Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem.

Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?

We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more
carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things
in it are born only to die. This is regarded as “the way of nature,” not to be
raised to question, but to be accepted as the “natural” law of life. The
cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady,
waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,–all this is taken as
the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this.
In this perception of the universe as God created it, it would be impossible
to think of Him as loving. For who has decreed that all things pass away,
ending in dust and disappointment and despair, can but be feared. He holds
your little life in his hand but by a thread, ready to break it off without
regret or care, perhaps today. Or if he waits, yet is the ending certain. Who
loves such a god knows not of love, because he has denied that life is real.
Death has become life’s symbol. His world is now a battleground, where
contradiction reigns and opposites make endless war. Where there is death
is peace impossible.

Death is the symbol of the fear of God (God = Ethernal universe = love).
His Love is blotted out in the idea,
which holds it from awareness like a shield held up to obscure the sun. The
grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot coexist with God. It
holds an image of the Son of God in which he is “laid to rest” in
devastation’s arms, where worms wait to greet him and to last a little while
by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as
certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature’s
“law of life.” (in this reallity) God is insane, and fear alone is real.

The curious belief that there is part of dying things that may go on apart
from what will die, does not proclaim a loving God nor re-establish any
grounds for trust. If death is real for anything, there is no life. Death denies
life. But if there is reality in life, death is denied. No compromise in this is
possible. There is either a god of fear or One of Love. The world attempts a
thousand compromises, and will attempt a thousand more. Not one can be
acceptable to God’s teachers, because not one could be acceptable to God.
He did not make death because He did not make fear. Both are equally
meaningless to Him.

The “reality” of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God’s Son is a (temporary) body.
And if God created (Temporary) bodies, death would indeed be real. But God would not be loving.
There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of
the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more sharply
evident. Death is indeed the death of God, if He is Love. And now His Own
creation must stand in fear of Him. He is not Father, but destroyer. He is not
Creator, but avenger. Terrible His Thoughts and fearful His image. To look
on His creations is to die.

“And the last to be overcome will be death.” Of course! (in the death world) Without the idea of
death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one.
This is salvation’s final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions
born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God
and still can die? The inconsistencies, the compromises and the rituals the
world fosters in its vain attempts to cling to death and yet to think love real
are mindless magic, ineffectual and meaningless. God is, and in Him all
created things must be eternal. Do you not see that otherwise He has an
opposite, and fear would be as real as love?

Teacher of God, your one assignment could be stated thus: Accept no
compromise in which death plays a part. Do not believe in cruelty, nor let
attack conceal the truth

A Course in Miracles
Manual for Teachers
Section 27