Science seems to have replaced some of these death myths, but offers no escape from death. Many of those in my collaborations through the years in the clinical sciences feel that death is simply an eternal state of unconsciousness.
What is unconsciousness? There are a few medical explanations, mostly dealing with unconsciousness ranging from a transient state to a permanent state (comatose). Fainting due to a drop in blood pressure and a decrease of the oxygen supply to the brain is an illustration of a temporary loss of consciousness. Several years ago I received substantial funding from the National Institute on Aging to study cognitive impairment due to poor oxygenation and medications causing changes in mentation.
There are also legal definitions of unconsciousness, sometimes related to the terminally ill and sometimes applied to the accused. This stretches things a bit, but it may entitle the criminal defendant to argue that they should not be held criminally liable for their actions or omissions because they were not in "their right mind" or mentally insane.
Pop culture is really interested in near-death experiences, films focus on terror and calamity. While Egyptians buried their dead and spent lifetimes preparing monuments for their death, today we largely avoid funerals and visiting cemeteries. If we attend a funeral, many people don't hold the service in a church anymore. Religion has historically been a part of death, but today it is more about obtaining a "peaceful" death and grief counseling from psychologists rather than the clergy.
For many of us, death is something a long way off. We don't want to talk about it. We would rather not focus on the cold earth that consumes our remains, the dark silence inside a coffin, or the state of our existence after death. We simply pass from being a living "BEING" to an inanimate object.
Death is concealed in our thinking really, although we love scary movies we don't like to imagine ourselves in coffins or friends attending our funeral. We live as if there is no death really, a remarkable influence of the way Hollywood has conceptualized it for us.
Death is final.
To be able to come to the conclusion there is no life after death, every single one of us defies all of the major religions and history. Ghosts, poltergeists, angels, and spirits are all mythological creatures of our imagination or there is some other explanation for the meaning of death, like getting a second chance through reincarnation.
Though everyone makes there own conclusions, I am trying here to be as objective and unbiased as possible. There is an academic side to my own inquiry, but also a spiritual one and I don't think science answers all the questions. In fact, the more I investigate this the closer I come to the conclusion that we have a soul that survives physical death. Scientists have aimed to study what really happens to the brain and consciousness when someone is on the verge of dying, reports of a "halo" or seeing friends and loved ones in people who have lost their pulse for a short period of time and been revived have often been dismissed by the medical world as hallucinations from cerebral hypoxemia or due to metabolities from medications given during the resuscitation.
How can I try to justify death and what happens after if I have never experienced death? I can't. But, in the bible (gosh, I know I lost half of you when I wrote the "B" word) there is someone who did experience death and came back to tell his friends about it.
Some wonder, well if there is some life after death, what about life before birth? I believe that I am created, that means I had a beginning. I don't know that I existed before birth, it isn't crystal clear to me though and I am not sure. Although as a follower of Christ, I have eternal life, I am not immortal. Immortal means existing through the ages, no beginning.
There is a scene in the "B" that points to this. The disciples were walking around this temple and taking in the beautiful structure - the polished marble floors, the huge blocks of limestone, and the thick pillars that held up the portico. Jesus said nothing, walking along side them thinking about his brief time with them. Up ahead, the rulers of the temple thought if this was God's son he would surely be impressed with this "church" they had built for him.
Imagine the interaction for a minute - even if you don't believe Jesus as a "Messiah" or whatever. Go back in time and imagine the hot sun overhead, the sweat beading on his forehead. In their minds, these "pastors" thought he was nothing more than a carpenter from Galilee. A man who appreciates craftsmanship in wood, a builder in the shop of his father Joseph. But, they decided to test him. "If you are the Son of God, prove it" they said.
He looked down at his own feet. He could see the scratches on his foot from the stones on the road, the leather was dusty as it wrapped around his ankles. Nothing special about this man. His robe was home spun, probably give to him by his mother who also tried to put him away. In fact, his brothers and his family did try to take him away from the crowds and put in a "hospital" of sorts. Yes, the men in white jackets were coming to take him away. Why would any one believe him? His own family didn't. His hands were calloused from working with saws, hammers, chisels and nails. He was a carpenter, not a prophet. He was a man with body odor and a bristled, unshaven face, not any Son of God.
His accusers waited for an answer. They knew they were smarter, they'd studied the scriptures and were learned men. They wanted to trap him in his answer. Most likely they were like me, a professor, sitting on a PhD committee waiting for the student to defend their dissertation. We ask tricky questions, the theory behind their decision, the statistics used. I know the process well, it is sometimes even humiliating and I try to be gentle. But, some of my colleagues go after the student like it is pleasing to "show them" their place.
OK, before I finish the story. I don't know all the answers. I am only going to give the answer HE did to his accusers.
Jesus looked up at them and said, "tear down this temple and in 3 days I will build it up again."
Dissertation time. Defend your thesis Jesus. They looked at it him and said, "this temple took over 30 years to build and you will restore it by yourself? You are barely 30 years old, how can you say you will rebuild this temple."
In academia, this is usually when the student fidgets. It is the time when your get butterflies in your stomach and you think you are defeated. By the way, for all of you and this has been some 20 years ago and my own children may not know this. I FAILED MY DISSERTATION DEFENSE. I couldn't answer all of the questions the professors asked me. I couldn't justify the statistics I used. I came up short.
OK, back to the story. Can Jesus defend himself? Does he have an answer for his skeptics? Yes, he does. It isn't a very smart answer though if that is what you are looking for. In fact, the answer was "dumb" by human standards. It was rejected by his accusers. His answer was so far fetched his own disciples didn't get it. Do you know what it was? If fact, it took a long time for his answer to even be understood by his own followers. But, they did get it and wrote about it so you and I could understand it.
He wasn't talking about the temple, he was talking about his body. He wasn't talking about the destruction of marble, but the destruction of life. Death.
Think about it. Did he live up to his answer? Tell me what you think!
