How to have immortality without God... Why does the world exist?.

[codyle]

Three things:

1)

they arranged themselves, of course, through trial and error everything was formed. And I suppose everything will just disarrange itself when there's not enough materials to keep it as it is.

I do not believe there's an such a thing as an actual, conscious deity that actually cares for this human race.

That explains HOW we got here, not WHY we are here. When we speculate about the reason for our existence we are usually talking about some kind of purpose; now one may argue that because we got here through molecules arranging themselves through trial and error, then we are here for no purpose, and therefore there is no reason for our existence, we just exist. But in my opinion you merely described the mode of our coming into existence. Of course the big big bang itself could be a justification for the existence of god, because if every action needs a cause, what caused the big band if nothing existed before it? A theist would conclude that god did, however this does not mean that god is a personal god.

2) Immortality is indeed quite plausible and attainable without a god. At the speed of light time ceases to exist and infinity sets in; so if humans were able to travel at the speed of light--in say some kind of space-craft--we could conceivably become immortal.

3) You all should read up about advancements in quantum physics that have found that everything needs conscious interpretation in order to exist, because unless they are interpreted they exist only as theoretical infinite possibilities (i.e. everything that could have happened). So god could be existing right now and be interpreting events as they arise, therefore turning them into reality; or god could be existing in the future and be interpreting the entire history of the universe, thus giving it actualization.

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j11/goswami.asp

Also, as a side-note, that something is not universally accepted doesn't entail that it is invalid; saying that it would be valid is a logical fallacy--i.e. that appeal to common belief. For example, doctor's and scientists used to believe that blood-letting cured sickness, and jews and black people were inferior--now would you argue that because those were taken as established facts that they were true?

[blazeofglory]

God is allegoric and to understand God if He really does exist we want a higher mental dimension. We are barred from understanding God. Demystification of God is a challenge to all, and that is why many take refuge in mysticism thinking that science cannot reach the extent ff truth in point of fact. Scientific methods of searching for God are unending and we will wind up with nothing, the mystery remaining veiled.

As to having immortality without God all I can say is that man is immortal knowingly or unknowingly in essence; for we do not know what is God and our cranium is too limited to gauge the scope of God, He is all embracing and all pervasive. I remain silent about this topic.

Coming to immortality all I believe is that man is immortal. Death is a short respite and it simply transforms us one state to another the way sunlight transforms snow into water. Snow dies into water and how can we say snow dies? A seed dies into a seedling. Even if we do not believe in an afterlife there are other forms in which we survive. We may survive in the forms of clay, water, air when our physical corpus decomposes.

Man is immortal with or without belief in God. I never feel that death is my end. For I believe I am the cosmos

"The beginning of the universe
Is the mother of all things.
Knowing the mother, on also knows the sons.
Knowing the sons, yet remaining in touch with the mother,
Brings freedom from the fear of death." - Tao

[virginiawang]

"Maybe there is no reason for our existence. Maybe we just exist."

I couldn't agree more.

I find that almost all humans require some sort of meaning or signifigance in their lives in order to be happy, or to feel that life is worth living.

I believe the opposite. A life without any guidance or meaning provides for the ultimate freedom. Dostoevsky is often misquoted as saying "without god, anything is possible". Well take that a step further, "without meaning, anything is possible". A universe without absolutes or objective truth and value is essentially the most free environment possible, there are no limites.
Nihilism, in this light, is an optimistic undertaking.

People need to read more Camus.

It is beyond my ken. My life needs sparckles to make it worth living, to make me linger when I have to leave. To view my existence as a thing that merely happened, wouldn't have left even a trace on the path I took sounds really dreadful. Perhaps I am not a philosophical woman indeed.
I once read Camus, but I abandoned the book at the second page. Sorry.
He gave me the feeling that it would not matter at all if he were to die tomorrow. It bored me tremendously.

[virginiawang]

Yes... this is true. Without God and without meaning life has no limits. The ultimate freedom. But what does this mean? The author Peter S. Beagle suggested something of this in his marvelous book on the 15th century Flemish painter, Heironymus Bosch:

... it is hard for me to remember a time when I did not know... that there was nothing human beings would not do to one another, for the pure pleasure of it, and that their evil will neither be prevented in this world nor punished in the next. The Nazis may or may not have lost a war, but their howl of triumph still echoes everywhere, every minute. Nothing is forbidden, there is no covenant. The lightning does not come. Civilization has always flourished in the shadow of this knowledge, and our own culture has even trained itself to climb it, like a morning glory vine. We call it "the existential dilemma" and "the human condition", but (the 15th century) called it the Devil.

I do not understand at all what devils have to do with not having meanings in life. An obscure region of my mind told me that devils need meanings in their life more than any other creature on earth does. I do not see a connection between a devilish woman and a nun. In addition I don't think a life being meaningful restricts the course of it at any rate, so I cannot see how an insipid life which a monk leads suggests the word, freedom.

