beyond
the curtain: they tell us about what we do not know, and sometimes
cannot know, and must therefore take on faith.
Throughout history, there was a lot we didn't know. Religions provided God, in many forms, as an explanation for why things happened as they did. For many Christians, if God wanted them to know about something, it was in the Bible, and if it wasn't there, then they felt they didn't need to know.
Eventually, people started trying to figure out answers for themselves and death was taken out of the hands of God. Galileo was one of the kingpins of this let's-figure-it-out-ourselves movement. He and others developed the power of investigation to a fine art. Though it didn't always confirm what was written in religious texts, people drew confidence from the power of this approach. It explained death not as God's will, but partly in terms of things we could control. We discovered things like penicillin, C-sections, and immunization, all of which prevented deaths that in the past had to be accounted for by some divine malevolence.
In sum, we realized that in many cases, people's deaths were preventable. But to prevent them, we had to know the practicalities of why people died. We had to understand disease, trauma, development, and old age. Prayer, as far as anyone can tell, does not prevent death.
But, eventually, everyone dies. So why do we have to die at all?
Religions offer answers. According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were punished with death by sinning against God (Genesis 3:17). As descendants of Adam and Eve, we share in their fate. Fair enough. But why do animals, like your dog, have to die? Did his ancestors eat from the doggy tree of knowledge? And trees die of old age too, which is just confusing. But maybe it's safer to say that God granted impermanence to all things as punishment for knowledge.
According to Islamic scholars, life is a test that ends with death: "Every soul shall have a taste of death and we test you by evil and by good by way of trial." (Quran 21:35). Christianity shares this judgment day vision as well.
Christianity and Islam are "other world" explanations for death. There are many of these kinds of religions. Norse mythology granted those who died well in combat an afterlife in Valhalla with Odin or in Frejya's field. In Greek mythology, the good passed to Elysian Fields. These other world explanations offer our lives as a transition from wherever we were before to a resting place beyond.
Some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism are variations on the other-world idea. They explain death as the end of a test, which is then followed by reincarnation. One's next life is determined by the quality of one's acts in this life. When one rises above the test, rising above preferences, one becomes liberated, finds nirvana, or is enlightened. This enlightened state isn't separate from this world, but it is a release from the suffering of this world.1
There is a nice example of this way of thinking in the Vedanta philosophy written down in the Upanishads. Here God is not above this world, but is this world and everything in it. God is purple mountains and red Ferraris, politicians and dog poo. To be liberated is to realize that oneself and everything else is of the same fabric. Life as we often think of it, as divisions between you and I or one cult and another, are simply tricks we play on ourselves that keep us from understanding the true nature of God and reality. We think we die because God plays hide-and-seek with himself. But we never die, we just fall back into the wave of God. Alan Watts book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Really Are is an enjoyable romp through this way of thinking.
But religions don't really need to explain the details of life and death. Religions don't have to explain why sunsets are so absorbing. They don't have to explain why blue light refracts more than red light, thus making the sunset red. We can accept physical laws as God's preference if we like. The practicalities of our material experience obey their own laws and they must therefore lie where religions leave off. Where your experience and religion contradict, then it is up to you to investigate the conflict. Of course, you are allowed not to care. But no God worth believing in should reward you for something you never took the time to truly understand.
We can rely to a degree on our experience to understand the question of why we die and why we live. Born from the same line of thinking as Galileo's figuring-it-out-ourselves and Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, our experience has a lot to say on these issues. You can consider science as a kind of empirical spiritualism, as it shares much in common with some of the religions described above. It is restricted to this material world because it is based on what we can infer from this world. Moreover, it provides a kind of practical knowledge that keeps people alive. Many people not only experience this empirical spiritualism in their life and work but believe it in their bones to be true. It is religious even if the church is no further away than simply paying attention to the reality of your life.
Science is one aspect of this experience. It is far from flawless, for all kinds of reasons. In part, it is based on the collective experience of millions of people who have tried to organize their knowledge in ways that help them understand the rules of this material world. Indeed, it is working together that led to the discovery of penicillin, immunization, the structure of DNA, how to split the atom, velcro, and so on. And it offers great insights into life and death.
