Death is not optional. It’s the only thing in life you really can’t get out of. When the Reaper shows up, even I probably won’t be able to talk my way out of going along. We’ll see.
Religion faces up to death. Well, let’s be honest, religion is based on death. It’s all about ‘this life is crap but if you do as we tell you, the next one will be better’. Every religion is a death cult but in their favour, every religion recognises the inevitability of death.
Modern medicine does not. If there is one thing worse than a death cult, it’s an immortality cult. Death is inevitable, immortality is impossible. Yet modern medicine bases its immortality cult on pretty much the same premise as the religious death cults. ‘Do as we tell you, and this shitty life will go on forever’.
So, no smoking, no drinking, no fun of any kind and you’ll live forever? Nope. You’ll die anyway. Of nothing. When the Puritans of old did this they at least promised that the next life would be better. The MedicoPuritans promise only an eternity of the same miserable existence. A life that would have most of us begging to die within a week of starting it.
Look at the headlines associated with these links –
‘Prevent early death’. We have no idea when any of us are going to die. People younger than me have died, people older than me have not. It might be genetic, it might be lifestyle, it might be a truck with a distracted driver. It can happen to any of us at any time and it is an entirely individual thing.
Medical science no longer recognises the individual. It regards us as identical clones who must be made to fit a standard model. That’s why it insists on standardised intakes of all nutrients, regardless of individual size, genetics or metabolism. As for individual preferences, no such concept exists in modern medicine. We are machines to be fine tuned, not people living lives.
You cannot prevent early death unless you know the date of your death. If you have a defined appointment with Mr. Grim and you die before that, then it’s early death. He’s going to be really pissed off if you show up early and make him rewrite his entire appointment schedule.
Nobody has such an appointment. Well, if the ‘fate’ thing is true then we do all have appointments but none of us know when they are. That’s why Death does house calls.
The second link claims that eating hot spicy foods ‘lowers the risk of death’. No it doesn’t. There is no ‘risk’ when considering something that is definitely going to happen one day.
Sure, you can dodge the Reaper for a bit longer if you’re careful but you only have one go at this life. Even if reincarnation is real, the studies on that subject suggest that you remember little to nothing of your previous life so can’t learn from it. Also, if everyone was reincarnated, there’d be no ghosts and no Heaven or Hell – and not enough souls to fill an increasing population of bodies. Nobody knows how it all works, so pay no attention to anyone who claims they do.
If there is a Heaven and/or Hell, you’re going to be in them for eternity. You have a little time here to enjoy yourself before spending eternity doing the same thing every day. Either praising God every day or having a hot pitchfork rammed up your spiritual arse every day. Neither of which sounds like a whole lot of fun. I can see why people would choose the non-pitchfork option though.
If you don’t believe in any kind of afterlife then you have an eternity of decomposing into atoms and disappearing altogether. Sounds awful, but probably still better than the pitchfork.
So this is it. A short playtime in eternity, no matter what you believe. Like all playgrounds, it has its bullies and its know-alls. You can choose to give in to the bullies and listen to the know-alls and spend your only playtime being scared and controlled.
Or you can tell them all to get stuffed and just have a good time your own way.
In the end, everyone will die. Everyone. Don’t worry about it. There’s no point spending your entire short playtime watching the clock to see when it will end. You can never know when that bell will ring for you so enjoy the fun while it lasts.
The medics claim that if you sit quietly and don’t play too hard, then you will live longer, but you never know when you were going to die so you can never know if they were right. Maybe, just maybe, we get to know that answer at the end.
What if you could have had all the fun and you’d have died at the same time anyway? What would it feel like to look back at that?
underdogs bite upwards 
The problem is that no amount of ‘healthy’ eating and sitting quietly will stop you getting killed by any matter of randomness. Cancer is said to be no respecter of the ‘healthy’ lifestyle, two thirds of all cases are alleged to be down to genetic predisposition and ‘pure dumb luck’. That’s without fatal accidents, the majority of which are said to be domestic.
Might as well get out there and live a little. You only live once. Because when the blade swings, the corn falls, regardless of its diet.
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…two thirds of all cases are alleged to be down to genetic predisposition and ‘pure dumb luck’
Sadly, that doesn’t stop indoctrinated medics preaching to patients, presumably on the grounds that, if an ‘unhealthy’ lifestyle causes cancer, a cancer patient must have an unhealthy lifestyle.
Add to that the refusal to recognise the individual, as LI describes, and we are no longer at home to Mr Logic; a quick straw poll of my nearest and dearest reveals a lifelong non-drinker told to give up the booze, a regular hill-walker instructed to take some exercise and an eight-stone woman solemnly informed that patients with her form of cancer stood a better chance of recovery if they lost at least three stone before surgery – “Here’s a diet sheet”.
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And at the other end of the scale… I once told a GP the truth about my drinking and smoking and diet. He sent me for every test under the sun, some twice, and could find nothing at all wrong with me.
