[ExI] Immortality, Absolute and Potential

[Jef Allbright]

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 11:36 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> Stuart writes
>
> From: "The Avantguardian" <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 12:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Christianity: where to now?
>
>
>> Lee Corbin wrote:
>>
>>> Stuart writes
>>>
>>> > 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!

Lee, when someone you recognize as thoughtful and intelligent makes
what appears to an absurd claim, you might consider exploring what
broader or different context they have in mind.

Yesterday, I heard someone say "I'm going to get my tires rebalanced,
and it's free at the place where I bought them."  I thought to myself
that it's certainly not "free" then, but that it wouldn't serve any
purpose to point it out to this person, who knows what she meant and
is absolutely right. I was also strongly reminded of you -- same
principle, different scale.

When I was about 18, a pretty girl approached me in a shopping mall
and asked whether I'd ever heard of Dianetics.  She was pleasant and
engaging, and the conversation lead to me agreeing to attend a
"communication" class at the Church of $cientology.  I did go for a
few weeks and found it fascinating to observe the behaviors there.
But the last time I went, one of the more senior people introduced the
subject of "Operating Thetans" and said that they had unlimited
ability to change things around them.  I responded, asking "If they
each have infinite power, then how is that different from each having
no power at all?"  Shortly thereafter, this professed "Clear" visibly
lost his cool.   Same logical pattern Stuart initially expressed to
you.

- Jef