Life, Death, and Eternity

[KafirChobee]

Religious zealots, please be appeased that what ever you believe is fine with me. Accepting you will recieve eternal life by accepting what ever your religion tells you too - fine. No challange here. I admire your wishing to live forever - admiral your acceptance of it. Eternity is a wonderful thing, I guess.

For those with a more philosophical persuasion, I present the question of "Who wants to live forever" (like the song from from Highlander).

At 20, in the army (1967-70) it was a matter of survival - eternity was the next day and I was pretty much happy about getting through it. Then there was life after surviving the military, a matter of existance and reprocreation - as always.

Thing is, there are three phases of life:
1) surviving the initial stages of it, say 'til 30.
2) becoming independent (or not), by defining oneself in a manner that accepts they are an individual that comes to their own conclusions - or accepts those taught them.
3) Reaches the age that death is closer than further, regardless of economic persuasion.

The point: Who in their right mind wants to be eternal? Aside from those that would also accept being vapires to do so (which pretty much denounces their religious persuasion).

So, living forever - eternity. Is it an objective, or a reason to accept a religion?

Eh?

[Divinus Arma]

Worth a ponder. Good thread KC.

I find it interesting because of my chosen profession. I will face the prospect of an early death until I retire.

I remember standing with my compatriats in Kabul, at the embassy when we were placed on alert after Chinese-made surface-to-surface rockets were launched at our compound. I remember being cool as ice and watching the junior troops around me squirm. I remember breathing deeply and accepting my fate of death before the assault against us.

But death never came.

I remember when the truth of my service sank in. What did it mean to die for one's country? Did it matter as an American more than as, say, as an Ugundan? I knew that to die was for my family not the nation. It was for our way of life. Not the government.

Now as a Fire Fighter with a beautiful daughter I am again faced with the same questions. It's harder now. I'm older and wiser; more experienced.
I'm not just an invincible 20 year old with a penchant for booze and pun tang. But the same motivation is there. "The greater good".


See, I have not yet reached your #1. I have long since hit #2. #3 is an unkown to me. It's that #3 that gets to me. When am I closer? Was it when I drove through open mine fields? Was it when the vehicle on fire in front of me exploded and launched metal debris 300 ft into the sky? Was it two weeks ago when we pulled up to the angry head of a wicked brush fire and I was surrounded by a wall of flames and our hose was run over and ineffective?

Death, for me, has always been closer than further.

I'll never forget when I was seven years old and I knew that I would die young. I was in a playground in grade school. I felt it. I knew it. I was not afraid.

I'm still young. When will it come? Is it closer or further? God, I hope it's further. I want to see my daughter grow up.

[Strike For The South]

You just hafto accept death as afact. It Will happen and nothing is going to stop it so to worry about it is childish. Just go and live. I'd much rather be a man who stumbles through life hitting lampshades and ottomans than the man who tiptoed through it.

[Hosakawa Tito]

No one gets out of here alive. Obsessing about death is senseless and without profit. Better to cross the finish line of life skidding sideways, tires smoking and gears stripped, totally spent and screaming "Geronimoooooo..." at the top of your lungs. I don't seek it, but when it's my time I won't flinch from it either. If you live well, you'll die well.

[Bijo]

So, living forever - eternity. Is it an objective, or a reason to accept a religion?

Eh?

I cannot answer your question with absolute certainty. Perhaps it is possibly the case for some. I suspect many believe (and generally accept religion) due to a need for comfort (of whatever sort) (, and possibly because some have been induced with the concept of religion and cannot negate it from their minds as it is a normal way of living).

Disregarding religion, a wish for eternity might spring from fear of death, or perhaps greed.

[Sigurd]

Death or dying is not worrisome in itself.
All here who have been wounded by knife or other sharp objects knows it doesn’t hurt that your spilling blood drains your life away.

