Mankind conjured up a god who will make us live forever

Editor:

When “Medical Assistance in Dying” is the legal and frequently used procedure, what does Easter mean today? The way we talk about “Life and Death” and “Sex and Gender” is certainly changing. Some people are angry because their long-held views on those matters are dismissed as obsolete.

When I came to Canada in 1957, it seemed strange to me that suicide was felony and condoms were hidden under the counter. Abortion and homosexual acts were illegal.

I realized that it was the effort to continue the existence of race by enshrining such rules as the God’s commandment. It had been held as the Judeo-Christian religious doctrine.

You must realize that such a view had not been universally held. In Japan the basic belief about life has always been: “Life is but a dream and death is real.”

The dead who come back to scare the living are the unhappy spirit who left some unfinished business behind with no peace. A Roman philosopher Seneca and other Greek philosophers of Stoicism spoke of the similar notion about the imperfect life and the reality of death.

Today, not only is Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) common, “Dying in Dignity” is a growing concern.

As for homosexuality, gay ministers of religion have been around for more than a few years in major Christian denominations. Same-sex marriage has been increasing in large number of countries.

Granted the Bible is against gay sex and masturbation. It comes from the idea that sperms must not be wasted to ensure the long-lasting existence of your race and tribe. Therefore the Bible ignores lesbianism as an irrelevant issue.

“Thou shall not kill” was the commandment applicable only within nations and tribes.

Therefore, killing members of outsiders, enemy tribes and nations, was encouraged as a patriotic act. They all point to the supreme directive that encourages procreation and proliferation in order to continue and expand your own nations, races, and tribes even at the cost of others.

It made sense to impose such rules when untimely death was common and outsiders posed existential danger. It was a dangerous and unhealthy world. Too many infants died, more than those who survived. Henry VIII married six wives but had only one male heir who was weak and did not live long.

Other tribes were enemies. Humans killed each other by the hundreds of thousands throughout history.

Hence, life was precious and death was to be avoided at all cost. Charlie Chaplin cynically called killing one person murder, but killing a thousand single-handed in a war makes one a national hero.

Thank God the paradigm shifted.

Life and death are no longer oxymorons. They are two sides of a coin. We had dreaded death because too many people died too early, too often, and suffered great pain in the process.

I enjoy life. I love my family, my cats, my friends, food, and all creatures great and small.

I eat wisely, exercise regularly. Without sickness and violence, our natural life should be much longer than it is now.

An ancient Hebrew sage said, “One who dies at the age of one hundred shall be considered premature.” Such a day is coming.

It’s not unusual these days to see obituaries of centenarians.

Dying no longer has to be painful. We live longer, procreate and proliferate faster, and stay healthy to the extent that increasingly the major concern is the unsustainable large population and the enormously costly medical standard to keep the heart going without any hope of recovery.

When homo sapiens became self-conscious and aware of finitude, the reaction was denial: “They die, but I won’t. I am different: chosen, special, top of the food chain.”

So we conjured up something like the kind of god we like who will tweak nature and make us live forever.

Imagination and delusional hope invented “eternal life.” But now we can live until we are tired of it. MAID rendered the joyful tidings of “eternal life” pointless.

My mother died in her sleep at 96-and-ahalf years. She was happy and healthy until the end thanks to advanced medical science.

Toward the end, however, she kept saying, “I had a good life. But my friends are all gone. I can’t play piano anymore. Foods don’t taste the same. What’s the point?” In time I had to stop saying, “Don’t say that, mama.”

Her wish was not eternal life. She wanted a comfortable rest.

I intend to live fully. When the end comes I believe, whoever or whatever I call “God” out there, will take care of the rest. I am happy with that. That’s my hope for “Easter.”

Tadashi (Tad) Mitsui

Lethbridge