Eat, Drink & Be Merry For Tomorrow We Will Die.

Eat, Drink & Be Merry For Tomorrow We Shall Die.

I'm sitting here, Sunday on an English summers day; the sun is shining brightly in the garden and a cool breeze comes through the open doors. Beside me a glass of Italian chianti, whilst tonight I will bake chicken thighs in the oven with olive oil, diced potatoes, thyme and Cumberland sausages.

Which brings us to " Eat, drink & be merry for tomorrow we shall die." Should I abstain from an ascetic flight from pleasures? Did not Jesus himself "came eating and drinking" ( Luke 7:34) ?

All things being equal it's not as simplistic as that. Solomon did not recommend wasting much time on religion or moral stirrings. In fact his lust for life took him to the harem, the banquet hall, the palace, but never the temple.

Perhaps good advice, except the grave makes a mockery of it all. If you resign yourself to what is termed "vanity" then all that's left is the parties. You may as well party hard.

It all revolves I think around one's belief in the resurrection. If the dead do not rise, then invest in parties.

There is an interesting aspect in Isaiah 22:19-23 where the more threatening the future of Jerusalem of its destruction by Assyria, the more insensible and madly the people gave themselves up to the sensual enjoyments of the present. This did not imply that they felt any pleasure in the thought of death, but instead indicated a love of life which scoffed at death.

Is this justifiable fatalism, or lack of moral courage, or is the main message one of acknowledgement of the existence of an ultimate judgement beyond man?

What you do with your life will determine your final worth. If you can look back honestly and say you have been; a good father to your family, loved without restraint both those closest to you and ( more difficult) those in need, and have attained over the years close friends, then tomorrow have no fear of death.

I heartily approve of eating, drinking, and merriment. Indeed, some might find other pleasures of the flesh (f---ing, for example) superior to eating and drinking. But just as the spiritual virtues (faith, hope and love) are superior to the temporal ones, the spiritual pleasures are superior to the physical ones.

Which dinner is actually more enjoyable, the gourmet feast you eat by yourself, or the plain repast accompanied by good conversation and shared with good friends? Isn't being in love (even chastely) more enjoyable than mere sex?

I love "making merry". But aren't the pleasures of seeing "Hamlet" for the first time more intense and longer lived than those of seeing "The Importance of Being Earnest"?

We can perform our duty to our families whether that duty is divinely or culturally derived -- and our satisfaction, and even our pleasure, in such performance is profound irrespective of divine approval or reward. That, at least, is my agnostic view.

I don't know how it is possible to eat, drink and be merry if you know you are going to die, literally, tomorrow. However, you might smile and get your affairs in order which is a way to be useful to others and that usefulness leads to happiness.

As far as resurrection goes, given reports of near and shared death experiences, this has gone way beyond Christianity today although Christianity provides a good example of it. My default position is that death is a change in perspective for our consciousness. It is not the end of it.

IN Psalm 119 the poet tells us:

Quote:

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How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

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So although we may eat, drink and be merry, the word of God is sweeter than honey. In the biblical Middle East there was no sugar -- so honey was the sweetest thing with which the psalmist was familiar.

The idea is clear: praising God and obeying his commandments is not an onerous task which we would prefer to avoid were it not for the promise of heaven or the fear of hell, . Instead, it is the highest form of merriment to which we may aspire. Eat and drink as we may, the love of the Lord is sweeter than these pleasures.

A scientist would point out that death makes people horny. It is a product of evolution. When people start dying, make more of them. Psychology.