They still send letters sometimes. The most memorable was ‘We see that you are still smoking. If you would like help to stop…’ I didn’t trust myself to reply.
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This one-eyed preoccupation with “lifestyle” that modern doctors tend to have has another, rather more subtle effect on the doctor/patient relationship and the deterioration thereof than just the irksomeness of being told how to live by someone who, often, has been on the planet for less than half the time that the patient has.
My OH has never smoked in his life. Despite this, on regular visits to his GP for high BP checks (how ironic!) she would ask him: “Have you given up smoking yet?” Time and again, over many years he would answer: “I don’t smoke. Never have.” And she would check his notes and say: “Oh yes, that’s right.” Then she’d get on with her job of checking his BP.
Then, after about 12 years of this, on one amazing appointment, she started the conversation with: “Ah, now, you don’t smoke, do you?” He couldn’t help but congratulate her for remembering at last. Upon which (predictably) she immediately asked him how much he drank each week – expressing no small measure of disapproval when he told her (he likes his ale, does my boy!) Now, his consumption (pretty much all beer, little wine, no spirits) isn’t up in the stratosphere, but it’s certainly above “recommended guidelines,” so – you guessed it – thenceforth every appointment was started with: “Now, how have you done on cutting down on your drinking?”
As he said to me at a later date, it’s pretty worrying when the doctor can’t remember facts which are clearly (to them) all-consumingly important – like whether one is a smoker or not – from one appointment to another, when you’re a “regular” (as he was), and even more poor show when, even if they can’t remember, they can’t be bothered to look up your notes before you walk through the door. And, as he pointed out, he could have been drinking his liver into a sponge for 12 years and been on the brink of keeling over with organ failure to all she knew – simply because she was so obsessed with his non-existent smoking habits!
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The finest, healthiest diet in the world will not stop an out of control car or a random mutation.
Some people like to live on tofu and beans. Fine. Good luck to them as long as they don’t get into enclosed spaces with me. Others live on those things because they think they should, or because they’ve been scared away from normal foods like bacon, burgers and chips.
I eat a lot of chilli for no other reason than I like chilli. If it makes me live longer, all that means to me is that I get to eat more chilli 🙂
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“Regularly eating spicy foods associated with a lower the risk of death, BMJ study says”
Jesus they can’t even string a coherent sentence together, what kind of trust can one have in these quacks? (Maybe they were pissed?)
And after an opening like that, hardly encourages anyone to read the rest of the guff does it?
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The best part comes near the end – spicy foods might lower the risk of death or maybe not.
In other words, ‘we got paid for this shite so we thought we should publish something’.
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Life is what you make it – and so will eternity be, depending on what you have made of this life. The books will be opened for the Judgment.
There is a time appointed for us to die, so I don’t think there’s much we can do to extend our life. We could shorten it through reckless behaviour, I suppose and that’s where it pays not to be blasé about certain things just because the control freaks are involved. For example, there is no point in trying to cock a snook at the Controllers by drinking yourself to death.
Reincarnation? Eastern religions are full of flights of fancy like this. Some say the world is not real; all is illusion. David Icke has picked up on this theme for his New Age Pagan religion disguised as ‘truth’. He insists that all matter is a holographic projection. He also says that the moon is full of aliens controlling us with mind rays.
Mainstream media have been attacking Christianity for decades, so many people think that eternity in Heaven is going to be really boring, while eternity in Hell will be one big party.
Having been an alcoholic for a decade, I don’t want to party for eternity. Not that way, anyway. Even you, Leggy, seem to have admitted that getting drunk regularly is no kind of life.
The “atheists”/humanists have a lot to answer for. They are useful idiots who have changed our country beyond recognition. Due to them, we have an increasingly corrupt and confused ‘justice’ system, a breakdown of family and society and this cult of immortality. Seeing as they probably don’t believe in an afterlife, they probably want to try to squeeze every last dementia-ridden second out of everyone’s life. It gives their own life meaning.
As a Christian, my life has meaning which doesn’t involve either bossing people around or living exactly according to government limits and ‘advice’/orders. I have far more important priorities.
I know that the government doesn’t care, but that Christ does.
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You know I don’t have any faith, but I agree that drinking yourself to death just to spite the Righteous is daft. I had other reasons for drinking that much, which I think I’ve made clear recently, and don’t drink so much now 😉
The medics seem to have a strange mindset. They want us to live into dependent old age and then berate us for being dependent old people. Why not just let us have our booze and cigarettes and salty fatty food and let us die happy and still coherent?
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It is a conundrum because pets behave better when they are given treats. Maybe we haven’t sat up and begged properly? The Romans had bread and circuses but our circuses are closing down (like pubs and clubs) and a family day out at a football match can cost well into three figures and if it’s Rangers or Celtic and you sing a ‘sectarian’ song you can be arrested, even if those round about you are being more offensive with their language in the presence of cheeeldren. The referee can be called the “B in the black”. Is that still legal? Is suggesting that the ref is blind a ‘hate crime’?
