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What's makes some one want an eternal existence? Is it greed?
It seems the height of evil to use up resources for an eternity. If I was besmirched with the idea of a satan, I would think that satan was the one to invent a desire for life forever.
The desire is there (for me at least) because i enjoy life so much. The idea of one day not experiencing life, seeing my daughters, watching the wind blow falling leaves, and the hearing waves crashing onto the beach are the reasons i wish our lives were 'eternal'.....or at lease much longer than 80-90 years...
but too bad.....tough....The reality is that it is not eternal.
I used to want to live forever, used to be terrified of death. (I'm an atheist) But I've come to realize, live forever? With this c***sucking human race? No. I don't hardly think so. Death is the only way I'll finally be free from these glorified primates with delusions of grandeur that we call human beings. Ever see the show "The Prisoner"? (The Patrick McGoohan version from the late sixties.) This world, or more specifically living with humans is "the village" and I am the prisoner. Yup.
It's impossible for the human mind to really conceptualize what "eternity" actually is.
I don't know if there are any Star Trek fans here, but the idea of living forever reminds me of the entity known as Q, a godlike being who has been around so long that he has literally experienced everything. All he has left to do for his amusement is to mess around with the crew of the Enterprise - like a pest.
I would imagine that good people would eventually turn evil because committing evil acts will be the one thing an eternally living person hasn't done yet. Just like the being known as Q.
Even a paradise such as Heaven would get old after awhile. Even if it takes quintillions of years to get sick of Heaven, it WILL happen because eternity is ... well ... forever. The Law of Diminishing Returns will most likely be at work even in paradise.
The pleasures that we hold so dear to our hearts today most likely will be boring, "old hat" stuff in a few googol years.
I do sometimes wish that I could quietly watch the passing of history as I am intrigued by the events that unfold in our world - it might be interesting to live for a really long time. But eternally? I think, at some point in our long existence, we would realize that "death" is the only thing we haven't experienced and thus we would long for it.
The desire is there (for me at least) because i enjoy life so much. The idea of one day not experiencing life, seeing my daughters, watching the wind blow falling leaves, and the hearing waves crashing onto the beach are the reasons i wish our lives were 'eternal'.....or at lease much longer than 80-90 years...
but too bad.....tough....The reality is that it is not eternal.
in that vein, i can understand. but with it comes the likes of Sara Palin, Republicans and the GOP. Could anyone imagine an eternity with that harridan?
I used to want to live forever, used to be terrified of death. (I'm an atheist) But I've come to realize, live forever? With this c***sucking human race? No. I don't hardly think so. Death is the only way I'll finally be free from these glorified primates with delusions of grandeur that we call human beings. Ever see the show "The Prisoner"? (The Patrick McGoohan version from the late sixties.) This world, or more specifically living with humans is "the village" and I am the prisoner. Yup.
I think choices / options are a Good Thing so long as we have actual control over them. So I'd take biological or even total immortality so long as I could have an end to it whenever I'd wish. Because as others have pointed out, while life is a little on the short / mean side, I am not so sure that one could find enough interest and satisfy enough curiosity to keep it going forever.
What'd be interesting is how the dynamic would change. If we weren't always looking over our shoulder trying to get things done by the time we're 50 or 60 or 70 (or before our health goes south) then the time taken up by various attempts would not be a problem at all. Slow and steady would, in fact, win the race, so to speak. People would become more zen, I'd think.
What's makes some one want an eternal existence? Is it greed?
It seems the height of evil to use up resources for an eternity. If I was besmirched with the idea of a satan, I would think that satan was the one to invent a desire for life forever.
On a very basic level, evolution.
Tenaciously struggling to avoid death is an integral part of passing on ones genetic legacy, such competition being the basis of evolution. While technically, death is not necessarily a hindrance to that - so long as one secures the next generation all safe and sound before dying, that is - the impulse to live, Live, LIVE is not so nuanced. It is simply there, always, because those organisms that had such an overpowering drive were more likely to live to pass on their genes and their tendencies to strive always to survive.
We can dress it up in all sorts of philosophical trappings, but it is simple evolutionary biology at the basis of human desire for immortality of one sort or another.
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