You say death is a part of life and we should enjoy life while we can.
As a daredevil in phase 1 of KafirChobee’s list you do many stupid things that could easily kill you.
You never think twice when going down some road on a bullet bike doing 240kph /150 mph.
You never think death is an option skiing outside marked slopes in areas with avalanche warnings.
Then you find the lass of your life and everything changes. You get two lovely daughters who depend on you for subsistence. You build a nice home worth an arm and a leg and it is your high paying job who allows you to do this. You see your family is happy and you know it will all be crushed if any of you die.
Then after a doctor’s appointment and taking some blood samples you are sent to a hospital for some more checks. Two weeks of tests and a few more of waiting, you find out you have a form of cancer. Untreated most die after a few months. Treated half die within 10 years.
You know you most likely will die within 15 years when your daughters just have reached the teens. Then the treatment starts and its all looking good, no need to worry, your blood value count is going down as it should.
Then after 5 treatments, the doctors seem worried. You blood count value is still too high.
They talk about chemotherapy. You know that by trying to kill off your stem cells many develop leukaemia with your kind of cancer.
Great… You life is getting shorter by the minute and suddenly in the middle of the night while in bed, you break down crying uncontrollably.
Your wife is trying to be the strong one for a change telling you that she wished it was her that had this death sentence over her head.

To answer the question:

You want to be there when your little girls graduate from school.
You want to lead them down the isle on their wedding day.
You wish to have that talk with their man promising you will hurt them if they ever hurt your daughter.
You wish to see your grandchildren grow up.
You wish to be the one that teaches your grandchildren to make a [selje] flute from a piece of fresh twig from the [selje] tree like your father taught you and his father taught him.

Living forever doesn’t sound too bad…

[Navaros]

I would ask contrary to the question in the OP;

Who in their right mind wouldn't want to be eternal?

Without one being eternal, then anything he does in life is completely and utterly pointless. In 200 years from now no one will even remember the name or anything whatsoever about most who are deceased from this generation. Which renders them having existed totally moot and irrelevant to anything.

Why would anyone desire what not being eternal amounts to, which is nothing more than a brief, totally pointless existence?

As for the second question in the OP: the problem many may encounter is that they in this life rejected the idea that they are eternal, yet in the next life come to find that they were wrong about that and are indeed eternal. And at that point it's too late to do anything about it. Which is not a position anyone would ever want to find himself in. Therefore I would say yes it is a great reason to accept religion in the event that doing so does indeed enable one to find a favorable existence in the next life.

[King Henry V]

Religious zealots, please be appeased that what ever you believe is fine with me. Accepting you will recieve eternal life by accepting what ever your religion tells you too - fine. No challange here. I admire your wishing to live forever - admiral your acceptance of it. Eternity is a wonderful thing, I guess.

For those with a more philosophical persuasion, I present the question of "Who wants to live forever" (like the song from from Highlander).

This reminds me of one of Bob Hope's (R.I.P.) quips when he was approaching his hundredth birthday. Somebody asked him "Who would ever want to live to a hundred?" and he answered "Anyone who's ninety-nine". The same applies here: sure, when death seems a fairly distant prospect, it's not that worrisome. But how many of you would, when you're on your deathbeds and offered another 50 years of life, say "Nah, I'm a bit bored with this life malarkey. Time for something different."? The truth is that no matter how crap life can be, it's better than nothing (excepting of course if a person's life is truly worthless because of extreme pain brought by illness etc.)
Though my own personal experiences lead me to believe that there is a God, I still find it hard to believe in an afterlife, which seems incongruous seeing as nearly all religions affirm that one does exist. I would dearly like to believe that the soul, the thing that makes us who we are, the difference between a collection of molecules and a human being, our invariant mass, is eternal and that we shall progress to somewhere else, however, the belief of an existence in an afterlife can only be acquired through faith, for nobody knows what happens when we are dead.

