George H. Baxter grew up in a quiet small town in North Carolina, where wide open skies and endless questions shaped his earliest curiosity about life's biggest mysteries. While others were content with easy answers, he became fascinated by the one truth no one could escape: that every life eventually ends.Over the years, this fascination grew into a lifelong pursuit. A professional researcher and lecturer in the field of life, death, and human mortality, Baxter has dedicated his career to exploring what science, medicine, philosophy, and culture can tell us about the one experience all humans share.An outspoken atheist who believes in the power of reason, evidence, and discovery, Baxter approaches his subject without superstition, and with deep respect for the facts. His work is not about comforting myths but about understanding the truth, however challenging it may be and how that truth can give life more meaning.Do We Have to Die? is the result of years spent studying the edges of science, the history of ideas, and the extraordinary courage of those who confront mortality with open eyes.When he isn't writing or speaking, Baxter can often be found hiking the Carolina foothills, always with a notebook in his pocket, still asking the question that started it all: What does it mean to be alive?