Immortality by means of creation

Well, I was thinking about the many notions of "God", and as usual I realized that in most human depicitions of this/these "God(s)" there is the underlying presence of the ideal of immortality. Not necessarily making the assumption that man created God(s), or vice versa even, as both concepts actually hold some sway in this human perception. Nor am I really trying to draw any attention to the commonly held belief that God(s) himself/herself/themselves is/are immortal. The ideal that God(s) is/are immortal plays into our own want/need for immortality ourselves. As with anything that is conceived or acted upon one must look at the motives of the individual(s) who initiated the following to determine just why they did so in the first place. Most conscious human beings don't want to believe that this is it. So, how do you solve that problem? Create God/Gods that are immortal and hold promises of immortality to who else than that of our very selves. This is basically the creation of a falsified notion of eternal life....albeit nature is eternal, in the sense that with death comes new life, but that's more along the lines of life utilizing its current makeup (nutrients...ie matter) to create a new makeup of life that is in the end it's own separate entity.

These conceptual Gods give hope to people that there is "more"....is this not technically allowing for our emotions to determine our thought and our process of determining logic?

Have we literally created our own instances of fabricated immortality to allow for us to feel immortal?

 

Your premise is an interesting one. That being religions seeks to create an elaborate story to convince their followers that life continues in one form or another. Either in a literal sense or in the sense that we live in the hearts of those we influenced or in the sense that our ideas that we leave behind gains us another kind of immortality. The Buddhist creates immortality by suggesting life is like pearls on a string. The Christian creates immortality by suggesting that life is continued in the presence of God like sunlight to a flower. The Hindu suggests immortality by suggesting that we are part of Brahman and that the Brahman is eternal. The Taoist suggests immortality by suggesting that one can become one with the eternal Tao. The scientist can create immortality by ensuring their reputation and ideas remain influential. The warlord can create immortality by creating a lineage from his bloodline.

Have we literally created our own instances of fabricated immortality to allow for us to feel immortal?

Yes, I think so. It could be an illusion we create to shield us from the idea of eternal death. But I suppose it's possible that it can be more than a shield and could be an understanding one eventually comes to in life. Even if that is untrue, the possibility that we could both simultaneously fool ourselves and immortality being true in some form, even if the original idea of how that is brought on is untrue. In other words, we accidentally stumble onto the truth because of fear. Perhaps if there were a God then this God would use fear as a way to bring its creation to the truth or maybe not.

 

Humans have the unfortunate characteristic of being the only known life form that can contemplate its own death--the price of intellect. I'm sure that coming to some reconciliation with that realization plays a large role in religion. Proving that religion is "nothing but" an invention to do that would be difficult, although I have no proof that it's not.

 

Not sure of that one. Have you ever seen Hippos giving a ceremony for the one that died? It's beautiful. (Not being sarcastic). They would lay down in a circle around it for a while then they would slowly move into the water, one by one.

That's why in the end they call it faith. But like you said, this fear does not necessarily equate with religion being untrue because of the fear or that it's the only reason for the phenomenon. Nor can we prove it absolutely, neither can we prove, absolutely, that the end is the end.

I think that it's possible for a person to remove the fear of death before becoming a part of a faith. What would that suggest if that were true?

 

Wow....very well said! But my premise is not only that religions themselves create elaborate stories to convince others of their bid to immorality (it's like selling a product almost), but also that people themselves egotistically don't enjoy the thought that their current state of being may cease to exist. So, as in economics with supply and demand we have the demand....now we need the supply, hence religion.

Well, to me the term death only means a cessation of the current form of existence as we know it. Personally I believe that "death" is sort of a misnomer as clearly "we" will continue to exist, just not as we have over the VERY short span we call our individual "life."

Science is not the be all and end all for me, but for this particular reason I am very fascinated with the law of conservation of energy. Ie. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but rather remains at a constant merely changing appearance. Then you get into, and the mass of a given body is simply a measure of its inherent energy....well then we're clearly energy visible by means of mass as is most if not everything.

