Thought of the Day: Why Do We Die?

Today in class, my tutor raised an interesting issue. I'm not sure how it came about, other than we were studying the philosophy of mind. The conversation went like this:

Tutor: "did you know that scientists don't know why we die?"
Boy in class: "well if a truck hits you, that's how you die"
Tutor: "we don't know how we naturally die"

My tutor meant that if a person dies of 'natural causes', we don't know what that means or what that 'cause' was. It's something I had never thought of before, but it was an interesting point, especially coming from a person who doesn't think we have a soul and doesn't think that God exists. He admitted that there's something his 'all-knowing science' couldn't answer.

So why do we die of natural causes? What is that? What does it mean? Why are we mortal?

Well here's the answer, it's because we sin. Romans 6:23 'For the wages of sin is death' tells us that it is our sin that causes us to die. Death is the inevitable punishment for our sin. The second part of the verse gives us hope 'but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord'. Sin is the reason we die and we all sin. Science will never be able to tell us that. Christians still die because Christians still sin, but the difference is, with repentence and faith in the Saviour, Christians inherit everlasting life.

Did you know that Moses lived to be 120? Did you know that Abraham lived to be 175? It is believed Noah lived to be 950. Why? Because these were all righteous men of God. Remove the sin, as God does, and death can be postponed. All things are possible with God. Science would be inclined to disagree with the above statements about the ages of the prophets, but since science cannot find reasons for death, how could science prove these men did not live to be that long?

How great it is that God gives us the answers where science can't. We should always put our trust in Him.

"Why can't I have sex before marriage when I know I'll marry him/her?"

This is a question I was asked recently and a good in-depth answer to this question can be found here at GotQuestions?

I'm going to summarise the answer in 2 parts, starting with why sex before marriage (or outside of marriage e.g. adultery, or if you're divorced and already had sex) is wrong in the first place.

God designed sex to be for a married couple, it is the only safe place where sex can be practiced in the way God intended. It is only a good thing when used in its correct context, like a fire. If you start a fire it can do damage, but a fire in the proper context of a fireplace for example is a good thing. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says 'For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality'. It is sexually immoral to have sex with more than one person at a time, to have sex with anyone you are not married to, to have sex with someone you are related to and to have sex with someone of the same gender as yourself (see verses in Leviticus).

Why did God intend sex to be only within marriage?

• Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, sex is emotionally bonding as well as physically bonding. The temporary emotional attachment during sex can still cause damage afterwards. Feelings of being used, self-worth only existing when you have intimate involvement with another person, etc. God does not want this emotional damage to occur
• Health issues can arise - your chances of picking up an STD increases with the number of partners you have, but can still be picked up from having sex with only one person and that includes oral sex
• Pregnancy risks - children should not be raised outside of marriage, especially with only one parent or by parents who are not emotionally or financially prepared for a child
• Your body is God's temple, because he created you, this is even more the case if you are already a Christian since the Holy Spirit lives inside you. 1 Corinthians 6:18-19 'Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?'

So now we understand why sex is forbidden outside of marriage, we can address the issue of why it is still wrong to have sex outside of marriage if you intend to marry the person. Again, I'll say that this is explained very well on the website I have mentioned at the start of this post, the link to the page is also there. But here's a short summary:

• You're still not married for a start, so the rules I just explained about why sex outside marriage is wrong, still apply. There's health risks, emotional risks and pregnancy risks. You're also still abusing your body which is a temple of God
• The emotional risks could become even worse if you say you'll get married and break up
• It shows a complete lack of respect for yourself and for the other person. If you love each other enough to get married, it shouldn't be hard to wait until then to have sex. If you can't, you're showing either you don't want to (so you don't respect the other person enough to wait) or you have no self-control over yourself which is a very slippery slope. How will you deal with other sexual temptations such as adultery and pornography?
• Think to yourself, will you actually get married if you're already having sex? Is that what the other person is sticking around for? Would you still be together if you removed sex from the relationship?

Remember that God made these rules with ultimate power and knowledge. He knows how these rules will pan out and work for us, He can see all the other possible options and where they'll lead and he chose these rules. That means He knows it's the best thing for us. We might think we know better, but we don't and God doesn't want us to learn that we don't the hard way. He wants us to trust Him and what He asks. So trust Him. We're not animals, so we should treat ourselves and our partners with dignity and respect.

Unjust War & Pacifism

I would like to write a post on my pacifist beliefs, but since I'm constantly being asked "well what would you have done in World War II?" and I don't have a real answer to that one yet, I'm currently re-evaluating my stance. But I don't believe war solves anything.

I think that fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity. It's completely counter-productive. The best answer I have right now to the aforementioned question is this: killing innocent Germans who have been forced to fight, did not stop Hitler, nor the death camps. Hitler killed himself out of fear. You could argue that was due to our (the Allies) involvement/presence, but my point is even if that were the case, many innocent German lives were taken to achieve that end. Is that justified?

If you're wondering (slightly off-topic) about whether I'm pacifist in the sense of self-defence, the answer is no I'm not. I am anti-war in the sense of: I don't think it's right to police other countries for things such as nuclear weapons, I don't think it's right to pick fights, I don't think it's right to kill/injure innocent people. With breaches of human rights I think we must be careful. We need to know that we can actually have an impact and change something, that the person(s) in question are in definite breach of human rights and won't back down (e.g. policing and censoring internet doesn't count). We can't just storm in willy-nilly and get our people killed. We must also try not to take any life at all, especially innocent lives.

However, if someone comes up to me provoking attack and they will hurt me, they are then guilty and I have the right to defend myself since I am innocent and it is them who have crossed a line by choice. Having said that, I would try not to use overly accessive means.

Going back on topic to my views on war, I most definitely disagree with wars I find bullying and pointless such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq being pointless because we knew full well they did not have WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) but we made some pathetic excuse that they did and we knew, fiddle some papers to make it 'legal' (how you can have 'legal' and 'illegal' war criteria in such a violent and chaotic situation I do not know, who makes these rules? Why should we stick to them? It's war!) and stormed in to the public would think we were cracking down on 'terror' and Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan is pointless because we will never be able to stop the Taliban and even if we did what's to stop another group along the same lines forming?

I hate seeing innocent lives being taken on both sides, I hate seeing the effect it has on people and most of all I hate the propaganda that's spread about how these people are 'heroes' and how shocking it is when they die (deaths are sad but it's war, people will die, why so shocked?), when they signed up of their own accord and really we're picking fights not defending anyone from anything. The worst part is the effect it has on families: wives losing husbands, children losing fathers, wives and children hardly seeing their husbands/fathers, mothers losing sons and worst of all children losing mothers.

At this point I'll stop talking and show you a video that illustrates my point, it makes me cry the whole way through: