Immortality? real or not?

[Judas130]

I used to fear death when younger.

Even now i dream of ways that could prolong life in a healthy way...immortality would be amazing, yet the only thing i've found on that is the promise of the afterlife, that once you die you shall live forever with God.

Or prehaps LaVey's idea that once you die you shall live forever in the sinews and memories and thoughts of others, this way you never truly die. if you don't have a faith then when you die you simply die.

However, you could build on the idea that you are immortal in the way that atoms that build your body are constantly recycled when you body decomposes.

There's also reincarnation.

i had a talk with a biologist once, apparently our bodies can go much further than the ordinary life span, bones can last for years, and of course skin always sheds as new cells grow. The problem is our organs tend to pack up around the age gap of 70-90. Science could help in changing this obviously, whether it be organ regrowth with stem cell research, or we have some space age bio mechanical organ replacements.

I enjoy the idea of Adam and Eve to explain why we do not live forever physically due to original sin, yet did not Jesus absolve us from this? are we free to enhance our bodies to the next step?



What are you thoughts on immortality? Is it real? is it a ridiculous notion? is it physically possible, or only supernaturally? is it even supernaturally possible?


:)

[blazeofglory]

You have given numbers of points about immortality. I do not know in fact immortality is just our realm of imagination or it materially exists or it is just a domain of our thought and philosophy.

I have arisen this question a number of times and I read so many responses and yet none of them turned up convincing. No theories or particular ideas can really bear relevance at all.

I have gone through so many books of mythology and science and none of them could give me satisfactory answer this universal question centering around life and immortality.

Man has failed to understand his origin, and one can refer to the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and can come upon so many explorations with regard to the formation or evolutionary phases of man or life through a tiny unicameral to a complex multi-cellural being in millenniums. Now still so many questions remain unanswered.

[Judas130]

yeah, its a slightly depressing realism. Yet our species constantly discover. Answers tend to lead to more questions. Philosophy can lend its hand to the questions and bring in a multitude of theory and belief, religion lends its arguments and ethical ideals. Science takes the lead in these sort of questions though i believe.

I doubt any answers would arrive to meet these questions until someone decides to actually investigate through meticulous research. We can always sit here speculating, but we won't always be sure on everything. Sometimes if you want something done you have to do it yourself...

[Scheherazade]

Until I meet someone who is immortal, I will assume it is not.

[Dori]

I don't believe that we can be human and immortal at the same time.

[NikolaiI]

I believe in immortality in several different ways. First I believe in eternal recurrence. I also believe that personality types will always reincarnate. In fact I think that within eternity in this material universe, the occurrences of life are so many that everything which exists on this earth is replicated throughout time and space.

There also is the idea that we are the same energy as always, and I agree with this, too. We are only reformations of the same energy that began this world, Earth, and even all the way back to the beginning of time, the first stars and star dust; from that we are made. What is the point of this? No it does not mean we have memories of being stars, but at least we know that in another way of looking at things, we have always existed and always will.

Most religious believe in immortality in one way or another. The Bhagavad-Gita says early on, very clearly, that there was never a time we did not exist, nor will we ever cease to exist. It also describes the soul and material nature and many other things, it is well worth studying.

The Vedas address the question. The conclusion is that all souls are eternal. They are reincarnating according to their karma. Yet there is still something called "Immortality," distinct from that which all souls possess-- for instance consider verse 11 of Sri Isopanisad: "Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessings of immortality."

Devotees of Krishna say that we are eternal souls, only sporting material bodies temporarily. The sea of birth and death, this material universe, is like a prison for our souls, and we stay here as long as we are conditioned by our desires to enjoy various types of bodies. If we take shelter of Krishna, however, the ocean of material suffering is like a cow's hoofprint, and a liberated devotee does not suffer, because he knows his future is with and under the protection of Krishna.

If none of those possibilities are true, there are still others. What is the significance of something with seemingly no significance? What is the lasting imprint of a snowflake or leaf falling to the ground and landing softly? No effect, a small one or a great one? The snowflake or leaf is a tiny, miniscule, part of a greater reality, a greater ocean of forces. It is miniscule, yet to its core it is the same gesture in quality as something as great as the moving of the firmament.

[curlyqlink]

What did Douglas Adams' character Marvin the Paranoid Android say? "Life, don't tell me about life..."? and something along the lines of "Make it up? Life is so depressing, why would I want to make up more of it?"

[wilbur lim]

Your doubts are all in the concept of Science and God.They are inextricably linked.

[Judas130]

There also is the idea that we are the same energy as always, and I agree with this, too. We are only reformations of the same energy that began this world, Earth, and even all the way back to the beginning of time, the first stars and star dust; from that we are made. What is the point of this? No it does not mean we have memories of being stars, but at least we know that in another way of looking at things, we have always existed and always will.



i think some of these possibilities are the best ways in which to describe immortality mentally and physically. It is true that what makes us, once made a star, and so really we have existed since the dawn of the universe. The only thing that alters in us is memory. Yet because of the way in which we have existed (particle wise, yet you could argue spirit wise also) and always shall, shows life as a full circle, with death only there to spin the wheel, to reap the crop so that it may grow again in another field. :thumbs_up

[blazeofglory]

i think some of these possibilities are the best ways in which to describe immortality mentally and physically. It is true that what makes us, once made a star, and so really we have existed since the dawn of the universe. The only thing that alters in us is memory. Yet because of the way in which we have existed (particle wise, yet you could argue spirit wise also) and always shall, shows life as a full circle, with death only there to spin the wheel, to reap the crop so that it may grow again in another field. :thumbs_up

This has beautifully been presented and I like the idea that we were always there before we have this life and will always be there after this, and where we are in fact is a journey and this keeps on going and death is a momentary rest and we will proceed again infinitely.