[codyle]

I don't see how life could be anymore free without a god than with one. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that your point is that since god would cause us to act in a certain manner, out of say fear of eternal damnation, we would not be free. But isn't our behavior already governed by causes? Say I robbed a jewelry store because I was recently laid off from my job and I need to feed my family, would you say I did this out of my own free will or that my dire situation caused me to rob the jewelry store? How about if someone much stronger than I was caused me to rob a jewelry store by grabbing my arm, forcing me to throw a rock through the window and then physically making me go inside and steal the jewels; is that situation really different from the first? If every action has a cause and every cause has an explanation, and if for an action to truly be free it must not have a cause, then we do not have free will.

[JuniperWoolf]

3) You all should read up about advancements in quantum physics that have found that everything needs conscious interpretation in order to exist, because unless they are interpreted they exist only as theoretical infinite possibilities (i.e. everything that could have happened).

Yeah, I've heard that theory, and I disagree. I think that the idea that things wouldn't exist without our perception of them is arrogant (but I'm not great at physics, so maybe I'm missing something).

I think that we ARE immortal, in a very basic way. The material that I'm made of has always existed. I've been a part of stars, other people, animals, planets, I was there when the universe began, and I'm going to exist forever (see The Fountain, that's what influenced me in this regard). Whether I have consciousness or not doesn't matter to me. I think that consciousness is over-rated anyway, I'm not convinced that what I am is any more then a series of memories and a system of emotions. When I die, these memories die too and I (as Robin Trimble, former human being) may cease to be, but my real solid being exists forever. Organisms seem to me to be a lot like inanimate objects, except that we are tiny little bits working together in an extremely complicated system. I don't know how this system began, or why, but that doesn't really matter.

That's my guess at the moment, anyway. This could change.

[The Atheist]

Ever thought how those elements got arranged in a specific fashion to constitute this universe and all it contains? Who arranged them in their positive order and who will disarrange them and when and why??

There is no "who" arranged anything. The matter from the big bang formed patterns consistent with the nature of matter and energy - including the dark kinds.

In at least one case, those patterns have allowed "life" to commence.

There is no why, there just is.

I understand your difficulty with it, but there could be infinite universes where no ordered pattern exists and matter just floats about.

I don't feel any type of immortality is possible.

Me neither, and lucky for us:

Excuse me,but why should there be immortality?Have you ever imagined how it would be to live forever and ever and ever and ever and never be able to escape?It is a very prosaic question,but don't you think you would be tired?In the end,there is a point at death,which I believe everyone has very well understood.

Yep, I do reckon I'd be a touch bored after the first trillion or so years.

Should I be opposed to religion entirely, like Dawkins, on the basis that a belief in something that isn't real is slowing down 'real' human progress? Or should I be tolerant and accept that many people find deep meaning and spirituality through religious belief - perhaps a deeper happiness than a life without religion can give?

I know this is wildly off topic but this seems to be the way my thoughts have led me.

There is no "should" involved beyond doing what you want to.

But, still, we know that the earth tends to repair itself immediately, even if something destroys all life on earth, nature prevails, eventually.

Actually, we don't know anything of the kind.

There is no evidence outside of Lovelock's Gaia nonsense (which isn't evidence anyway) that the earth is anything other than a rock subject to forces of nature, some of which are beneficial to the sustenance of life.

Then comes the question that how is the earth doing this?

Good question, I'll await your answer on the bit above.

How are humans functioning without a supreme being(s)? We know how the humans can think (by electric-chemical impulses) or breath (movement of a cartilage-diaphragm), etc., but what is really doing all this? String theory seems to explain this (I don't know how, I need to read on it), but what forces are doing all this in unison, simultaneously among innumerable systems? Why should the universe even exist if there is no immortality? Is our collective consciousness the reason for our immortality (in this hypothetical situation)? But isn't this collective consciousness a supreme thing anyway?

I guess I have no answer, just more questions. Maybe everyone, and no one can answer this question? Maybe there is no answer because this situation can't exist?

You're confused alright, and confusing quantum mechanics and human emotion isn't the least of it.

Things are just as explicable without a creator providing a "why".

As Tommy Aquinas realised, reductionism is a bad ploy, although in his case, he managed to turn it to suit his hypothesis.

[JuniperWoolf]

Yeah dude, string theory has absolutely nothing to do with explaining why life exists. Physics is my weakest science, but my vague memory seems to suggest that string theory is an attempt to explain the composition of the universe (it sounds stupid, but the idea is that everything is made up of strings. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it).

You're asking questions that have been asked over and over again by every great mind since the origin of thought, and so far no one has even the slightest hint of an answer. I almost drove myself insane doing this (I'm really not exaggerating). If it starts to bug you, my advice (once again) is to not even bother. You'll never understand, so just let it go.

