14 Tough Questions Answered

Wars have taken place since the beginning of recorded history, and they surely occurred before that as well. A war begins when one group of people (the aggressors) tries to force its will on another group of people, and those people fight back. War frequently springs from the differences between people, or from the desire of one group to increase its power or wealth by taking control of another group’s land. Often the aggressors feel that they are superior to the group they want to dominate: they believe that their religion, culture, or even race is better than that of the people they wish to defeat. This sense of superiority makes them feel that it is acceptable to fight to take the land, possessions, and even lives of the inferior group, or to force their ways on the dominated people.

Because countries can be very different from one another in government, religion, customs, and ideology, it is not surprising that nations disagree on many things. But great efforts are usually made to settle the disagreements through discussion and negotiation—a process called diplomacy—before they result in anything as destructive as a war. War usually occurs when diplomacy fails. Because science and technology have allowed us to create such powerful and destructive weapons that can result in such devastating wars, we now have international organizations that work all the time to try to keep peace among nations.

Spouses divorce when they can no longer live happily together. It is usually a sad thing, because when people marry they expect to be with their partner for the rest of their lives. But over the course of a marriage things happen, people can change, and the happiness that the couple was so sure of in the beginning sometimes disappears. When couples with children get divorced it is even more unfortunate because more people are affected. Many children feel bad when their parents divorce because their family will not be the same. After a divorce, they generally do not see one of their parents as much as they did before. Still, just because the feelings between parents change doesn’t mean that their love for their children changes in any way. It’s important to remember that divorce is something that happens between two people, it has nothing to do with the kids. Many children feel that if they adjust their behavior somehow their parents will want to stay together, but divorces are not caused by anything children do.

Because a marriage is a legal partnership, its dissolution, or end, takes place by a judgment of a court. The court, then, awards custody of children after a divorce. The judge that presides over the court makes this decision, ideally keeping the best interests of the children in mind. A judge’s involvement is especially important when parents cannot agree about who should be the main caregiver for their children and provide their main home. But in the best cases, both parents and children decide together how they would like custody to be awarded, and they let the court know their preferences. Sometimes joint custody is the solution, which means that the parents share responsibility for the kids and the children divide their time equally between their parents and their separate homes. Most of the time, however, one parent becomes the custodial parent and the children live with her or him, while the other parent has visitation rights, which means that they can see the children at certain times, like on weekends or during summer vacations.

Growing old is part of being a living thing. Every plant and animal must go through a cycle of life that involves a beginning, a middle, and an end. Actually, as soon as we are born we begin aging. But when we talk of growing old we think of the physical changes that occur when bodies cannot grow and repair themselves as they once did. At about age 30 the signs of aging start to appear, though for most people the physical changes are not really obvious until many years later.

All living things must die. It is a part—the final part—of the biological cycle of life. A flowering plant, for instance, springs from a seed, grows, blossoms, produces seeds for the next season, fades, and dies. Similarly, an animal is born, grows and matures, reproduces, ages, and dies. Old plants and animals must make way for new plants and animals, through which the cycle of life can continue. If plants and animals did not die, eventually there would not be enough food, water, or space in the world for life to flourish. Even dead plants and animals contribute to the cycle of life, for their remains enrich the soil for the next generation of living things.

New generations of plants and animals are needed to ensure the survival of life on our planet. The world’s environment is constantly changing, and new plants and animals—with unique characteristics resulting from the combined genetic contributions of their parents—may be better equipped to survive under the evolving conditions. This process of change and improved survival, which has taken place gradually over millions of years (ever since life began), is called evolution.

Just like all plants and other animals, people also experience this biological cycle of life. A person is born, grows into physical maturity during adolescence, experiences adulthood, ages, and then dies. At death, the cycle of life is completed as that individual makes way for following generations.