[Brenus]

Difficult subject. Personal matters…
Join the army, jumped from planes, did usual things. Enjoy it.
I went in Charities, NGO, in three major conflicts.
I thought I couldn’t be touch. I didn’t expect death because I was sure to survive. I did enjoy the rush, the adrenaline.
I saved lives, went where no others dared to go, delivering food, medicaments, evacuating and helping the victims…
I saw the mountains falling on the black silhouettes running for covers, saw the orange light of a mortar shell, and heard the noise of the pieces of metal hitting the walls.
And one day, I heard nothing but I awake in a hospital with a broken jaw, arm and leg in slices, lost in a cloud of morphine.
I was dead during few days then awake/born again in a French Hospital to hear a surgeon telling me that I will keep my eye, my arm and my leg, that I had few operations and that they extract more that 300 alien parts from my body. And others operations will be needed…

And I enjoy life then. I rejoiced the feeling of the rain on my skin, telling me that I was alive… Every feeling, every sensations, every days were a gift.

I am now married, and tomorrow will be like yesterday. And I like it.
I will see the daughters of my Wife’s daughters and sons becoming my grand-daughters, and I like it.

Death will come. In French death is female, and she is the only one woman you can be sure she will come. She is waiting, faithfully.

I hope there is no return. Who wants to east the same (moderator will delete it, so I do it first).
I hope I will die with no pain.
It was too early, but when I was hit (Rocket or mortar), eating a saucisson (French sausage, quite special) with a nice glass of Bordeaux, it was perfect. I felt nothing. I was then I wasn’t. No fears, no pain, just the reverse of Pascal. Cogito ergo Sum. I think so I am.
I didn’t think so I was not any more.
The fact is I have no answer… I didn’t fear death during wars and bullets flying around because I was young and I was a Professional… Just a question technical and I believed in my Star.
I still don’t fear death because it is still an option still quite far.
But when last year we buried my mother, it come to her children that the next time we will gather for a funeral, it will be for one of us… Who’s next?

[Bijo]

If your story is true, Brenus, you are worthy of honour

[Ironside]

Who in their right mind wouldn't want to be eternal?

There's a huge difference between a huge longevity and the eternity.

200 years, sure no problem. 1000 years, starting to feel a bit old. 1.000.000 years, uh well the evolution question has gotten a definite answer, 1.000.000.000 years starting to feel too old yet?

6x10^23 years, (tried a comprehention of that number a while ago when I heard about some Indian definition of a very large number. It's roughly the same amount of seconds it take to build a 10 square-kilometer cube made of hair, one hair at a time, when you lay one every 10.000 year) and this is still nothing, a split second, compared to the eternity.

I do hope that if the soul is eternal, your mind is not built the same way as your mind is as a human being, because living for an eternity and being unable to die, makes the difference between heaven and hell the time it takes to develop a serious death-wish.

[KafirChobee]

OK, so no one ever accused me of being the brightest bulb on the tree.
The question posed by me was meant not as a limiting factor to a normal life, but to look at the philosophy of eternity. Most of the responders have understood that, even though my wording maybe - is lacking.

Personally, if we knew for certain there was re-incarnation or an eternal life of some form after the death of our present form it might alter my perception of how to conduct my affairs. Maybe, but I've always treated others as I wished to be treated and have never harmed anyone that wasn't attempting to harm me (or those I cared for). So, what could I change that would alter the results of my future entrance into the mystery of after my demise that would change the affect once there? [Not for discussion, just a footnote - OK]

As for my name living forever? Haven't been concerned with such an abstract since I was maybe 8 or 9 sitting in a history class. It's a moot point for me. In a hundred years I seriously doubt even Paris Hilton will be remembered - unless she assassinates a dignitary, which seems unlikely. For that matter, how many US Presidents can you name - let alone the past leaders of other nations? Those you can is probably due to circumstance or notoriety.
Now, my surname will likely live on - baring some catostrophic disaster. My genes will continue, and possibly even some of the "life" lessons that were passed down from my grandparents to me to my children. Maybe that is eternity, atleast while man exists on earth a part of me is eternal.

But, no thanks on living as long as the universe. This life has been just fine - rollercoasters and all.

[Papewaio]

1 mole is a rather large number, yet it is still only 18 mL of water...