[skib]

And how do we know that we are immortal? How do we know anything about it? Meditation, etc etc can give you personal insights, but may these insights not be products of the mind being turned loose? Look at your dreams. Where in the world does all that crazy stuff come from? I'm with jon, wherever he went. Have a beer and start thinking about things you can figure out for sure. We'll all be dead one day, and then we will either go on to the next life or we'll be rotting. Either way, our questions are answered whether we're conscious of it or not.

[blazeofglory]

And how do we know that we are immortal? How do we know anything about it? Meditation, etc etc can give you personal insights, but may these insights not be products of the mind being turned loose? Look at your dreams. Where in the world does all that crazy stuff come from? I'm with jon, wherever he went. Have a beer and start thinking about things you can figure out for sure. We'll all be dead one day, and then we will either go on to the next life or we'll be rotting. Either way, our questions are answered whether we're conscious of it or not.

This is a hard question to answer and nobody knows it yet it interests everyone in the world. I believe in immortality, and my concept of immortality is somewhat different from the rest in that even if man dies he will decompose into the substances he is made of, and the fact we must know is that he survives in the elements of the universe; for we are the soil, the water, the air, the sky and the fire and we will survive in them. We cannot analyze how we will survive. We are the universe and part of it, and the sun and man are basically or universally not two different entities, and the difference if any we picture is an illusion. There is a universal soul and the entire universe is not inanimate; they are vital and vivacious and the problem is with us for we fail to understand this spirited world for we are not endowed with that capacity to comprehend this secret. Maybe some sages through great penances and contemplations can visualize that part of us; a different dimension of us that is not visible to us. I am not speaking this with authority for I just believe like this. I am not stringent to what I say; maybe tomorrow you can convince me of the contrary. I am open to ideas, newer ideas. I do not have a fixation with sets of theories people promulgate. The idea I am fashioning may go a great amount of change, for I am not theorists.

[homeros4U]

Let us see if we can find an answer to the following :

How to have immortality without God... Why does the world exist?.

Here is my humble opinion.

The answer seems to be hidden in the question. For by asking "why" we pressuppose the existence of reason and hence a reasoner (God) prior to that of the world (universe).

To find out whether anything without God is possible, we first need to find out whether an explanation of the world without God is possible, and start with the question "How does the world exist?" not "Why does the world exist?".

Only after finding a satisfactory answer to this question can we find out if any kind of immortality is possible. And such an answer, we do not yet possess.

Therefore, my humble response is: we do not yet know how to have immortality without God.

When we find out how and achieve it we might have self sufficient advanced robots by then who might refer to us as immortals.

Yea, who knows, after all, history might repeat itself.

[billyjack]

keys to immortality--small meals. warm baths. circular breathing. making love...worked for alobar

[MrRegular]

Not to seem to new age about this but I am convinced at the moment that we exist to be a form of perspective for the universe. We are a way for the universe to know itself. The big bang and the formation of random matter into complex systems can be compred to the subconcious congregation of elements to form a fetus. There is a base entity which is attempting to create and refine something.
This is evident in the everday lives of us all. The constant state of challenge in which we all live is a procedure established partly by our own collective subconsious minds (a popular tool for the base entity) and partly by the material world. This state exists to mould us into more perfect individuals, thus being pieces of a more perfect whole, until eventually we have something similar to an Ubermensche (super man) or some other variation on the theme.

[eric.bell]

Let us see if we can find an answer to the following :

How to have immortality without God... Why does the world exist?.

Let me start by saying that answering said questions is infeasible, if not impossible; and I lean toward the latter. But with that said--I do believe that explaining to one’s self or even to others is both feasible and possible, and that it is the very nature of man to ask these questions, as well as search out their answer(s). I would also add one question: what is the fundamental drive (and thus the fundamental means to happiness) for mankind?

The meaning of man’s existence, to me, is no more than to exist. No more, no less. As is any other perception that our senses show us. What greater meaning could there be than to exist? Nothing, say I. What is mankind’s drive? Hunger and thirst; for all manners of things: food and water, love and lust, material and immaterial (i.e. righteousness in each individual’s manner and ideal); life and, finally, death.

Now, Immortality…can we not say that we are immortal? We are made up of that which makes up all things, and as we die we provide for something(one) else’s birth. So, if we are all made up of that which makes up all things and if when we cease to exist (cognitively [i.e. our own perception of our existence]) we simply give what matter is needed for another’s existence to another, then we, ourselves, live on through others; as others have lived on through us. I’m not sure that I’ve made my self clear, so I will put it more simply. Matter makes up all things. We are made of matter. Matter is indestructible (at least without our discussing anti-matter), therefore immortal. We are immortal, because the matter that is (a specific) man lives on in others. The matter that is you was once the matter that was a tree; the matter that is you will be the matter that makes up a deer--or something along those lines.