IS THERE SUCH A THING AS DEATH?

From a scientific point of view, there is no death. There is no time when life ceases. How would we even recognize the cessation of life? We don’t know what the source of life is. All we know is that a being as we knew it, no longer looks or functions the way we’re familiar with. Death is our “notion” of the end of life, not actually the end of life.

Our bodies are “matter,” which is anything that has weight and occupies space. “Matter is neither created nor destroyed, but it can change form through physical or chemical means.” BODY STRUCTURES & FUNCTIONS, pg. 13. When someone “dies,” what we see are dramatic changes in their form. Those changes in form are what we call death and decomposition.

Einstein determined that matter could be thought of as a form of energy. Mass and energy are equivalent to each other and are interchangeable. In other words, mass is a form of energy. RELATIVISTIC ENERGY AND MASS. Our bodies are made of cells which store energy. The source of that energy is in the atoms that make up our cells. BODY STRUCTURES & FUNCTIONS.

The authors of THE PARTICLE EXPLOSION, published by Oxford University Press, dramatically illustrate the longevity of those atoms:

“Take a deep breath! You have just inhaled oxygen atoms that
have already been breathed by every person who ever lived.
At some time or other your body has contained atoms that were
once part of Moses or Isaac Newton.
***
If atoms could speak, what a tale they would tell. Some of the
carbon atoms in the ink on this page may have once been part of
a dinosaur. Their atomic nuclei may have arrived in cosmic rays,
having been fused from hydrogen and helium in distant, extinct
stars. But whatever their various histories may be, one thing
is certain. Most of their basic constituents, the fundamental
particles-- the electrons and quarks--have existed since the
primordial Big Bang at the start of time. "

Quite a picture, isn’t it?

If the source of life is the energy within these atoms, then life is eternal. But then, that’s the mystery of life, isn’t it? That’s what draws many of us to believe life continues after the event we call death.

Joseph Campbell, renowned mythologist, observed:
"The source of life--what is it? No one knows. We don't even
know what an atom is, whether it is a wave or a particle --
it is both. We don't have any idea of what these things are.

That's the reason we speak of the divine. There's a transcendent
energy source. When the physicist observes subatomic particles,
he's seeing a trace on a screen. These traces come and go, come
and go, and we come and go, and all of life comes and goes. That
energy is the informing energy of all things. Mythic worship is
addressed to that." Joseph Campbell, THE POWER OF MYTH WITH BILL MOYERS, pg. 132

According to Joseph Campbell and others, the belief that life goes on after death originated as far back as 50,000 to 60,000 BC. Maybe that belief isn’t as far-fetched as some would think.

by Shawna Ryan
Author: thrillers DESTINY'S DAMNED & SATAN'S SCAT

Sources:

BODY STRUCTURES & FUNCTIONS by Ann Senisi Scott and Elizabeth Fong, Delmar Cengage Learning, 10 Edition (March 1, 2003)

Relativistic Energy and Mass
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/212_fall2003.web.dir/Eddie_Trochim/Energymass.htm

THE PARTICLE EXPLOSION by Frank Close, Michael Marten, Christine Sutton; Oxford University Press, USA (April 9, 1987)]

Joseph Campbell, THE POWER OF MYTH WITH BILL
MOYERS, Doubleday, 1988, P.132

Joseph Campbell, TRANSFORMATIONS OF MYTH THROUGH TIME., Mythology Limited, 1990, Reissued in HarperPerennail in 1999.

SECTION VIII
Chapter 5. Is Religion Intrinsic to Our Human Condition?
http://www.entheology.org/library/winters/PHILOSO3.TXT

“DEATH RITES” http://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=109494&fullArticle=true&tocId=66354