Death vs Immortality

[AvariciaMooneater]

Ok, Ive given this subject some thought. Over the past couple of years, Ive heard many questions like:
-Why do we die
-If we are going to die, why do we even exist
-How does one acheive immortality
Ok
ive come up with several ideas
We die to make room for others on this planet. If noone died, the planet would have crowded itself to the point where oxygen isnt plenty enough or there is no room to move, or we all starve. But in death, our bodies rotted and the nutrients gave back to the earth, which helps the earth as well as clears room for someone else(of course, we have new coffins and preservatives that prevent us giving back to the eath, and cremation burns away any possible nutrients...).
Ok, to answer the why are we here question. I think we are here simply to learn about life. I mean, many religeons beleive in reincarnation and alot of those who dont still beleive that the soul is immortal in and of itself. And you cant truly learn about something unless you do it.(like, for instance, someone may tell you that something tastes good, but unless you try it, you just have to take their word for it...).
And the final question. How does one acheive immortality? Why would anyone want to? Imagine becoming immortal and having to watch all of your loved ones die while you live on. And Immortality doesnt neccesarily mean eternal youth. not only that, but if it did, there are certain life experiences reserved for each age group. And another point. Imagine a scientist(imma call him fred) was working on a project and, during the project, discovered eternal life and youth. Now, he could probably work on the project forever with no one else, but what if the project needed someone elses point of veiw to come to fruition(sp?). And they'd never get the chance to work on it because he was still around. I probably streched the last example a bit, but i think i made my point. Id love to hear the arguements^_^.  

[NOCTVRNVS]

We acheive immortality by dying. Many of us will find eternal life and most of us won't.

Immortality in the flesh is impossible. I mean the fact that flesh decays means that it can not last forever. The second we are born we are dying. It's the way of all nature -- ashes to ashes.  

[Adrilaxas]

Ach, I can't resist the challenge of a good ol' brain poking. *pokes*

Why do we die?

Quote:

We die to make room for others on this planet. If noone died, the planet would have crowded itself to the point where oxygen isnt plenty enough or there is no room to move, or we all starve. But in death, our bodies rotted and the nutrients gave back to the earth, which helps the earth as well as clears room for someone else(of course, we have new coffins and preservatives that prevent us giving back to the eath, and cremation burns away any possible nutrients...).

If we are going to die, why do we even exist?

Quote:

I think we are here simply to learn about life. I mean, many religeons beleive in reincarnation and alot of those who dont still beleive that the soul is immortal in and of itself. And you cant truly learn about something unless you do it.(like, for instance, someone may tell you that something tastes good, but unless you try it, you just have to take their word for it...).

Why do we even want to wonder such things? All thoughts have a base which they come from.
So Man has learnt to ask these questions through his expansion of intelligence, and no influence of anything beyond Nature could have existed to affect this. How, then, could there be no real answer to the real question: Can I ever be completely satisfied?

We must come from Nature, yet we strive for different things than Nature's rule, without meaning to.

We are tormented by our position, which apparently gives us no answer to our wanderings of thought that were created by ignorant atomic forces.
There are four ways to solve this:
1. Suicide. "Nature is not fit for me, and I for it. Therefore, let it be dead to me, and I to it."
2. Blatant ignorance. "I don't care that I can't answer the question. I'm just going to enjoy the experience that I was randomly given"
3. 'Blatant' illogicallity. "Let Nature be ignorant; I shall choose to be wise. I will be discordant of Nature because of its (ignorant) curse against me. Let my life be unNatural!"
4. Confession. "There is something beyond the Nature that I know which influenced me, directly or indirectly, to ask these questions. I call the place where this Thing resides the Supernatural. I accept that I cannot prove or disprove Its' existence by the study of Nature, called Science, as it is wholly different to Nature."

Thanks to the late C.S. Lewis for giving the stuff for me to mold with.

How does one achieve immortality?

Quote:

Why would anyone want to? Imagine becoming immortal and having to watch all of your loved ones die while you live on. And Immortality doesnt neccesarily mean eternal youth. not only that, but if it did, there are certain life experiences reserved for each age group.

Yeah, I agree with you, on that point of view.

Quote:

And another point. Imagine a scientist(imma call him fred) was working on a project and, during the project, discovered eternal life and youth. Now, he could probably work on the project forever with no one else, but what if the project needed someone elses point of veiw to come to fruition(sp?).

