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Haven't posted in a while blah blah let's stir things up a little.
Quick and to the point:

1. List your opinion on death and the afterlife, if any.
2. If we could achieve immortality through scientific accomplishment, how would you react?

Other death-related off-topic discussion is fine, just try not to depress us all somehow, haha...

1) In a sense, reincarnation is a scientific fact. When we die, our bodies decompose and every little physical atom that made them up becomes part of something else (or more likely, many something-elses). This process is utterly inseparable from what we call birth/creation. There is never creation without destruction; put another way, nothing is 'gained' without a 'loss.' All death and birth are is transformations which always occur in tandem. This too is fact, though the interpretation I swing on it becomes somewhat philosophical. I doubt that if the so-called 'soul' exists that its process is any different at its core; the only difference may be that transformations operate at an accelerated or decelerated rate compared to something else. If there is one universal truth, one universal constant, that is change. Everything changes. Without exception.

2) Whenever people speak of immortality, I just laugh in amusement. For one, we already have immortality through the above cycle of eternal change and transformation. That basic stuff floating around and going through transformations is in some sense immortal; the stuff it arranges itself to make is not. It's that immortality we want, though. Which is incredibly naive and foolish on oh so many levels. First, it's plainly impossible as it's the equivalent of demanding the universe stop changing. Second, even if it were hypothetically possible it would be incredibly undesirable as your current self could never change from what it is now. You could not think. You could not eat. You could not move or breathe.

Quaintly, I imagine the experience of being immortally unchanging would be rather similar to what we fear death would be like. Empty and utterly meaningless. Regardless of what you believe the meaning of life is, in some way that meaning stems from change.

Human beings can be such control freaks sometimes. Sometimes I don't understand why more of them don't sit back, awe at the marvel that is our ever-changing universe, and ride the waves it carries them on. If they spent less time putting conditional value statements on their existences (such as 'my life would be better if it was longer') and just started appreciating what they have right now, they'd be far better off in the happiness department.

my opinion, there are one of two things after you die.

A) theres nothing, you just cease to exist without a functioning body

B) there are indeed souls and you go to either toe astral plains to better yourself for eternity, or you just haunt earth and star on those dumb shows like ghost hunters and haunting.



if we could achieve immortality through scientific accomplishment, i would likely s**t my pants and go play real life halo3 for the rest of my life, working 12 hours a day towards halo3, 12 hours a day towards complete psionic enlightenment and mastering telekinesis.
i would LOVE to be immortal.

[Coldplay]Where do we go? Nobody knows [/Coldplay]

But if I were to gander a guess, I'd guess that we make our own afterlife. Kinda like in the movie "What Dreams May Come".

Or it could be absolutely nothing and the joke's on us.

Immortality? Wouldn't be opposed to it. Then death would become voluntary.

If I was going for Occam's razor, I'd have to say it's probably we become nothing and walk gently into oblivion. However, I've always been inclined to mistrust it in matters of grey areas such as this. So I really have no idea. The idea of oblivion no longer bothers me, but my ideas to what may happen is that I may be judged by the old gods in the old ways. I may even be judged by the newer god closest to my heart. Or I might instead leave my body like an extra shell, attain my spiritual/astral/what the ******** ever form, put on the mantle of my titles and honors and get to work messing around the universe. Perhaps any combination of these things.

I think a lot of people would say yes to immortality because they are very afraid of dying. Some see it as power. And some just want to continue on this earth for a while longer than usual. I might consider doing such a thing as long as it's not retarded or evil or kills 100 towns to make a Philosopher's Stone or something ghasty and stupid like that. As for the idea in general, it might be a good one. We could bring back monarchy, if you could find someone you can trust. The idea of all governments is in some way to get good people in the position to do good things for other people. That is the goal behind all government philophies, or lack of government philosophies. Democracy is supposed to use the wisdom of the mob to weed those who would misuse power, so that only those found worthy by all could rule. That's not really how it works today. If you could get one, completely honest, genuinely good person and put him on a throne, and told him "Take care of this country," it would be a lot different. That goodness would never go away. I mean, imagine America if George Washington had never died, and had kept the real true spirit of the Founding Fathers around. But then again, it'd be one super hell of a time finding yourself the good guy and getting to trust him enough for that, which is theoretically infinite trust. But yeah, my cents.

1) When people die if they want to they can choose to rencarnate, or not. They can become sprit garudians too if they want...I think?

2) There is a reason why we arent immortal in the first place, and since that is how life is I wouldnt want to be immortal anyway.

Most of us realize how beautiful life is. I personally believe one should not experience the Ecstasy of living, if they can not see death without fear. Being fearful of death cheapens life as well. That is just me, my goal since I was 9 is to reach out and grab risks, and I can't do that if im afraid up to a gun.