ARGUMENT FOR THE LIFE HEREAFTER
From Probability
ONE of the most important tenets of religion is the existence
of the life Hereafter. After death, human beings will leave this
present ephemeral world, and, on the Day of Judgement, will
enter another world, which will be eternal. The present world is but a
place of trial where man, throughout his entire life span, is on probation.
When the time has come for the Last Reckoning, God will destroy this
world and replace it by another world created on an entirely different
pattern. All human beings will then be resurrected and will be brought
before the Almighty to be judged: it is then that they shall be rewarded,
or punished, according to the merits and demerits of their deeds on
this earth.
We shall now examine this concept from different standpoints and
determine whether it is right or wrong to believe in this concept.
Probability
The question that first arises concerns the possible advent of an afterlife
in the present system of the universe. Do any events or indications
substantiate our view?
The first thing that this concept of the other world presupposes is that
man and the universe, in their present form, are not eternal. From the
entire array of human knowledge up to the present, this fact stands out
as indisputable. We all know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that for
both man and the universe, death is an inescapable fate.
The greatest desire of those who do not believe in the other world
is to convert this world into a heaven of eternal bliss. Research into
the cause, or causes of death have even been carried out so that it
could be forestalled and prevented, thus rendering human beings
immortal. But the failure of such research has been abysmal, and with
each unsuccessful attempt, it has been borne in more and more upon
researchers just how ineluctable death is.
Why does death occur? About two hundred explanations have been
put forward as to its causes. Organic decay in the body; the exhaustion
of constituents; the atrophying of veins; the replacement of dynamic
albumens by less dynamic ones; the wearing out of the tissues; the
secretion of poison by intestinal bacteria, which is spread throughout
the body, and so on.
The concept of bodily decay would appear to be correct. Machines,
shoes, garments and all such material things do wear out with the
passage of time. There is, ostensibly, the possibility of our body
wearing out too, sooner or later, just as a garment does. But science
only partially supports this view of bodily decay, for the human body is
very different from a garment, a machine or a piece of rock. It should
be likened, rather to, a river which has been flowing for thousands and
thousands of years and continues to flow in the same fashion even
today. Can we really say that a river becomes old or stagnates?
An American chemist, Dr. Carl Linus Pauling (b. 1901), recipient of two
Noble Prizes, one of Chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in
1962, has pointed out that, theoretically man is cast to a great extent
in an eternal mould, cells in the human body
being just like machines which automatically
remove their own defects. In spite of this,
man does grow old, and does die.
When the time has
come for the Last
Reckoning, God
will destroy this
world and replace
it by another world
created on an
entirely different
pattern.
But let us leave death for a moment and look
at life. Our bodies are constantly undergoing
a process of renewal. Molecules of albumen
present within our cells are continually being
produced, destroyed and reproduced. Cells
too (except the nerve cells) are regularly
destroyed and replaced by newly formed
cells. It has been estimated that the blood in a
human body is fully renewed within the short
span of about four months. And, within a few years, all of the atoms
in a human body are totally replaced. It shows that man is more like a
river than a mere structure of flesh and bones.
In short, the human body is constantly undergoing a process of
change. This being so, all concepts of the body becoming old and
worn-out are seen to have no basis in fact. Consider that in the normal
course of events, the indirect causes of death, such as injury, various
types of deficiencies, the clogging of arteries and the wasting away of
muscle, tissue etc., are generally dealt with, bit by bit by the body’s
own processes, (sometimes with the help of medical treatment) but,
in any case are eliminated in the course of time, without either singly
or jointly having caused the onset of death. It is normally much later in
life that death occurs. How then can these injuries, deficiencies, etc., be
held responsible for the death of the body? This would appear to imply
that the cause of death does not lie in the intestines, veins or heart, but
somewhere else.
Another explanation has it that nerve cells are the cause of death
because they remain unchanged throughout life and are never
replaced. The number of nerve cells in a human body thus decline
year after year, thereby weakening the nervous system as a whole. If
it is correct to say that the nervous system is the Achilles’ heel of the
human body, it should conversely, be correct
to say that a body having no nervous system
at all should be able to survive for the longest
period of time.
We all know, beyond
any shadow of a
doubt, that for
both man and the
universe, death is an
inescapable fate.
But observation does not support this view.
A tree, which is devoid of a nervous system
does survive much longer than a man, and
in fact, survives the longest of all forms of
plant-life. But wheat, which likewise, has no
nervous system, survives for only one year.
And the amoeba, with a minute nervous
system, survives for only half an hour.
