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CHAPTER 
"MISALIGNMENT THEORY
ON MEN AND DEATH"
What is death?
The perennial queries in every period of time: What is death? Why organismic systems inevitably seems to degenerate, die and lose their emergent properties? Is death necessary consequence of life,? Alternatively, is death itself necessary for life?
"It is natural to die as to be born" wrote Francis Bacon, one of his 17th century essays and the words reflect a lawyer's calm appraisal of the fact. Boswel said " It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance it last so so short a time."
The Ecclesiastes has this passage: "Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses,He sets the time for birth and the time for death..."[Ecclesiastes, 3:1-2]. The Oxford English Dictionary defines death, "as the final cessation of the vital functions: the stillness of death, with non-existence pulse and breathing, unresponsive reflexes in the eyes or limbs, and the electrocardiam [ECG] or encephalogram [EEC] no longer show any spark of life on the dead person [i.e., there is no spark of life on the electrocuted person, a drowned swimmer or that of a rejected lover who has taken an overdose of drugs].
"God did not make death, and He does not delight in the death of the living. For he has created all things that they might exist.... God created man for incorruption, and make him in the image of his own eternity but through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experienced" [Wisdom 1:13-1-4].
The Gospel of Life, proclaimed in the beginning when man was created in the image of God for a destiny of full and perfect life [Gen. 2:7; Wis. 9:2-3] is contradicted by the painful experience of death which enters the world and casts its shadow of meaninglessness over man's entire existence. Death came into the world as a result of devil's envy [Cf. Gen. 3:1; 4-5] and sin of our first parents [Gen. 2:17; 3:17-19]. And death entered it in a violent way, through the killing of Abel by his brother Cain: "And when they were in the field, Cain rose against his brother, Abel and killed him" [Gen. 4:8]. After the crime, God intervenes to avenge the one killed because God cannot leave the crime unpunished [Gen. 347:36;26:21; Ez. 24:7-8] because human life, belongs only to God : for this reason "whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself."
But God is also merciful and forgiving. He preferred correction rather than death of a sinner; that is, he did not desire that "homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide" [Genesis :14:14; 14; De Cain et Abel, II, 20 38 CSE, 32 408].
It is not only the voice of the blood of Abel, the first innocent man to be murdered which cries to God, the source and defender of life. The blood of every human being who has been killed since Abel is also a voice raised to the Lord....Christ is the fulfillment of the "sprinkled blood" [Cf. Ez. 14:8; Lev. 17:11] of the Old Testament which "redeems, purifies and saves"; "it is the blood of the Mediator of the New Covenant- "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" [Matthew 26:28]. This blood, which flows from the pierced side of Christ on the cross [Cf. John 19:34], "speaks more graciously" that the blood of Abel; indeed it expresses and requires a more radical "justice" and above all it implores mercy [Cf. St. Gregory the Great, Moralia en Job, 12,23; CCL143,683] it makes intercession for the brethen before the Father [Cf. Heb. 7:25] and it is the source of perfect redemption and the gift of new life.
The Blood of Christ, while it reveals the grandeur of the Father's love, shows how precious man in God's eyes and how priceless the value of life [1 Peter 1:18-19; Cf. John 13:1]. It is from the blood of Christ that all draw the strength to commit themselves in promoting life. It is precisely this blood that is the most powerful source of hope, indeed, it is the foundation of the absolute certitude that in God's plan life shall be victorious. And death shall be no more; exclaims the powerful voice which comes from the throne of God in the heavenly Jerusalem [Rev. 21:4]. And St. Paul assures us that the present victory over sin is a sign and anticipation of the definitive victory over death, when there shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory, Oh death where is your sting?" [1 Cor. 25:54-55].
Men and Death.
Paradoxically, death has always been essential part of life. This is so, because it has hardly possible to conceive of one without the other in the world. Under the principle of "survival of the fittest" every specie of animal and plant are sacrificed daily in the grim struggle for survival and existence. In effect, nature becomes a merciless murderess.
With human being the subject of death, death of man may occur in various forms and categories. Most significant causes are:
(1) VIOLENT DEATH -i.e., stabbing, shooting, etc. as outcome of domestic quarreling.
(2) UNCONTROLLED SEX URGES, outcome of rape, uncontrolled often sadistic sex drives.
(3) BABY BATTERING and other forms of infanticide.
(4) Killing accompanying another crimes such as robbery, smuggling, drug trafficking, kidnapping, etc.
(5) PLANNED MURDER usually for personal gain or for convenience;
(6) DUE TO [SCYTHE OF] SICKNESS and diseases.
(7) DEATH BY MISADVENTURES- earthquakes,fire, vehicular accidents,air crash, death in sports ,etc.
(8) STRATEGY OF SUICIDE, desperation or honorable- "hara-kiri"; suicide is most common among doctors and others working in the medical words, using drugs, etc.
(9) CRIMINAL HOMICIDE and manslaughter [senseless killing]; that society is unable to content effectively with the man who in a ranging fit, suddenly picks up a knife and plunges it through his neighbor's heart. In most cases where the killer is mentally-ill; the mental illness reduces his or her capacity to control normal emotion.