When death occurs, blood—which carries oxygen to all the cells of the body—has stopped circulating. This stoppage may be caused by damage to the heart, which is the muscle that pumps blood throughout the body, or by damage to the brain, which gives the signals that direct the heart to do its pumping. (Other circumstances, like severe accidents, also stop blood flow.) But whatever the reason, once blood stops bringing its life-giving oxygen to the body’s billions of cells—the building blocks that make up the human body—the death of those cells starts to occur. When the brain, which is the body’s command center, goes without oxygen for about 15 minutes, all cells there die. While machines can help our lungs breathe or our hearts pump blood, no machine can assume the complex functions of the brain. Without a brain, we cannot live. Soon after a person dies, an official document called a death certificate is filled out and later filed as a record with the local government. It includes such information as time, place, and cause of death.

Nobody who has died has been able to come back to tell us about it, so it is impossible to know whether dying hurts. But people who have had “near-death” experiences—those whose hearts have stopped, for instance, but were later restarted—have only good things to report. Most tell of a peaceful sensation of floating above their bodies. Scientists know that when a person is in a state of very low oxygen—often a condition that precedes death—he or she experiences feelings of euphoria, or great happiness. So as far as we know, the act of dying is not painful at all.

Many sick people welcome death. The same wonders of medicine that have allowed people to reach old age have also enabled them to live through long, and sometimes painful, illnesses. Often, death is seen as a welcome end to pain, both for the ill person and for the family and friends who have watched their loved one suffer. People with strong religious faith, too, may fear death less because they believe they will journey to a better place.

Throughout human history and in places around the world, people have done many different things with their dead. The ancient Egyptians, for instance, took great care when preparing the bodies of their dead rulers; it was believed that their leaders were immortal and would need their bodies in another world after death (the afterworld). In a process that took several months, ancient Egyptians carefully preserved dead bodies through a process called embalming. They wrapped the bodies with layers of linen, wax, and spices. Many mummies still exist today, some 6,000 years later.

In the United States today, people are often buried in coffins. Funeral ceremonies take place so that people can honor the deceased and give comfort and support to his or her family and friends. Music, prayers, and eulogies—speeches remembering and praising the dead person—are often a part of these ceremonies. A funeral usually ends when the deceased is taken to a cemetery, a place where bodies are buried in the ground. A headstone or marker listing the person’s name, birth and death date, and other information is placed at the burial spot. Family members and friends may later visit and decorate the grave site with flowers in memory of their loved one.

Many times, too, people choose to be cremated instead of buried. In a cremation, the body is burned until nothing but ashes remain. According to the wishes of the person who died, these ashes might then be buried, or kept in an urn, or sometimes they are scattered over the land of a place that was important to the deceased. One of the more untraditional things that were done with somebody’s ashes happened when Gene Roddenberry (the creator of the Star Trek series) had his ashes put aboard the space shuttle Columbia after his death in 1991. Later, his wife Majel’s ashes were also launched into space, as were the ashes of James Doohan, who played Scotty in the original series.

Crying is a way of expressing sadness. It helps people who have lost someone close to them express their grief and sorrow. (Talking about the dead person also helps.) People cry because they will never again see the person who has died and they know they will miss that person. If the death is unexpected, the tears may also be caused by feelings of shock and anger. During the period immediately following a person’s death, when the loss of that loved one is felt most sharply, grieving people usually are not comforted by the fact that dying is a natural and necessary process that happens to all living things. As time passes, however, many people begin to accept the loss of their loved one, and the pain of that loss becomes a bit easier to bear. Thinking of the person after some time has passed brings less sadness and maybe even some pleasure as good times with the loved one are remembered.

Because no one has come back to our world after dying, it is not possible to know for sure what happens to people after death. Nearly all the religions of the world believe that some kind of existence continues after life on Earth stops, that a person’s soul or spirit continues to exist—in a way we can’t really imagine—even after his or her body is dead. In fact, a lot of religions teach the belief that our life on Earth is a stage or time of preparation (or a test by which we’re judged) that leads to a final, perfect state of existence that we will share with God in a spiritual realm after we die. Some people who don’t subscribe to religious beliefs about an afterlife think that people simply end when they die—that once the physical body has died, all awareness and existence ceases.