Fred could probably give another scientist immortal life. But this opens a wide door of imaginative and possibly improbable hypotheses (lol that was just silly word combinating). I'd rather ignore it, to be honest, but if anyone else wants to explore it, fine.  

[Lord Drago]

Immortality is achieved the moment we are conceived. The soul is created, and that's that. Our shell is just a host for us to interact with other souls, because without it, we're completely separated. Some people believe that reincarnation is the true way of life, but the truth is that there are too many souls that have lived and so little hosts to uptake as far as we know of. What is the soul, if not for our memories and our beliefs? Is is just interests, skills, or a conglomeration of values? It is all of them, and because no two people share the same exact memories, reincarnation is an unachievable feat. I believe the moment we die, our souls travel to this being, who some may refer to as god. There are different magnitudes of existence; this god's existence is not limited, but him or her prefers the plane of a higher existence, waiting for our bodies to die so that they may join him or her in infinite company. Perhaps he brings in the best and worst people a little early, so that he may either reward or punish them. Or, we just rot in the ground. No one can be certain. We are not gods, and therefore we are limited to one plane at a time (In other words, we cannot go backwards in our advances into this being's existence, and have to move forwards). Fred would simply have to pass on this information if it were a possibility. We have yet to understand the mysteries of this world we inhabit, but understanding that nothing lives forever is just something we have to grow to accept, rather than denying it. If we are born to die, it's just part of this god's game. In order for him to give us a chance to associate in a physical form before eternal pleasure (Or pain), he must give us this body where we will choose our fate wisely. Being too good or too evil will cause you to die in reflection of your bad decisions in life. It's a balance you decide, no one else can decide it for you. If you should choose to ignore the words of those who also realized this, you are also choosing the path of damnation in the eyes of this being. This strange entity chooses his company responsibly and carefully; don't screw it up.  

[Tama_Mantic]

i really have no idea but no one can achieve immortality,  

[0Kira]

-Why do we die?
it's the life cycle. come on. any more basic than that?

-If we are going to die, why do we even exist
We were put on this earth in hopes that we could be a part of something bigger, that we could contribute to the betterment of mankind. we exist for this reason.

-How does one acheive immortality
Easy. If you can travel at light speed, you don't age. That's it.  

[Eoinda]

Why do we die?
Because our bodies won't function forever
If we are going to die, why do we even exist?
I don't think there is a purpose to life but you would be stupid not to take the chance and find your own purpose in life (or just enjoy it)
How does one achieve immortality, and why would anyone want to?
I don't now how to achieve immortality and I agree I would not want that it is the fact that we only have a limited time that makes life precious. And seriously I have a question what would you do in eternity? I mean if you could live forever would you have anything to do? Okay you might educate yourself and invent something if you've got the brains but we are not talking about some extra years here but forever.  

[Noves]

We die because it is time for us to back to our creator and to be judge.Human can be immortal when his or her name are remember by history ^_^  

[tamagokoro]

Why do we die?
For balance. If people are born but don't die, then we'd run out of room, resources, etc. There's yin and yang and all that- for life there must be death, so forth.

Why do we exist if we are going to die?
I don't know. But then, I don't really have any idea why *anything* exists, much less life. Maybe God/gods/whatever/whoever got bored and decided to create something that can move and interact confused

Achieving immortality:
In a "staying in your physical body without it suffering the affects of age etc." sense, it's impossible. But as for existing for all eternity, we already have it (presuming we have spirits) because our spirit would never die.
Besides all that... who wants to stay in the same unaging and undying body forever(going by stereotypical immortality here)? I don't really see the appeal... But then, that's just me *shrugs*  

[Yourreflections_Rebellion]

Quote:

Why do we exist if we are going to die?
I don't know. But then, I don't really have any idea why *anything* exists, much less life. Maybe God/gods/whatever/whoever got bored and decided to create something that can move and interact

That's exactly what happened. God doesn't NEED us. Not really. But he isn't limited like his creations are. He can know everything that is, was and will be. In the begginning God created the heavens and the earth, then he created all the animals and plants and let them all multiply, but that wasn't enough. He wanted to make something in his own image. not physically, but spiritually. He wanted to make something that could think and reason love, something that was as perfect as he is. He wanted to make something that was truly alive, and could really CREATE things, just like he creates. He could have stopped Adam and Eve from eating the forbidden fruit, but he wanted them to make thier own desicions, just like he created us all to do. Not only that, but he knew all the people that would come out of that one decision, and how they would influence eachother to be different individuals. Eve still sinned, and Adam did too, but think. When you drive over the speed limit or even run through a red light, you aren't always caught, does that mean it's alright? Of course not!

