[ExI] Christianity: where to now?

[The Avantguardian]

--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

> Stuart writes
> 
> From: "The Avantguardian" <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2008 8:55 PM
> 
> 
> > One can't live forever and experience time.
> 
> On the face of it, that's an absurd claim!  After, what if
> there are now people (who can't possibly know it, of course
> but)  who in fact will never die?  It's not logically impossible!

Angels dancing on pins are logically possible too, doesn't mean I would care to
debate them with you. Do you understand the mathematical concept of infinity?
If you bring me three examples of infinity actually found in nature, then I may
entertain having this discussion with you.
 
> You surely cannot be saying that such persons actually
> experience time differently from the rest of us!

Yes that is exactly what I am saying, Lee.
 
> > Time is our gift as mortals, we should use it wisely.
> > We should also realize that for it to have any value to
> > us, it must be finite.
> 
> Let me see if I follow you. Yes, it's true that people less
> than 20 years old often seem to never regret time wasted.
> The illusion, is, of course, that they still have infinitely
> much time left. Alexander Solzhenitsyn once remarked
> in a book that once when he was quite elderly, a visitor
> had unexpectedly shown up at his door "at a time in my
> life in which every half-hour is precious". 
> 
> But I have known people much less than 20 years old
> who hated "wasting time". 

It is impossible to waste anything of which there is an infinite amount. If
someone lived forever, any fraction of their lives would still be forever. So
they could be awake forever, asleep forever, and go to the bathroom forever.
There would be no time, just one long *now* where everything happened
concurrently. Time would cease to be a dynamic narrative and instead be like a
static painting. In short, to live forever is not to live at all. 

> But this, your second statement, also seems flat-out false.
> Suppose that we have X, a given person who knows or
> strongly believes that he is immortal. How likely would
> X react to the proposal that he be asleep for the next
> two centuries?  You will find that if you ask most people,
> most people will prefer being awake rather than asleep
> or dead.

So let me get this straight: you are saying that in imaginary surveys you
conduct in your own mind, nine out of ten people with delusions of immortality
prefer being awake to being asleep or dead? And this relates to what I said
how?

> > Time has existed for 13.5 billion years, I have been
> > dead for most of that time. Being dead is my default
> > state. If it didn't bother me before I was alive, why
> > would it bother me after?
> 
> Does having an IQ less than 200 bother you?  Does
> not having quite a number of other H+ abilities bother you?

Not really, Lee. More IQ points would not improve the quality of my life much.
But if 200+ IQs were common, I would want to be able to converse with them. I
am not sure what you mean by "H+ abilities". Am I bothered because I can't grow
extra limbs? Not as much as I am bothered that people would try to stop me from
developing a way to do so should I want to. Do I think not being able to grow
extra limbs qualifies me for victim status? Certainly not.

> Okay, so you want to live to be several hundred years
> old. Why that figure?  Why wouldn't you be just as
> happy to die tonight?  Or tomorrow night?  Your
> claims aren't really believeable to me, sorry. 

Did I ask for your belief?

> If being dead (your "default state") was so great from
> 13.7 billion B.C. to the late 20th century, and won't
> be so bad after "a few hundred years", why not be
> dead now and get it over with?

Some experience life as a pleasant dream that they are reluctant to awaken
from. Others experience life as a nightmare that they fear will end. You own
your own persective on the world, Lee, and strangely, living in fear appears to
be your comfort zone. Wallow away.


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Fear is proof of a degenerate mind [...] Fortune favors the bold [...] Persevere and preserve yourselves for better circumstances [...] Love conquers all."- Virgil