“You know I don’t have any faith…”
Everybody has faith; they have a worldview which they believe is true. Many people have faith that evolution theory is true and it can now be considered a religion – this was written by one of the World’s most ardent anti-Creationist evolutionists:
HOW EVOLUTION BECAME A RELIGION
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Didn’t reincarnation form part of the Church’s teaching before the Council of Nicea?
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Doctrine has become corrupted over the centuries, but you wouldn’t find reincarnation in the scriptures (the Saviour excepted). Ar least, I didn’t. At least, not in the KJV.
The O.T. talks about the dead sleeping with their fathers. In the N.T. we have the rich man in Hell seeing Lazarus afar off with Abraham and in another instance, Christ tells one of the other two men being killed with Him, “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
So, rather than being given another go to try and live life differently, it appears that we have this one shot at mortality and after our death will be held in a place we deserve to be to await the Judgment.
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My oncologist is refreshingly sane about cancer, blaming genetic predisposition/bad luck. Unlike my gp who has shades of the ‘indoctrination’ from the health nazis: he’s particularly obsessive about alcohol/smoking. I detect that the world at large blames the victim. Partly because of the indoctrination, but also because of fear that they might get it too. Strangely, the field of alternative therapy offers an instant ‘cure’ based on all manner of crazy diets, vitamin pills and whatnot, none of which has any scientific basis. I’ve lost count of the people I’ve met who put their faith in these therapies for all manner of ills.
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I blame modern medicine for the rise of alternative therapies. When your doctor draws conclusions such as ‘you have cancer therefore you smoke’ even if you’ve never puffed on a single one, that’s pretty much the end of trust.
All a self-appointed shaman has to do is listen and believe what the patient tells them, and they win over the GP.
I wonder if the medics will ever realise that?
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My granddaughter would have been sixteen had she not died of medulloblastoma just short of her second birthday. Hardly a lot of input from a dodgy lifestyle there, I would suggest.
Someone wrote that if you could mend your car with a Haynes manual you could get by as a pharmacist. I suspect that, along with political indoctrination, that level of knowledge has become endemic in the medical industry.
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A lot of labs involved in testing (food, water etc) now use SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) which are basically a set of detailed step by step instructions to be followed absolutely.
This came about because of the lawyers and the need to prove that everything was done exactly correctly. The side effect is that you can employ any idiot capable of following a script now, and innovation is fast disappearing.
So yes, if you can follow a Haynes manual, you can get a job testing eggs for Salmonella. Which is something I find a little scary.
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Especially given the quality of Haynes manuals. I bought one once, for a secondhand Ford Fiesta I had. The one time I needed that manual, to replace an oil pressure sensor, the manual was utterly and completely silent on the thing even existing, never mind what sort of connector it had.
Bloody useless manual!
Cost me fifteen quid for the useless manual, then a further twenty five to get a mechanic to do what I could’ve done myself.
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As Bill says: “The problem is that no amount of ‘healthy’ eating and sitting quietly will stop you getting killed by any matter of randomness. “
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Lovely piece! Shortage of souls – best argument I’ve read against reincarnation!
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… unless, of course, there’s some kind of job-share system in place, which could explain those times when we go a bit barmy, not quite ourselves, etc?
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Judging by some of the “humans” around these days, the shortage could have been made up from the souls of wee beasties. I reckon the most irritating subs are ex-wasps!
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Early/Pre-mature death can not be avoided.
Average age of death is the 50th percentile.
No matter what the average age of death, 80 or 100, exactly 50% will be early/pre-mature deaths.
No matter what you do or how you live your life, there is a 50% certainty of your having an early/pre-mature death.
50% of the paranoid healthists will die before the other 50% of them.
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My wife is Theravada Buddhist, and firmly believes in reincarnation. She also believes in ghosts, and thinks that us decadent westerners have lost touch with the spiritual world. I don’t bother to argue. Really, what’s the point? She’s very down to earth in most ways (unsurprisingly, as she’s an accountant by profession), but still holds very much to her cultural heritage.
I’d never actually considered the fact that as the population increases, the soul count is going to be spread very thin. That’s something I’ll have to ask her about. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it’s already been dealt with by the elders, and that there is a very good explanation for it. Religion is like that. They do tend to cover all the bases.
As Gary points out above, 50% of the people will die prematurely whatever their lifestyle, a fact that seems to escaped the ‘Public Health’ lobby. I for one have never listened to the pontifications of those-who-would-dictate-our-lifestyles, and I seem to be doing ok so far. But mainly, I have ENJOYED my life, and continue to do so. If I depart this mortal coil tomorrow, I will go in the sure knowledge that I have done more and had more fun than any of the grey joyless ones, even if they outlive me by forty years. They are people, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
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That’s a song that should get a lot more air time.
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