As of this writing, there has recently been a death within our immediate family.

That got me to thinking about the new advantages and disadvantages of the deceased, as also the new and old advantages and disadvantages of us yet living survivors.

As honest scientists, there are many things we sense within the environment we are confined to which we have become aware of and continue to perceive. That confinement or entrapment we living find ourselves within is not as constricted as the tight-dimensioned caskets and crypts the lifeless shells (of broken bodies belonging to our passed-away relatives) are now residing within, but nevertheless consisting of still-limited time-and-space larger parameters impossible to exceed.

From a naturalistic viewpoint, we see mortal lifeforms expiring - upon which expiration the bodies of such morph into then exhibit strange and rather disgusting changes. They become totally non-responsive to affectual stimuli, completely immobile, lose their natural color, become stiff, and if left exposed, decay and stink.

Non-enlightened analysis of such would result in thoughts of extinction of personality and simple meaningless/purposeless annihilation back into the dust of the earth. Some have presumptuously declared that sometime millions or billions of years into the future, the Sun will either expand so much or become an exploded supernova so as to incinerate this planet.....and correspondingly every lifeform thereon will in that case eventually become extinct and annihilated anyway.

However, the contemplative human understandably recognizes and declares that the nearly-incredible and actually-awesome complexity and intelligent design of all around him bespeaks of a benevolent Creator who or which must have a contingency plan pertaining to celestial catastrophes and related rescue for His phenomenally-occurrent scentient beings - some of who occasionally express their deep gratitude and appreciation.

Superficial advantages of becoming and/or being dead include:

No more parking tickets
No more stopping at red stoplights
No more payment of property taxes
No more payment of income or sales taxes
No more horn-and-flashing-headlights besiegement from impatient tailgaters
No more non-expected loss of employment or spouse
No more colds nor flu
No more chance of vehicle collisions
No more sarcastic remarks from anyone
No more nitpicky and restrictive landlords
No more mortgage payments
No more poisoned food
No more costs for gasoline or propane
No more vehicle breakdowns, parts purchase, nor repair costs
No more vehicle nor homeowners nor life insurance premium payments
No more immodest gals sexually-harassing the eyesight during summer
No more AIDS, VD, nor payment to strippers and masseuse harlots
No more cameras to spy on vandalism, shoplifting, adultery, and murder
MUCH more, in accord with "different strokes for different folks."

Regrettably or fortunately (depending upon your point of view) we (as open-minded genuine scientists, again) have also encountered within our environment the Sacred-66-book KJV and RSV Holy Bibles, authoritatively informing us that upon death certain components of lifeforms (to wit: human ones) are not only not annihilated into extinction but threatened or promised with resurrection to live forever in either Outer-Darkness Tormenting Hellfire or the Wonderful Bliss of Heaven and All That Accompanies That.

With that in mind, it behooves the obviously sensible and rational to - with the proper attitude and mentality - live on as the Holy Operating Manual and Instruction Book requires, in order to commence somewhere along the line to live eternally in the preferable state and conditions adequately-enough described within Holy Writ.