Most of those stories are just sour grapes. Dying has been the biggest fear for all of history for most people, and especially back then people were losing their family and friends at young ages.
You have to have some kind of belief in that situation that dying has a special purpose, or something happens after you die so that you’re rewarded.
It’s the same as the suffering of a medieval peasant, which they thought was so important. Nowadays we have eliminated that. Was it really giving them such an important meaning and rich life? No, they just thought it did to cope.
Besides, even if we cured aging it wouldn’t mean we’re trapped living forever, you’d be guaranteed to get killed some other way anyway.
There is always a conflict between the benefit of an individual and that of society or wider ecosystem. Faith or ethics is an example of that: it can be considered a survival mechanism of society, which would fall apart if everyone was doing only what is good for themselves.
It is pointless to look at such beliefs (murder is bad, we should be good to others, etc.) from the viewpoint of a standalone individual, and it is fine for humans do not really exist that way. These beliefs stop being “sour grapes” or rationalising failure as soon as you see the anthill behind the individual ants.
The “goodness of death” belief is one of such, indeed part of many religions, and perhaps the ultimate tradeoff. Is it merely a rationalisation of one biological inevitability, or does it reflect a whole set of constraints we operate under? Realistically, it has always been so that individuals go away for the society to continue. Otherwise there quickly would not be enough food, would it? If somebody refused to die, would they have to be exiled or murdered? If we all stopped dying, would we be able to evolve and adapt, or would we be more liable to be wiped out as a species? To get rid of the concept of death and ensure society’s sustainability given constraints, you’d also need to get rid of our drive to reproduce, and already at that point we are looking at something very different to what we are.
Is it merely a vestige? Is it no longer necessary to die for societal benefit today? IMO not really, unfortunately: if society would unravel without death, which I think it would, then the “deathist” belief remains sound.
Getting out of this predicament, in my opinion, requires one of the two: 1) infinite energy and/or other technology that is not yet available and might be unattainable, or 2) by changing a number of things about how we live, ditching the unsustainable (absent infinite energy) idea that the only right direction is constant growth of production, consumption, etc.
I am mildly skeptical about the former (happy to be proved wrong). Regarding the latter, I am curious as to whether humans would slowly achieve extended lifespans naturally, if they eliminated factors that pressure them to fade away. (It does go contrary to the idea that the purpose of all life is energy dissipation. Sustainable peaceful society with long lifespans, likely much lower birth rates, does not strike me as particularly efficient at that.)
You have to have some kind of belief in that situation that dying has a special purpose, or something happens after you die so that you’re rewarded.
It’s the same as the suffering of a medieval peasant, which they thought was so important. Nowadays we have eliminated that. Was it really giving them such an important meaning and rich life? No, they just thought it did to cope.
Besides, even if we cured aging it wouldn’t mean we’re trapped living forever, you’d be guaranteed to get killed some other way anyway.