Think about Death!It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man - the living should take this to heart.
- Ecclesiastes 6:15
Think about Death!(WIth a LIttlE hELp frOm ShakEspEarE, PaSCal, & RiDLey SCOtt)
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away...
[Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1]
Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance,
people have decided,
in order to be happy,
not to think about such things...
[Blaise Pascal, Pensees]]
Naked a man comesfrom his mother's womb,
and as he comes, so he departs.
He takes nothing from his labour that he can carry in his hands. - Ecclesiastes 6:15
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the
Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time,
like tears in rain.
Time to die."
- Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer), replicant,
in Ridley Scott's brilliant film Blade Runner.
Click for Blade Runner sites
Why are we afraid to die?
Shakespeare's Hamlet gives one reason in his famous soliloquy.
What if there is something worse than annihilation after death...?
To Be or not to Be...that is the question...
...the dread of something after death, -
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, - puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others we know not of.
[Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1]
"But I didn't have the salmon mousse!"
- Monty Python, The Meaning of Life
Are you prepared to face the hard questions? Who am I? What is Man? Where Am I going?
Or will you put your head in the sand of comfortable middle class materialism
and be caught unawares when the grim reaper appears?
Before you know it you'll be dead you know!
Be born, make a fuss,
get up early, catch a bus,
get ill, then die...
that's life, goodbye.
[author unknown]
"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say "I find no pleasure in them"..." - Ecclesiastes 12:1
No MAttEr hOW LOng yOu LIve, yOu wILL bE dEAd a LOT loNGer.
Makes sense to prepare for it, don't you think?
Why do we plan for retirement which might not happen,
but ignore death which will?
Excerpts from Pensées (Thoughts) by Blaise Pascal (1623-62):
...man wants to be happy, only wants to be happy,
and cannot help wanting to be happy.
But how shall he go about it?
The best thing would be to make himself immortal,
but as he cannot do that,
he has decided to stop himself thinking about it.
The fool thinks just of happiness, but the wise man thinks of death - Ecclesiastes
...However sad a man may be,
if you can persuade him to take up some diversion he will be happy while it lasts,
and however happy a man may be,
if he lacks diversion and has no absorbing passion or entertainment to keep boredom away,
he will soon be depressed and unhappy. [Thought: Why are you surfing the net?]
From childhood on men are made responsible for the care of their honour, their property, their friends...
they are burdened with duties, ...and given to understand that they can never be happy unless their health, their honour, their fortune, and that of their friends are in good shape, and that it needs only one thing to go wrong to make them unhappy.
So they are given responsibilities and duties which harass them from the first moment of each day.
You will say that is an odd way to make them happy.
What better means could one devise to make them unhappy? What could one do?
You would only have to take away all their cares, and then
they would see themselves and think about what they are, where they come from, and where they are going.
That is why people can never get too much occupied and distracted,
and that is why, when they have been given so many things to do,
if they have some time off they are advised to spend it on diversion and sport, [such as surfing the net!?]
and always to keep themselves fully occupied. How hollow and foul is the heart of man!
- Blaise Pascal, Pensees.
...the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure - Ecclesiastes 6:4
Does anyone care?
Jesus said, "I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies."
Are YOU sure that if you died tonight, you would go to heaven?
Wherever you are in your spiritual journey... we want to encourage you to think clearly about what you believe and why. Does your faith give you a reason to live, a basis for morality, a certain hope for the future, and power for living?