Well so far as we know. We humans are so full of ourselves we make this claim over and over and over again...But we base nearly everything we hold to be true (other than religion/faith) off of empirical evidence, which are simply our human observations. I cannot speak for you, but I certainly don't recall being another animal so I cannot claim to entirely know their thought process.

It is also not the goal of this thread to even make an attempt at proving religion to be "nothing but an invention." It is simply to discuss mans egotistical "mainframe" if you will that disallows him to accept what is most probable and cling on to that of which is much less probable for the sake of both comfortableness and his own pride. Religion is in many respects a projection (a very prevalent one at that) of this pride, hence the discussion at hand.

I already think there is near sufficient proof that the "end" as we call it is indeed not the end. It is simply the continuation of life in its many forms.

Well I'm sure there have been people who have, and it could suggest a many number of things, mostly dependent upon the individual though. Even if one does not feat death, they may still feel a bit uncomfortable with not knowing what comes after. Or even remain uncomfortable with not knowing the here and now while they are still alive. So religion is perfect for that, as is science or any other means of explanation that may take away from the uncertainty that is life.

Also, I feel I must thank the both of you for having this conversation with me....they are rare indeed so I value your input very much. So, many thanks.

 

Good thread.

Bthizle, you're right when you say it's a person's ego that makes them cling on to what is less probable while turning them away from what is more probable. Ego is a byproduct of fear. Faith and fear cannot coexist. I know God is real but I'm not sure what will happen after I leave this human life. I tried to research it and really just ran into a bunch of different opinions. For some reason though, I believe the people who came to their conclusions through meditation since they all seem to have come to very common conclusions of everything being One and everything will be alright no matter what. The rest seem to let their imaginations run wild talking about some astral plane we go to and a whole bunch of other things. Not saying these places don't exist, I'm sure they do, but the notion of some other realm being the place we go when we "die" in human form just sounds like wishful thinking to me.

I'm no longer trying to find out what happens when we "die." I now focus on making the most out of my life now and I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I do feel God is immortal though, and God encompasses all. I highly doubt my individuality is eternal though, since both spirituality and quantum mechanics logically explain how everything in the Universe is One. Mankind is an extension of nature and the only real boundaries between the two are the ones mankind imposes.

 

You're right, the ego is a byproduct of fear, but they are both a byproduct of our most basic instinct, that being survival. Fear is actually very important to our well being, but as with most anything when we take it to extremes it does much more harm than it does good.

"Faith and fear cannot coexist"...hmm care to explain?

So you take a more pantheistic approach to the whole "God" thing? What really is individuality anyways? Do we put too much stock in our notion of individuality that we forget about the universal oneness that exists? Is individuality really just a facade on many levels, as truly everything (especially humans) is a product of their environment. It sounds like a wonderful concept, but is it nothing short of an extension of the ego?

 

Individuality is definitely a byproduct of our ego.

And fear is NEVER important to our well being, in fact, it is the most detrimental thing to it.

Read this if you get a chance, it breaks down how faith and fear cannot coexist.

http://www.esolibris.com/articles/reality/love_versus_fear.php

 

Hmmm a lot of that article I agree with, but there's definetely some statements that I disagree with.

For example, when he says "Love is rooted in a state of ' knowing ', whereas fear is based entirely upon ' beliefs', most of which are false."

Well, love can be rooted in beliefs to...ie. you believe you love someone, then one day it turns out you were just lying to yourself. Was what was once "love" now a fear because of just that?

Love allows us to feel safe within our universe? Hmm...feeling safe is knowing that one is able to continue living in most cases...fear is what drives this ability to live in the first place. Ie. A person fears getting eaten by a cougar so they take the necessary precautions.

There's some other stuff I could adress, but basically in this one sentence I feel if it were edited as such then I'd see 100% eye to eye.....it's just that my definition of the term "love" must differ from that of this individual:

(just remove all that is in red)

Love knows that everything in the Universe is an expression of Itself and that so called 'enemies' are just aspects of Itself mirroring facets of its psyche (i.e. Soul) that need to be addressed and healed through the process of unconditional love and acceptance.

Really it simply comes down to the interpretation of the word love.