Humanity is mortality

Here's how E.O wilson puts it in an interview at Salon.com (must have premium sub or daypass to read in its entirety):

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/03/21/wilson/print.html

Would I be happy if I discovered that I could go to heaven forever? And the answer is no. Consider this argument. Think about what is forever. And think about the fact that the human mind, the entire human being, is built to last a certain period of time. Our programmed hormonal systems, the way we learn, the way we settle upon beliefs, and the way we love are all temporary. Because we go through a life's cycle. Now, if we were to be plucked out at the age of 12 or 56 or whenever, and taken up and told, now you will continue your existence as you are. We're not going to blot out your memories. We're not going to diminish your desires. You will exist in a state of bliss -- whatever that is -- forever. And those who didn't make it are going to be consigned to darkness or hell. Now think, a trillion times a trillion years. Enough time for universes like this one to be born, explode, form countless star systems and planets, then fade away to entropy. You will sit there watching this happen millions and millions of times and that will just be the beginning of the eternity that you've been consigned to bliss in this existence.

This heaven would be your hell.

Yes. If we were able to evolve into something else, then maybe not. But we are not something else.

:toast:

I think for those that can truly picture eternity, it feels like hell.

"A place where nothing, nothing ever happens"?

I guess the conclusion is, this guy's "heaven" WOULD suck. But it's more like a punchline to a Twilight Zone, where the guy wishes for immortality and ends up stuck in a bank vault, hah hah!

If we continue being human after we die (and not become humous or immaterial angelic ectoplasm or anything at all else), then, based on what we know about humans, being conscious for an eternity would be hell. Humans are built to die.

Again, this isn't RELIGION'S idea of human, or of heaven, it's his. Having come up with his own idiosyncratic constructs of each, he declares them awful. Well, his ARE awful, but what does that have to do with what religion believes? His concepts are idiosyncratic, based on the "if, then, 'what we know'" that religion doesn't accept, and to pretend like it has something to do with any religious belief is setting up a strawman to knock down.

What is religion's concept of heaven?

So much so that for the interviewer to put the word "heaven" into it, or to include it in the religion and theology secition without a disclaimer, is fundamentally misleading.

All one has to do is not buy the guy's premises, and you know what? All the worries go away. It's just a pile of mystical bullshit that nobody--even you, obviously--accepts and nobody makes any attempt to establish. So why bother with a fart like that?

So you can ask your rhetorical 20 questions?

I didn't know that. Interesting.

Did you have a position? Is there something you wanted to say? Do you read the answers I post to your questions? Is confining yourself to questions the way to avoid ever taking the risk of being contradicted? Does the pope shit in the woods?

;)

You certainly implied that only "religious" takes on morality should be in this forum. If the question of mortality can be split into a portion that can only be addressed by religion, I'd like to know where that line is drawn, so I'll know when to and when not to post here when I have something interesting to share on the subject of mortality.

Your rhetorical device of switching to questions, especially when someone is pointing out something you may not care to hear, is as tiresome as it is habitual. Asking questions isn't keeping the subject alive, dude. It's just showing you've nothing to contribute to your own thread..

But thanks for giving us that guy's idiosyncratic views of heaven. It was really special.

They're really special, too.

:toast:

Religion is "not that."

Funny, I remember someone railing against atheism for supposedly defining itself as "not that." Now he defines religion in the same way.

which is not the case. As I understand Sufism, the concept is one of the soul leaving Unity, going through several stages of evolution until the earth is reached and life here begins. After death of the body, the soul begins its return journey, going through the stages again, only in the other direction, using experiences gained here to help those who are coming to earth. At each stage back to Unity, another tool of existance is dropped; first the body, then the mind, and so forth, until one is in Unity again. So, as you can see, my concept of the afterlife does not involve a static "heaven" nor does it insist that the human mind continue during all the journey.

where the journey is returning to some unity and the essentiallly false and, it turns out, undesirable individuality is lost. I forget the terms.

well, seems awfully limited and limiting, doesn't it?


...and yeah, really,....."whose" idea of heaven .....?

And why should it be taken more seriously than anyone else's? And if no one's idea of heaven is more true than another's, then why should anyone think "heaven" is a meaningful concept?

actually , I don't really use the concept of "heaven "and you're right, my idea isn't one damn bit more important than anyone else's. Don't think I ever suggested that.


As for heaven being a meaningful concept, I would imagine that it is to those whose beliefs encompass the concept and as well as those who "don't believe" yet seem to have a fascination with it..


I'd say the most important concept of heaven, is the one we personally hold ( or not).

Best explanation I can quickly give is that "heaven" is not a "place" but a state of existence.

Especially starting in the trillion trillion trillionth year.

:D