(10 ) ASSASSINATION. This nature strikes terrorism in the hearts of us all. It is murder for political reason and the pages of history books are scattered with the blood of leaders [i.e. Julius Caesar,Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Abraham Lincoln, Muhatma Gandhi, the Kennedy brothers] spilled in the name of the revolution.
(11) MASSACRES masterminded by master liquidators of spe- cific victims such as practiced by the Huns, Mongols, by Hitler, Stalin, etc. If the purpose is to terminate a given race it istermed "genocide", or the present term-"ethnic cleansing"-an international offense.
(12) WAR [legions of the dead] more people died in war in the twentieth century than in any other time.
New Threats to Human Life
Every individual precisely by reason of the mystery of the word of God who was made flesh [cf. John 1:14] is entrusted to material care of the Church, therefore every threat to human dignity and life must necessarily be felt in the Church's very heart. It cannot but affect here at the core of her faith in the Redemptive Incarnation of the Son of God, and engage in her mission of proclaiming the gospel of life in all the world and to every creature [cf. Mark 16:15].
Today this proclamation is especially pressing because of the extraordinary increase and gravity of threats to the life of individuals and peoples especially where life is weak and defenseless. In addition to the ancient scourges of poverty, hunger, epidemic diseases, violence and war, new threats are emerging on an alarming vast scale.
The Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life.[Gaudium et Spes, 27] Unfortunately, this disturbing state of affairs, far from decreasing is expanding with the new prospects opened up by scientific and technological progress there arise new forms of attacks on the dignity of the human being. At the same time a new cultural climate is developing and taking hold, which gives crimes against life a new and if possible even more sinister character giving rise to further grave concern: broad sectors of public opinion justify certain crimes against life in the name of the rights of individual freedom, and on the basis they claim claim not only exemption from punishment but even authorization by the State [see John Paul II Evangelium Vitae, Gospel of Life, p. 4] so that the things can be done with total freedom and indeed with the free assistance of health-care system [Gospel of Life, p.4].
The end result of this is tragic not only is the fact of the destruction of so many human lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning , is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life.
The threats to new life ranges from contraception and sterilization methods, legalizing abortion, justifying infanticide to babies born with serious handicap or illness [i.e., down's syndrome, etc..], euthanasia [mercy killing] to the incurably ill, the dying and the old age.
These new threats to life of the present time are part of the culture of death, as opposed to the culture of life [gospel of life].
To claim the right of abortion,infanticide, euthanasia, and elimination of the old age, dying and mentally defective and to recognize that right in law means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance " that of an absolute power over others and against others." This is the death of true freedom: "Truly, truly, I say to you , every one who commits sin, is slave to sin" [John 8:34].
In seeking the deepest roots of the struggle between the "culture of life " and the "culture of death", we cannot restrict ourselves to the perverse idea of freedom mentioned above. We have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse of the sense of God and of Man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism, which , with its ubiquitous tentacles succeeds at times in putting Christian communities themselves to the test. Those who allow themselves to be influenced by this climate easily fall to a sad vicious circle": when the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn, the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and its dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern Gods' living and saving presence [Evangelium Vitae, 22].
Any Threat to Life, Is Against God
Man's life comes from God, it is his gift, his image and imprint, a sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: man cannot do with it as he wills. God himself makes this clear to Noah after the flood: "For your own lifeblood, too, I will demand an accounting... and from man in regard to his fellow man, I will demand an accounting for human life" [Genesis 9:5]. The biblical test is concerned to emphasize how the sacredness of life has its foundation in God and in his creative activity- "For God made man in his own image" [Genesis 9:6].
Human life and death are thus in the hands of God, in his power: "In his hands is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind", exclaims Job [Job 12:10] The Lord brings to death and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up [1 Sam. 2:6] He alone can say: "It is I who bring both death and life" [Dt. 32:39].
But God does not exercise this power in an arbitrary and threatening way, but rather as part of his care and loving concern, for His creatures. If it is true that human life is in the hands of God, it is no less than these loving hands, like of those of mother who accepts, nurtures and takes care of her child: "I have claimed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul" [ Ps. 131:2; cf. Is. 49:15; 66:12-13; Hos. 11:4].
The commandments regarding inviolability of human life,
more particularly, "you shall not kill" reverates at the heart of the ten words in the covenant of Sinai [Cf. Ex. 34:28].
Taking of life in whatever form and for whatever reason- contraceptive, abortion, infanticide, old age, sickness, mental and physical defects, euthanasia and suicide is against God.
God alone has the power over life and death: "It is I who bring both death and life" [Dt. 32:39; Cf. 2 Go. 5:7; 2 Sam. 2:6] and "You have power over life and death ; you lead men down to the gates of hades and back again [Ws. 16:23; cf. J
Finally, and incidentally, the referred problems, sickness and troubled minds , perverted feelings and reasoning [abortionist tendency, suicidal and homicidal tendencies] are discerned [discovered] to be caused by an incurable defect in man [ i.e., misalignment between left scapular bone and spinal column] and fortunately, such defect is preventable by good child care and correctible by proper surgical realignment.
PRAISE THE LORD!.
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