[harimau777]

It seems to me that defining clinical death as the loss of heart beat and breathing is outdated and it should instead be defined as the cessation of higher brain activity.[1]

Alternately, it seems to me like referring to that as death is playing semantics. It seems to me that the defining feature of death is that you cannot come back from it[2].

I'd be interested to hear other perspectives or if I might be overlooking something.

[1] I'm guessing there might still be a place for the current definition of clinical death in situations where its not viable to monitor brain activity such as triaging disaster victims.

[2] As a Christian I would see an exception for a case where someone dies and and God violates the laws of nature to bring them back. However, I realize that Atheists don't believe that's possible and even from a Christian perspective it's exceedingly rare (I can think of 4 times where it potentially happens in the entire Bible) so I don't think that really impacts practical discussions of death.

[amluto]

re: your note 2, one might argue that secular laws have no particular business considering whether something was an act of god or not, and that a person who is alive at any given time is therefore, for legal purposes, considered to have never died in the first place.

[mLuby]

> secular laws have no particular business considering whether something was an act of god or not

To be pedantic, you've almost certainly signed valid legal contracts that reference "Act of God" verbatim.

[rurp]

IANAL but I believe that "Act of God" has a specific legal meaning in normal contracts that has nothing to do with religious miracles.

[jacurtis]

tl;dr: the term "act of God" has been around for thousands of years. Translated several times. It wasn't until only a couple hundred years ago that the term "God" was ever introduced into the phrase. And even then, it was decreed by Judges of the time that there is no religious backing to the phrase.

Long detailed version for anyone who is interested in the etymology of the phrase.

"Act of God" is a traditional term used in contract law that has existed for millennia, dating back to Roman law. Romans originally used the term 'vim maiorem' in Latin which meant "Superior Force". Contracts using this term exist as far back as 509BC. 'Vim maiorem' became standard contract terms in most Roman contracts found from this period. It released a person from liability based on actions that were unpreventable or unforseeable.

As ancient Rome fell, Italy began to disperse and adopted the same term 'vim maiorem' into the Italian language. This well-understood concept and term enabled contracts to be made among dispersed Italian villages. The tradition of this latin phrase stayed alive in italy for another thousand years until the renaissance.

During the renaissance, the French were looking to rebuild a great society like the Romans and determined that law was a critical part of the culture. Contracts became commonplace again, and the French were inspired by the contracts written between these Italian cities. They found the 'vim maiorem' term helpful is absolving liability for unforeseeable circumstances. They translated the term to "force majeure". This literally translates into 'the greatest force'.

Again... no spiritual component.

The tradition later expanded into England in the 16th century. While the English didn't like the French, they did like the concept of "Force Majeure". But they didn't want to use a French term. So they originally adopted the term 'vis maior' in contractual law, which was an alternate latin term used along with 'vim maiorem' which translated closer to "major acts'.

Thomas Wilson is the English man who translated "vis maior" into the English term "Act of God". He felt that "the Italianated [words] counterfeited the great Kinges Englishe" [sic]. As a respected judge, he sought to find an appropriate English translation that gave respect to the King instead of giving credit to the French or Italians. As Thomas Wilson was a Christian who was heavily engaged in the Christianity revolution in medieval England at the time, he coined the term "Act of God" to replace "vis maior".

This is the first time that this traditional phrase carried any religious weight. But that relgious weight was quickly dispelled by future court rulings.

> "Judges continued [throughout the 17th century] to rule that in law, an act of God did not depend on divine influence, including violent storms at sea, unprecedented rainfall, extraordinary floods, earthquakes, and death. In 1609, a British court ruled that a fire caused by lightning was an act of God. In 1785 a court ruled that a fire NOT caused by lightning was NOT an act of God. In 1886, England's Lord Esher ruled, 'In the older, simpler days I have myself never had any doubt but that the phrase does not mean act of God in the ecclesiastical and biblical sense... but that in a mercantile sense'. By the 1800s, the courts routinely rejected claims that God was responsible for human negligence.[1]"

At this same time, contracts were being passed from England to the newly formed USA. Most of the founding fathers were lawyers by trade and "Act of God" quickly spread as a legal term in the US.

"Act of God" is defined as "any accident, due directly and exclusively to natural causes without human intervention, which could not be prevented."

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380373/?page=4

[PhasmaFelis]

Yeah, I feel like "clinically dead" is a technical term with a limited scope that got used casually because it sounds dramatic, and people started taking it seriously.

"Dead" is a word that's pretty well-defined for most of human history. If you're dead, you can't come back. If you do come back, barring supernatural intervention, you weren't dead. It's pretty simple.

[notus]

It's my understanding that with the creation of resuscitation methods and life-support systems that clinical death was already redefined to include cessation of brain activity. If they were not put on life support for example they would meet the definition of death through cessation of respiratory system and heartbeat. Pretty sure this guy doesn't have a leg to stand on.

[kiba]

I prefer information theoretic death, in which the information content of the brain cannot be recovered with any medical intervention we have available, but that may run into the cloning problem...

[gpm]

Hopefully the information is quantum in nature, then the no-cloning theorem solves the cloning problem :)

[VeninVidiaVicii]

That's a strange way to end an otherwise compelling comment.

[PhasmaFelis]

I don't see why, given the commenter makes it clear that it has no bearing on practical discussion.

[cactus2093]

This comment took a turn in your last paragraph in a way that genuinely fascinates me since it was otherwise very logical. So you would write laws around the idea of things that have never been shown to be physically possible, just because you believe them to be possible?

How far would you take this? Should we bring back laws against witchcraft? Should other religions get to define their own laws based on what they expect to be possible, or just Christianity?

And if such a law is tested in court, how should we prove that it was divine? Maybe this case of the prisoners heart starting again was really God intervening, why should it not trigger your proposed God clause?

[jacobobryant]

> I don't think that really impacts practical discussions of death.

[TomMarius]

I am sure if the God exists they don't need an exception in our law

[bjt2n3904]

An interesting point I heard on [2], Tim Keller if I remember right. Is isn't that God is "violating" the laws of nature, he's restoring things to the way they would have been without the fall in the garden.