Beyond his own sure knowledge, he had not a shred of proof. - Clifford D. Simak

The once all-important thing had been buried by more than fifty years of other all-important matters.

He knew that there was death—that there must be death if there were evolution, that death was one of the mechanisms that biologically spelled progress and advancement for evolutionary species.

To cover up actual lack of knowledge, the tale develops an explanation which amounts to divine intervention. It is an easy and, to the primitive mind, a plausible and satisfactory way to explain something of which nothing at all is known.