Death came into the world only because of mistakes made by messengers sent by God or by humans who refused to obey divine laws. Sometimes the origin of death was attributed to overpopulation, anger, jealousy, or selfishness of either humans or their gods.
The first person to die is Abel at the hands of his brother, which is also the first time that blood is mentioned in the Bible (4:10–11).
We die naturally because our cells die. After they've done their job, billions of cells in your body die each day and make way for new cells. Old cells age us. Inside a cell, telomeres at the end of each chromosome contain genetic information that gets clipped away with each cell division.
The modern discovery of the oldest known deliberate burial took place in Kenya around 78,000 years ago. This particular excavation provides evidence that modern humans conducted the funerary internment of a young child in Africa, named by scientists, Mtoto, or child in Swahili.
During death, your body's vital functions stop entirely. Your heart no longer beats, your breath stops and your brain stops functioning. Studies suggest that brain activity may continue several minutes after a person has been declared dead. Still, brain activity isn't the same as consciousness or awareness.
Early death, also called premature death, occurs earlier than the average age of death in a population. In the United States, that age is around 75 years old. A lot of illness can happen in the first 74 years of life, yet the majority of early deaths have just a handful of causes.
Normally, as time passes, our cells undergo changes: Our DNA mutates, cells stop dividing, and harmful junk—by-products of cellular activity—builds up. All these processes together cause us to age.
Fear of Pain and Suffering
Many people fear that when they meet death, they will experience excruciating pain and suffering. This fear is common in many healthy people, as well as in patients dying of cancer or other terminal illnesses.
One of the most common and well-known near-death experiences for those who die and come back is seeing a bright, white light. This white light isn't something to be afraid of. In fact, most report it coming with a sense of peace or even happiness. Many have speculated about the symbolism behind the bright light.
After all, they disobeyed God's command to not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. God is the One who decides who does or does not enter heaven. There's no place in the Bible that says they were saved. But there is no place in the Bible that indicates the couple was lost, either.
“If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to God.” “Before dust returns to the earth as it was before and the life-breath returns to God who gave it.”
So if all animals praise the Lord—and thus believe in Him—and if “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life,” it stands to reason that one beloved verse, John 3:16, tells us that animals will also be with their Creator in heaven.
They find that atheists are among those least afraid of dying...and, perhaps not surprisingly, the very religious. Religion has long been thought to be a solution to the problem of death. Notions of an afterlife are nearly universal, though there is great diversity in the details.
One of the most helpful strategies for accepting death and resolving grief is to design a new life without the deceased. This doesn't mean pretending they were never a part of your life, but it does mean moving forward with your own as a way of honoring them and caring for yourself.
A new study suggests that stopping or even reversing the aging process is impossible. In a collaborative effort from scientists worldwide, including experts from the University of Oxford, it was concluded that aging is inevitable due to biological constraints, The Guardian reported.
Your cells are programmed to divide, multiply, and perform basic biological functions. But the more cells divide, the older they get. In turn, cells eventually lose their ability to function properly. Cellular damage also increases as cells get older.
To date, there's only one species that has been called 'biologically immortal': the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii. These small, transparent animals hang out in oceans around the world and can turn back time by reverting to an earlier stage of their life cycle.
The current longevity record is held by Jeanne Calment, a French woman who passed away in 1997 at the age of 122 years and five months (see 'The rising age of the longest-living human').
Demographic evidence
The longest living person whose dates of birth and death were verified according to the modern norms of Guinness World Records and the Gerontology Research Group was Jeanne Calment (1875–1997), a French woman who is verified to have lived to 122.
Often, people's skin colour changes in the days before death as the blood circulation declines. They can become paler or greyer or their skin can become mottled. With the loss of oxygen to their brain, they might become vague and sleepy. Some people have hallucinations and talk to 'people' who aren't there.