Evidence for Nay Sayers
This past Sunday, as Christians went to church to celebrate Easter’s resurrection of Jesus, they were not showered with laughter and ridicule by their neighbors and friends. However, when the early disciples of Jesus proclaimed that he had risen from the dead they were drenched with jeering ridicule and laughter publicly by both the learned and common person.
The source of that ridicule was expressed by the learned ones of old: “Once a man dies, there is no resurrection,” said Aeschylus. “Those who have died are without hope,” said Theocritus. And the Latin poet Catullus stated, “When once our brief light sets, there is one perpetual night through which we must sleep.” On the lips of Theocritus could be put these words, “Oh yes, in myth the god Dionysus did rise from the dead, but an actual Jewish peasant carpenter?”
Many today would agree with those ancients’ belief that life ends with death! These days right after Easter are excellent for pondering: Is faith in life after death a ridiculous or a realistic belief? Do not dismiss this as a speculative question for white-haired philosophers to squabble over; it is a vitally critical question for anyone who has seriously pondered their own death.
In these days after Easter, rejoice in the Good News, convincing evidence that life after death does exist! You ask, “Where can I look to find such proof?” Look up at the night sky. Look down at your body. The sparkling light of distant stars you see at night comes from now long dead stars, yet in their explosive death they scattered their dust and gasses in the universe as fertile seeds of new stars and planets.
Now look at your body; like all humans it is mostly water. The atoms of hydrogen in your body’s water are 13 billion years old! They and the other chemical elements in your body were created by nuclear fusion of dying stars long before our sun began to shine. Indeed “we are dust and to dust we shall return,” but we are stardust! No planets—no life on this planet or elsewhere—could have existed without the death of stars over the past billions of years. Matter cannot be destroyed, only transformed. Encoded in the history of our ancient ancestors who dwelled in the infinite sea of stars in the Cosmos is the divine secret: Death is the mother of all life!
Awaken to how highly privileged you are, esteemed over all the hundreds of millions who have lived before you. You are privileged to live in an age that seemingly daily accesses greater and greater knowledge of the universe that far exceeds what was previously known by the most learned of scholars. So rejoice, be drunk with gratitude that in the cosmic passion story of dying stars giving birth to new stars can be found the splendorous Easter Mystery that out of death arises new life.
The source of that ridicule was expressed by the learned ones of old: “Once a man dies, there is no resurrection,” said Aeschylus. “Those who have died are without hope,” said Theocritus. And the Latin poet Catullus stated, “When once our brief light sets, there is one perpetual night through which we must sleep.” On the lips of Theocritus could be put these words, “Oh yes, in myth the god Dionysus did rise from the dead, but an actual Jewish peasant carpenter?”
Many today would agree with those ancients’ belief that life ends with death! These days right after Easter are excellent for pondering: Is faith in life after death a ridiculous or a realistic belief? Do not dismiss this as a speculative question for white-haired philosophers to squabble over; it is a vitally critical question for anyone who has seriously pondered their own death.
In these days after Easter, rejoice in the Good News, convincing evidence that life after death does exist! You ask, “Where can I look to find such proof?” Look up at the night sky. Look down at your body. The sparkling light of distant stars you see at night comes from now long dead stars, yet in their explosive death they scattered their dust and gasses in the universe as fertile seeds of new stars and planets.
Now look at your body; like all humans it is mostly water. The atoms of hydrogen in your body’s water are 13 billion years old! They and the other chemical elements in your body were created by nuclear fusion of dying stars long before our sun began to shine. Indeed “we are dust and to dust we shall return,” but we are stardust! No planets—no life on this planet or elsewhere—could have existed without the death of stars over the past billions of years. Matter cannot be destroyed, only transformed. Encoded in the history of our ancient ancestors who dwelled in the infinite sea of stars in the Cosmos is the divine secret: Death is the mother of all life!
Awaken to how highly privileged you are, esteemed over all the hundreds of millions who have lived before you. You are privileged to live in an age that seemingly daily accesses greater and greater knowledge of the universe that far exceeds what was previously known by the most learned of scholars. So rejoice, be drunk with gratitude that in the cosmic passion story of dying stars giving birth to new stars can be found the splendorous Easter Mystery that out of death arises new life.
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