According to many religions based on Judaism and Christianity, heaven is a state of existence where a person’s spirit is at last united with God forever. In a number of Christian religions, heaven is believed to be the reward for people who have lived good lives according to certain rules of thought and behavior that God has made known through scriptures (sacred writings, like the Bible) and through the teachings of churches and religious leaders. (Those who have not followed these rules, it is believed by many, go to a place of punishment known as hell.) Many Christians believe that at the end of the world their human forms will be resurrected in a perfect state—just as the body of Jesus Christ was, when he arose from the dead on Easter morning—and join their souls or spirits in heaven for eternity. This idea has led to the concept that heaven is an actual place—located above—with physical characteristics. Over the centuries, through pictures and writings, people have tried to create images of heaven, imagining a place of perfect happiness perched atop fluffy white clouds. It has often been portrayed as a place full of things that would bring happiness on Earth, possessing, for instance, pearly gates and streets of gold. Heaven as a concept exists in many religions outside Judeo-Christian tradition.

In many Christian religions, hell is the place of punishment where people go after death if they have not lived good lives and followed the rules of thought and behavior set forth by God in scriptures (sacred writings, like the Bible) and in the teachings of churches and religious leaders. Hell is believed to be a horrible place because it is the opposite of heaven; hell is a place where a person’s spirit will forever be deprived of the presence of God. To never know the joy of God’s presence, believers feel, is so painful that it is compared to burning in fire forever, one of the most awful things that can be imagined. Just like with heaven, people have tried over the centuries, through paintings and writings, to create images of hell, a place of enormous suffering. And as heaven is thought to be located above, hell is said to be down below. Satan, or Lucifer—who, according to the Bible, was a favorite angel of God’s until he disobeyed God—is the ruler of hell. In many Christian religions, Satan and his wicked angel followers (devils) are thought to be the cause of evil in the world, always tempting people to be bad. Many other religions also teach of a place like hell where people who have led bad lives on Earth must go after they die. Even the ancient Greeks and Romans believed in an underworld, a place where people traveled to after death. Good and bad people lived in different places in this ancient underworld.

In many religions, angels are powerful spiritual beings who live with God but who sometimes become involved in the lives of people on Earth, often bringing God’s messages to them. According to the Bible, for instance, the angel Gabriel appeared before the Virgin Mary and announced that she would become the mother of Jesus Christ. In Islam, Gabriel revealed to the Prophet Muhammad the words of God, which were recorded in the Qurʾān. Angels are not believed to have physical bodies, but they may look like people when visiting Earth. Over the centuries, artists have portrayed them in many ways: neither men nor women, angels have human forms (appearing as babies, children, or adults) and are winged for travel to their heavenly home. In a few religions, like Roman Catholicism, it is believed that each person on Earth has a special angel who watches over him or her and gives protection from the temptations of the devil; such a being is called one’s guardian angel. The answer to the question of whether angels are real, then, is a matter of faith.

It is believed by many people that God is the perfect spiritual being who has always existed and who created everything. (Although having no physical form and therefore no gender, God is often referred to as a male.) Believers feel that God made the universe and all that is in it. God is thought by many to be all-knowing and all-powerful. In many religions, it is thought that the souls of people who have led good lives on Earth join God after they die.

While many of the world’s most widely practiced religions—Christianity, Islam, Judaism—teach of the existence of a single supreme being, some religions teach that there are many gods. Hinduism teaches that there are many gods, but all are part of one supreme existence. Some people feel that God is everywhere and part of everything—the universe itself, and all life, and all natural occurrences, are divine. Others, sometimes called atheists, do not believe a supreme being exists in any form.