Throughout history, there was a lot we didn't know. Religions provided God, in many forms, as an explanation for why things happened as they did. For many Christians, if God wanted them to know about something, it was in the Bible, and if it wasn't there, then they felt they didn't need to know.
Eventually, people started trying to figure out answers for themselves and death was taken out of the hands of God. Galileo was one of the kingpins of this let's-figure-it-out-ourselves movement. He and others developed the power of investigation to a fine art. Though it didn't always confirm what was written in religious texts, people drew confidence from the power of this approach. It explained death not as God's will, but partly in terms of things we could control. We discovered things like penicillin, C-sections, and immunization, all of which prevented deaths that in the past had to be accounted for by some divine malevolence.
In sum, we realized that in many cases, people's deaths were preventable. But to prevent them, we had to know the practicalities of why people died. We had to understand disease, trauma, development, and old age. Prayer, as far as anyone can tell, does not prevent death.
But, eventually, everyone dies. So why do we have to die at all?
Religions offer answers. According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were punished with death by sinning against God (Genesis 3:17). As descendants of Adam and Eve, we share in their fate. Fair enough. But why do animals, like your dog, have to die? Did his ancestors eat from the doggy tree of knowledge? And trees die of old age too, which is just confusing. But maybe it's safer to say that God granted impermanence to all things as punishment for knowledge.
According to Islamic scholars, life is a test that ends with death: "Every soul shall have a taste of death and we test you by evil and by good by way of trial." (Quran 21:35). Christianity shares this judgment day vision as well.
Christianity and Islam are "other world" explanations for death. There are many of these kinds of religions. Norse mythology granted those who died well in combat an afterlife in Valhalla with Odin or in Frejya's field. In Greek mythology, the good passed to Elysian Fields. These other world explanations offer our lives as a transition from wherever we were before to a resting place beyond.
Some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism are variations on the other-world idea. They explain death as the end of a test, which is then followed by reincarnation. One's next life is determined by the quality of one's acts in this life. When one rises above the test, rising above preferences, one becomes liberated, finds nirvana, or is enlightened. This enlightened state isn't separate from this world, but it is a release from the suffering of this world.1
There is a nice example of this way of thinking in the Vedanta philosophy written down in the Upanishads. Here God is not above this world, but is this world and everything in it. God is purple mountains and red Ferraris, politicians and dog poo. To be liberated is to realize that oneself and everything else is of the same fabric. Life as we often think of it, as divisions between you and I or one cult and another, are simply tricks we play on ourselves that keep us from understanding the true nature of God and reality. We think we die because God plays hide-and-seek with himself. But we never die, we just fall back into the wave of God. Alan Watts book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Really Are is an enjoyable romp through this way of thinking.
But religions don't really need to explain the details of life and death. Religions don't have to explain why sunsets are so absorbing. They don't have to explain why blue light refracts more than red light, thus making the sunset red. We can accept physical laws as God's preference if we like. The practicalities of our material experience obey their own laws and they must therefore lie where religions leave off. Where your experience and religion contradict, then it is up to you to investigate the conflict. Of course, you are allowed not to care. But no God worth believing in should reward you for something you never took the time to truly understand.
We can rely to a degree on our experience to understand the question of why we die and why we live. Born from the same line of thinking as Galileo's figuring-it-out-ourselves and Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, our experience has a lot to say on these issues. You can consider science as a kind of empirical spiritualism, as it shares much in common with some of the religions described above. It is restricted to this material world because it is based on what we can infer from this world. Moreover, it provides a kind of practical knowledge that keeps people alive. Many people not only experience this empirical spiritualism in their life and work but believe it in their bones to be true. It is religious even if the church is no further away than simply paying attention to the reality of your life.
Science is one aspect of this experience. It is far from flawless, for all kinds of reasons. In part, it is based on the collective experience of millions of people who have tried to organize their knowledge in ways that help them understand the rules of this material world. Indeed, it is working together that led to the discovery of penicillin, immunization, the structure of DNA, how to split the atom, velcro, and so on. And it offers great insights into life and death.
