Reproduction also implies that death has in some measure been overcome. How awesome the power of creation and how final must earthly death subconsciously loom to a celibate and sterile priesthood. All transcendentalisms embody elements of apocalyptism. Typically these are used to provoke revivals when business is slack or attention is drifting elsewhere. Thus it is suddenly revealed that the final days are at hand or that some earthly dispute is in fact a titanic battle against evil spiritual agencies.
Materialist time is linear but unbounded.
Ideally it can be extended arbitrarily far in either direction from the present. To the strict materialist it is self-evidently futile to speculate about a beginning or an end to time. Similarly the materialist is contemptuous of any speculations about any forms of personal existence before birth or after death. The materialist may well fear painful or premature death but can have no fears about being dead. The magical view is that time is cyclic and that all processes recur.