We bend and shape God's commands the same way, to accomodate the contours of our own particular forms of rebellion. We look for loopholes. Each of us adds to to the world's chaos in some small but significant way. And the sum total is what we see. The same darkness that provides grisly details for the 11 o'clock news is also at work in all of us, in less flamboyant ways, to be sure, but it is the very same darkness at work in us all.
Darkness is the absense of light.
Death is the absence of life. Dead is not slightly sick, or a little under the weather, or weakened. Dead is dead. A condition of hardened non-responsiveness. A spiritual flatline.