Personally, I look forward to everyone’s death, including my own and all my loved ones. Mind you, I don’t think that premature death is anything less than tragic, but certainly at the end of life, death must come, and it is either quick (and therefore not so bad), or slow, and a welcome release from the pain of a last illness.
In sum, I think death is a good thing, the greiving period aside. The attitude that death is a bad thing is hypocritical and immature. IMO. Aside from the fact that we all eat things vegetable and animal that were once alive, and are now dead, that all creatures with sexual reproduction (us importantly included) must necessarily die for the survival of the species. Religions (and I am a Christian) regard death as the transformation to a better life, and some regard it as an introduction to the justice of heaven and hell. With regard to politics, Lincoln may become “one for the ages”, but the end of a political figure like, say Generalissimo Ferdinand Francisco Franco as the end of a long tyranny. Personally, I would find life to be an intolerable tyranny and oppression if people lived forever or even indefinitely. While premature death is horrible and gut wrenching, death at the end of life is natural and to be looked forward to by grown ups. Not only does it happen to all of our loved ones, it happens to everyone else too, including our stupid bosses, people who have wronged us, criminals and tyrants. While we might not be equal if life, the universe recycles us all equally in death.
Yet when the subject comes up, people assume and apparently hope that science will eventually overcome death itself, live their lives as though they will continue to do so forever. For those people, I have news which is rather depressing: you will die. You will certainly die. It is in fact more certain than the sun rising every morning. (The sun will supernova in a few billion years, you will be long dead.)
While critters with asexual division may live indefinitely, we are among the million of species that require sex to propagate, and all sexual creatures die to make way for future generations. Even the venerable Bristlecones eventually die (after five thousand or so years).
We may be afraid for the existence of our egos, we may fear God’s judgment, we may look forward to it. We may worry that only oblivion awaits. We may fear the pain of the final illness or the uncertainty. But we are going to go. Sieze the day.
What do you think? Agree or disagree? Explain.