(February 2, 2016 at 1:36 pm)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote: You make grandiose claims of an eternal continuance of your intelligence, and I won't challenge the validity of such claims on this thread. I just want to know what it would mean to you if you ran into proof which you could not dispute which says that our lives and all of our thoughts will end when the brain dies. No regeneration, no reincarnation, and no ascension into some place not perceivable from here where what you were in your body can be continuously supported.
If you died and left children on this earth, and you didn't get to see them suffer the ravages of age like you have, would that be so bad?
If you died while your grandchildren are young, perhaps you would wish to see them grow up, survive the turmoil of adolescence, and succeed in the world. But eternity is eternal, therefore you would also have to see them decline just as you did. Oh, and some of them weren't believers like you, so guess they won't join you and you'll have to go through forever without them. Your best friend too, who you thought you knew so well!
Then again, you may retain eternal consciousness, but never witness any of the changes here on this earth. You may never see those who you knew and loved on this Earth (it doesn't really say that you will in the bible), but meet all new friends there. You may spend it all (uh...wait a minute, how do you quantify "eternity") floating on an inter-cosmic cloud with nothing to do but sing and play songs of praise on your harp.
Of course, a different idea of heaven involves streets paved with gold and beautiful mansions beyond anything which the imagination can conjure up. And after living under such lovely conditions for the first 1000 years, you will still be insanely stir-crazy. When you have everything, there's nothing left to have. When you've experienced everything, then what have you left to do?
Really, what makes you so sure you want to live forever, under perfectly idyllic conditions? Can there truly be joy without suffering? Can there be any true satisfaction without hunger?
How bad would it really be if you were wrong? Not wrong as in the default of being tortured forever in Hell, but that you simply cease to be? Cease to suffer? Cease to fear? Cease to worry? To actually die while those around you who care are still able to care? To leave your children and grandchildren with hope for them, not the despair of knowing too much of what you can do nothing to help them with? To not even know that you are dead, just as you didn't know before you were born that you did not exist? To truly rest in absolute peace? When you revert to the state where nothing can really disturb you in any way, including any regrets which you have lived with through your life, then how can that idea really be frightening?
Even galaxies die and ours is already a zombie. Are humans greater than galaxies that we should exist forever?
