Understanding Death

This post stems from a recent death of a motorcyclist near my home town. He ran off the road and was thrown from the bike. He was not wearing a helmet. He was pronounced brain dead at the hospital and a day later, was removed from life support.

It is a tragedy and many of my friends on Facebook were very close to him. My news feed has been filled with love for him, prayers for his family and one question. I have seen this question posed over 10 tens in the past 48 hours. WHY?

Why did someone who was kind die so young?
Why did a person who loved and was loved so much suffer a tragic end?

Religious people always look to the sky for some magic answer. In reality, death is something none of us can escape (yet). Without this cycle of life and death, our universe as we know it would not exist. Some people die of old age, some of cancer, some by the hands of others.

When you get down to the bottom of it, the answer to their question of "why" is simple: He wasn't wearing a helmet. The human skull is not evolved to sustain massive injury and doctors (not a god) were unable to save him. It may seem callous but it is reality. There is no alternate (supernatural) reason for his death. He made a mistake and unfortunately, paid with his life.

People have to start accepting the reality of death. Only then, can we truly celebrate life.

Ezekiel

I saw a quote earlier from Ezekiel 9 and decided to read a little bit about the passage. It seems Ezekial has visions from Yahweh. During Ezekiel 8, a figure of a man appears out of the hand of god. The figure was "like fire" from the waist down and appeared "as bright as glowing metal." The figure grabs Ezekiel by his hair and takes him to a place between heaven and hell where he sees the visions of god. Apparently, god is just jealous of all the other gods the people of Jerusalem are worshiping. The 'angel' takes Ezekiel to a whole in the wall where Ezekiel is to dig. A doorway shortly appears. When he looks through, he sees pictures on the wall of "crawling things and unclean animals and all the idols of Israel." [Ezekiel 8:10] 

Why did Yahweh create unclean animals? 

What is the purpose of creating life 

& demanding that human keep away?

Inside the room, 70 elders of Israel stood there burning incense, another one of god's pet peeves. Then, Ezekiel is given another vision where a lady is mourning the god Tammuz*. The 'angel' says, "Do you see this, son of man? You will see things that are even more detestable than this."

*According to wiki, Tammuz is the Sumerian god of food and vegetation. This is also the only place where Tammuz is mentioned in the Bible. 

Did the writers of the Bible see 

the worshiping of Tammuz as a problem 

in their local town?

Why would an all-powerful, the one & only God 

become so jealous of a non-existent one?

How did Yahweh's creation come to worship 

other gods before him?

Next, Ezekiel is shown a vision of 25 men praying with their backs to god's temple and their toward the East. Because they are "bowing down to the sun," god refuses to listen to them and instead says that he "will deal with them in anger." [Ezekiel 8:18] The 'angel' then calls forward 6 men, each carrying a weapon. Another man followed carrying a writing kit. God commands the writing man to go through "the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in [the city]." [Ezekiel 9:4] Then, god send the 6 men through Jerusalem to kill everyone without a mark. ...and now a word from god....

Follow him [the writer] through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark.

Ezekiel cries out to the Lord and asks if he is "going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?"

Of course he is! They have forsaken him and must now die without pity.

Following God's vicarious mass murder, Ezekiel has some imaginative visions of the cherubim and their lovely wings and what not flying back to the heavens.

Did this really happen? No, of course not. . . but could Ezekiel [or someone else] have had these visions? It is possible but now, we just send them to the mental institute.