These examples would appear to imply the reverse—that is, animals
belonging to the higher species, with perfect nervous systems, should
live longer. But that is not the case either. Creatures relatively lower
down the evolutionary scale, like crocodiles, turtles and fishes, are the
ones who survive the longest.
All the investigations so far carried out with the objective of showing
that death need not be a certainty have met with total failure. The fact
still remains that, one-day, all human beings will have to die. There
is no avoiding death. Dr. Alexis Carrel, a French Nobel prize-winner,
who has done advanced research in tissue culture, has discussed this
problem at length under the heading of Inward Time.
Man will never tire of seeking immortality. He will not attain it,
because he is bound by certain laws of his organic constitution.
He may succeed in retarding, perhaps even in reversing in
some measure, the inexorable advance of physiological time.
Never will he vanquish death.
Anomalies in the organization of the present set-up of the universe,
which periodically result in minor calamities, are indicative of what is
going to happen on a large scale, at some time in the future.
The earthquake is the terrestrial phenomenon which most obviously
forewarns us of the possible advent of Doomsday. The interior of
the earth is, in fact, composed of red-hot semi-molten magma, which is ejected periodically through volcanic activity in the form of lava.
Sometimes strong vibrations of the earth’s crust can also be felt. These
are produced by the shrinking of the globe due to the cooling process
which has been going on for aeons. From time to time, the wrinkling
of the earth’s surface assumes gigantic proportions and the resulting
earthquakes are like a unilateral attack of nature upon man in which
nature definitely has the upper hand. ‘When we remember that only a
thin, rocky crust, comparable to the skin of an apple, separates us from
the red-hot, semi-molten interior of our planet, we do not wonder that
the inhabitants of its surface are so often reminded of the “physical
hell” lying below the peaceful woodlands and blue seas.’
Such earthquakes occur almost every day in varying degrees of
intensity, some regions being more prone to earthquakes than others.
The earthquakes which struck Shensi, a district in China, is the oldest
of the highly destructive earthquakes recorded in history. It occurred
in 1556 AD. and took a heavy toll of more than
800,000 lives. Similarly, on the 1st November
1755, a volcano erupted cataclysmically in
Portugal, totally destroying the city of Lisbon.
In the course of this earthquake, within hardly
six minutes, 30,000 people were killed and
all the buildings were destroyed. It has been
calculated that this earthquake caused an
area four times the size of Europe to tremble.
Another earthquake of the same intensity
rocked Assam in 1950 AD. It is reckoned to be one of the ten most
violent and devastating earthquakes on record. The whole of the
northern part of Assam was catastrophically shaken and the course of
the river Brahmaputra was diverted.
An earthquake is,
in fact, but a small
reminder of the day
of resurrection.
An earthquake is, in fact, but a small reminder of the day of resurrection.
When the earth is split asunder with a terrible rumbling; when buildings
come tumbling down like playing cards; when the upper layers of
the earth are cracked open and the interior of the earth is spewed
out, when cities bustling with life are reduced to ashes in a matter of
minutes; when the earth is strewn with dead bodies, like shoals of fish
washed up on the sea coast, man realizes his utter helplessness in the
face of nature. What is most tragic about earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions is the fact that no one can predict when or where they will
take place. And, when they do, everything happens in a flash, leaving
little or no time for escape. The day of the resurrection will come upon
us all of a sudden, just like an earthquake. Such natural catastrophes demonstrate, most awesomely, God’s capacity to destroy the earth at
any moment.
Even more terrifying events take place in the outer reaches of the
universe. In the infinitude of its space, innumerable, enormous celestial
bodies are in rapid and continuous motion colliding and annihilating
one another. Asteroids and comets slam into planets, stars explode
and other stars and galaxies are ripped apart by black holes. In terms
of scale, perhaps nothing is as violent as collisions between huge
clusters of galaxies. Studies in astronomy having confirmed that this is
an actual possibility, it would not be surprising if they did collide. Our
Solar System may well be the result of a smaller collision of this type.
If we can visualize such a collision taking place on a greatly enlarged
scale, the day of resurrection will no longer seem impossible, nor even
such a remote possibility as we had perhaps at first imagined.
Believers in the concept of the life Hereafter contend that a time is
bound to come when the forces of destruction, which are present in the
universe in embryonic forms, will one day assume gigantic proportions.
What is latent today will certainly manifest itself tomorrow, and the
coming of the day of resurrection will be a reality. Today we apprehend
it as a probability; tomorrow we shall witness it as a fact.
