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Immortality. Should we live forever?


PeeMarc
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Should we be immortal?  

13 members have voted

  1. 1. Should we be immortal?

    • YES
    • no
    • not sure
      0
    • I'll have a beer and think some more
    • dont give a toss


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Mazzy's journal today made me think (no surprise there).

I had a little google on the subject. Over the years, i've eiither read or studied this subject under many different headings.. from philosophy and art to different religions and beliefs.

I still do not have a concrete opinion on this subject.

It is one of the few subjects with which human's have been obsessed since the beginning of time.

here are a few different views of it from Wiki...

The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first literary works, dating back at least to the 22nd century BC, is primarily a quest of a hero seeking to become immortal.

Fame itself has been described as a method to "achieve immortality", if only semantically, so that the name or works of a famous individual would "live on" after his or her death. This view of immortality places value on how one will be remembered by generations to come. For example, in Homer's Iliad, Achilles is already nigh-invincible, so his primary motive for fighting in the Trojan War is recognition and everlasting fame.

Quantum immortality is not widely regarded by the scientific community as being a verifiable or even necessarily correct offshoot of the many worlds interpretation. In the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the wavefunction never collapses, and thus all possible outcomes of a quantum event exist simultaneously, with each event apparently spawning an entirely new universe in which a single possible outcome exists. In this theory, a person could hypothetically live forever as there might exist a string of possible quantum outcomes in which that individual never dies.

Buddhists believe that immortality is impossible, even the gods which can live for eons eventually die.

Christians believe that every person that believes in Christ will be resurrected; Bible passages are interpreted as teaching that the resurrected body will, like the present body, be both physical (but a renewed and non-decaying physical body) and spiritual. After the Last Judgment, those who have been born again will live forever in the presence of God, and those who were never born again will be abandoned to never-ending consciousness of guilt, separation from God, and punishment for sin.

Roman Catholic dogmatic theology also teaches that there is a supernatural realm called Purgatory where souls who have died in a state of grace but have yet to expiate venial sins or temporal punishments due to past sins are cleansed before they are admitted into Heaven.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe the word soul (nephesh or psykhe) as used in the Bible is a person, an animal, or the life a person or animal enjoys. Hence, the soul is not part of man, but is the whole man ? man as a living being. Hence, when a person or animal dies, the soul dies, and death is a state of non-existence.

Hindus believe in an immortal soul which is reincarnated after death. According to Hinduism, people repeat a cycle of life, death, and rebirth (a cycle called samsara). If they live their life well, their Karma increases and their station in the next life will be higher, and conversely lower if they live their life poorly.

Judaism claims that the righteous dead will be resurrected in the "messianic age" with the coming of the messiah. They will then be granted immortality in a perfect world. The wicked dead, on the other hand, will not be resurrected at all.

Muslims believe that everyone has an immortal soul which will live on after death. A soul undergoes correction in Hell if it has led an evil life, but once this correction is over, the soul is admitted to Heaven. Souls that commit unforgivable evil will never leave hell. Some souls will therefore never taste Heaven.

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...We are 'fundamentally' immortal due to the fact that we are energy, and energy cannot be destroyed, just transformed...

...so death is just a transformation, change will always happen.

..The fact that we are made of Atoms, and that if we were to pick ourselves apart Atom by Atom, we would simply be a lifeless pile of sand...

...so we must have an energy that ignites our consciousness and being...

...some people call it the 'soul'.

...it's this energy that transforms and is immortal

..79

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I actually don't believe in immortality (except immortality by fame) or rather I have yet to see anything that could convince me that it would likely happen. The philosophy and credo behind most religion are extremely dated and I find it impossible for me to "believe" as hard as I try. These are just beautiful stories from the past for me. I do hope that the recent progress in the field of genetics will make it possible to extend our lifetime significantly before I get too old.

On the topic of immortality by fame, I highly recommend Milan Kundera's book Immortality. A great book with the right dose of humour & reflections to keep anyone interested.

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