He knew and knows everyone of us, and we were born because he wants us to live with him in heaven. Think, not everyone knows this, but Walt Disney, before he created Mickey Mouse, designed Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Unfortunatly he wasn't a lawyer, he was a cartoonist, and he was swindled out of his very first real character from a single contract. But he quit that job and moved on. I think that sort of relates to this.

We aren't perfect anymore. Ever since that first sin, we were addicted. That's all it takes, just one sin, and absolutely nothing sinful gets into heaven, nothing. Before Jesus, God in human form, people had ways of gettin around that, but it was tough and if you looked over just one detail it was over for you. We are his creations, his children, He loved us far to much to put us through that. One think he's known for is being fair, and it wasn't fair in his eyes. He came down, was punished, tortured and died for every sin that was ever committed, then came back to life and went back up to heaven. All we have to do is accept his sacrifice, and it's ours. We're clean and forgiven and can go to heaven.

IN SHORT we're born to love like God loves, create like God creates, live like Jesus lived, and live eaternally and immortally  

[lawrence620]

well teeecchhnicaly we're all immortal in the sense that when we die, we go back to the earth and we get diggested through the food chain and we go back to being either a sperm or the egg cell in a few hundred years or so then we get birthed again so yeah, rather immortal in that sense but being not able to die in that sense would is rather hard to do because our body decomposes in time... soooo only chance we can be truly immortal is place our brain in a robot or what not? rolleyes  

[Blarff]

I immortality is only wanted by people who don't consider what it would be like to be immortal. For example, if someone decided to become immortal you would think it would be the first thing they think of, but they couldn't die.

No matter what... They could never kill themselves.

I assume that after you have lived say... X number of years you would bore of everything.

I feel like death is a natural part of life, and recently have been trying to decide if I believe in the eternal soul. At this point though, I am not entirely sure if I am going to decide to believe in anything, I think I will just become naive about death, and forget it exists until I am forced to recognize the truth.

Immortality vs Death... There isn't really an argument, death is by far the better option.  

[Blarff]

lawrence620

well teeecchhnicaly we're all immortal in the sense that when we die, we go back to the earth and we get diggested through the food chain and we go back to being either a sperm or the egg cell in a few hundred years or so then we get birthed again so yeah, rather immortal in that sense but being not able to die in that sense would is rather hard to do because our body decomposes in time... soooo only chance we can be truly immortal is place our brain in a robot or what not? rolleyes

I feel like the only way that makes you immortal is if you believe in reincarnation or something of the sort. I think if anything it would mean the world was immortal, but we all know that not to be true. Seeing as it can be destroyed.

And I don't think placing your brain in a robot would make you immortal, you could still die if you brain was damaged. But I guess it would in the case that your brain couldn't be hurt, because I feel the definition of living would be sustaining intellect. As long as you can do as you please, and have freewill and realize WHAT you are doing. You are living, I think.  

[noob2deth]

1:why do we die? i think the forum poster is correct, it is vital to the ecosystem that we give back to the earth and there would be too many people.
2:why do we live? we have no purpose, we by all means are a fluke, nothing more than the evovled decsendents of the bacteria found in a tide pool of premordial soup billions of years ago.
3:how to achieve immortality? the bigger question is, why do you want to be immortal? sure living for hundreds or thousands of years might be fun, but evntually it'll become a drag, and whats the point of living an endless, boring life?  

[Thyplosion]

Scientifically

Why do we die?
Because of the lysosomes in our body which destroys worn out organelle. Why do they wore out? Your scientists haven't understood this.

If we are going to die, why do we even exist?
We exist because of the microorganisms joined together until a complete macroorganism is formed. You are the one to decide why you need to exist. I believe that discovering, solving things is "fun".

How does one achieve immortality?
Immortality is biologically impossible. Being alive is having to live. To live needs you to be dependent on something else. Being immortal, keeping life for eternity, means that you produce infinite energy. But how can you produce this energy? You must have two power sources which amplifies the other and vice versa, which means you rely on something material, which can be destroyed.

Purpose-based(ly)

Why do we die?
To prepare your offsprings' independence. This continues 'til forever's end. Through dying, you turn into ash and thus, giving space to the next generation.

If we are going to die, why do we even exist?
We exist to taste "The Game".

How does one achieve immortality?
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