Christian persecution complex.  Dysfunctional. 

Jan 22, 2011 -- 11:55PM, teilhard wrote:

Anti-Catholic Bigotry ... how helpful ...

LOL ...

(I'M not the one complain-complain-COMPLAINING about "the vuvuzela ..." ... )

Jan 23, 2011 -- 10:57AM, JCarlin wrote:

Christian persecution complex.  Dysfunctional. 

Jan 22, 2011 -- 11:55PM, teilhard wrote:

Anti-Catholic Bigotry ... how helpful ...

No! we exist because we are an effect of reality and impersonal immortality is part of the cause of our existence. We are an expression of the immortal intelligible nature and the immortal inherent truth and value in reality.  Our desire for immortality is evidence of our appetite for what we experience as part of our being. The social and biological effects that out live the individual is evidence of the causes which created the individual and shows that the individual is part of the impersonal immortal nature of reality. Yes, we should desire immortality because we have knowledge of what it is and its possibilities.

Jan 22, 2011 -- 12:21AM, JCarlin wrote:

I would disagree. impersonal immortality is an effect of living, not an aim or desire.  If I as an organism have progeny, or facilitate the progeny of others I may in that sense have some limited immortality.  If I as an organism have an effect on others that improves the welfare of all and that effect is propigated as a successful meme I may have some modicum of immorality depending on the success and longevity of the meme.  But I seriously question whether immortality is the aim of the breeding, or the instigation of the meme.  A mature organism will breed and try to affect its world for the better to achieve a better life here and now for themselves and their society (if social) not to achieve any hypothetical immortality. 

Jan 21, 2011 -- 11:35PM, TransJ wrote:

Well, it seem that impersonal immortality and a desire for immortality is basically unchallenged.

What kind of immortality are you talking about? I do like the re-engineering concept and I hope we can do that, but I do not discount the supernatural.  

Jan 23, 2011 -- 9:17AM, ozero wrote:

I think (not believe) that there is a good chance that we are immortal, or nearly so - billions of years old at any rate.  Boredom?  Are you bored now?  Our current life is just our way of overcoming that boredom. 

Yes, I think that there is an innate biological desire to live forever.  I think that is what has or will in the future drive us to reengineer ourselves to live forever.  All natural.  Nothing supernatural need be involved.

Transj: "What kind of immortality are you  talking about? I do like the re-engineering concept and I hope we can  do that, but I do not discount the supernatural. "

I'm just talking about replacing our biological components with something more lasting, like well built integrated circuits.  We're already making great progress in that direction with chips implanted in the brain.  Eventually, those chips might replace the brain entirely and then we would have no reason to keep the rest of the biological organism.  After that, we would send those electronic brains off to space where it would be much safer than this dangerous world.  Then, to avoid boredom, we would spend time living in simulations (google "simulation" for more ideas on this).  There are problems, but probably no insurmountable ones.  The simulation program and the designer or director would then be "supernatural", if you consider the simulation we are living in as "natural".  The "supernatural", if it exists, is just "natural" at another level.  As A. C. Clarke said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (or the supernatural.)