Death divine, and the light of day

My grandfathers memorial was today. That statement is met with a head tilt and a reassuringly general apology. Without question it is met with compassionate understanding and acceptance. This was certainly the case for my legendary granddad who died peacefully in his bed in his home with loved ones around him as he ducked a week before his 98^th birthday party. However that might not have been the case, but he was old and death is expected with old people. If you die younger than old it is not only unexpected, then by god it is unacceptable.

I do not believe in the pearly gates or the priests and heaven for me is on earth not in the hereafter and I have come to accept that death, be it that of a baby or a grandbaby is equal. Time is after all our own concept. Can we conceive that there is no time, or that time is endless, or even, timeless? I also don’t believe in gods will, or that some holy jew has my life signed sealed and delivered, and yet I accept that all death is a part of life. For the first time I saw an acceptance of death with the passing of my beloved grandfather, and an almost condemnation for any sadness. For as long as I can remember I’ve been adoringly in love with him, and while he pushed one hundred I still wanted him to be there for those occasions you want the people you love to be there for.

When my brother-in-law died it was met with shock and disbelief, questions and tears and disapproval. Despite the adage that only the good die young, dying young is unacceptable. Similar to a tragedy when someone dies by the hand of someone, or god forbid by some animal, that indignation is so far removed from acceptance that it is condemned with deplorable intolerance.

We will all die, it is the only certainty in our entire lives, so is it really that surprising? Surely irrelevant of your beliefs you can accept that when you are meant to die you will die and there are only so many ways in which that can happen. Surely we can accept young-age-death as sincerely and compassionately as we accept old-age-death? Our options are limited like night and day, we can die from either a natural or unnatural cause, and we can die either young or old. Both those concepts, natural and unnatural, young and old, are as finite and insubstantial as night and day.

 

Why did the précis put the proof in the pudding and not in the eating?

Proof / evidence / fact, are as subjective as faith / belief / hope. In fact where does belief lie, because what is a fact without first believing it to be true? Truth is just as subjective. Where does fact begin and faith end, or are they as entwined as night and day?

I have never hidden the fact that I am not religious and while I more often get to argue against indoctrination, I rarely get to argue for faith. Strictly (grammatically) speaking I am atheist but I do not define myself, and I enjoy arguing against negative connotations theists have for atheists. Theists bang on about trust and atheists about theory, but both began with the word. One difference being that atheists evolve, and theists are set in stone.

Fellow atheists are often scientists for the love of proof. Latter-day sages they specialize in one field disproving it to prove it to validate that everything can and must be proved. So once proven must all else then be improved upon? Or is all else left in that intimate pile of belief? Men are not killed in the name of science but there has been a certain amount of destruction for scientific theory. Take biologist Carl Linnaeus the man who named every little thing, but to find every little thing to name, he had to flog it. Collecting plant or insect samples (aka flogging a tree and picking up everything that died and fell out of that tree) is harmless because how else can you define and name every little thing, right? He also happened to name certain little critters after certain people in his life who displeased him (Hilarious, right). Or does this just highlight how much of what we know is based on someone making it so? Including our very own name. Equipped with nothing more than that name you never chose, how many of us can prove anything for ourselves, let alone disprove? If you vehemently accept your church and deny evolution, or if you fully accept evolution and deny creation, both is your belief. It takes an equal amount of faith, even to believe that your belief is a lie.

The saying “the proof of the pudding, is in the eating” has been abridged to “the proof is in the pudding” not “the proof is in the eating.” As if the proof is in the pie in the sky and we need no longer taste it for ourselves.