The immortality myth

Sometimes I have a look at the In Memoriam columns in The Sunday Times, and find most of them conform to pious stock-phrases for conventionality's sake and to keep up appearances. I wouldn't be surprised if the writers harbour a secret incredulity about life after death behind their public professions of faith.

Some of them feature childish doggerel about angels and heaven. Others are a rehash of the promises peddled by priests. Some address a dead loved one as if he or she were still alive. They cannot accept the fact that their loved one is truly dead or that "parting is all we know of heaven".

The notion that a dead loved one lives beyond the grave arises from the innate self- importance of man, who is conceited enough to imagine that he survives death. The only 'evidence' we have for life after death is the absolute silence of the grave.

Over the past 2000 years, millions of Christians have perished. Not one of them has ever come back to tell us anything about life after death. Thousands of saints have been buried. Not one of them has ever come back to tell us anything about heaven. Thousands of priests at Christian funerals have promised immortality to their followers. Not only were the Christians, to whom these promises were made, relegated to oblivion, but the priests themselves were buried long ago and "their mouths are stopt with dust".

As for "Death, where is thy sting?", ask any mother of a dead child whether death stings" or not.