Living Forever and Wormwood

Oh, the thoughts are just swirling through my head! First, a tip of my hat to you and the reference to "wormwood" in Revelation. I had always thought that the character of "Wormwood" in C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" was a fabrication of his imagination. It may have been. But I suspect he read that in Revelation, thought it a brilliant name, and used it.

Living Forever

I recall a television show from the my youth called "The Twilight Zone." Do you know of that show? It was hosted by Rod Serling, and it had 1/2 hour vignettes that centered on tales of mystery and the semi-supernatural. It was definitely not occult, but rather it explored the edges of our reality.

One episode's theme had to do with a man who wished (or perhaps prayed) for immortality. As the show opened the man was sick in the hospital, then upon receiving this "gift" of immortality he sets out to live life without concern or regard for death. The details of the show fade from my memory at this point, but I do recall that eventually the man grew tired of experimenting with things that would otherwise kill him, and drifted into a kind of near-insanity at the realization that he was truly immortal.

Other shows and movies have played on a similar theme. I'll admit that many explored the notion of a singular immortality in a population of mortals; that is, what it would be like to live forever when friends and family die off over time. (This is the theme of the "Highlander" movie. I find this notion of living through endless cycles of relationships quite sad and lonely. )

I'm a bit more skeptical than are you on the topic of science unraveling the mystery of aging and being able to stop or reverse its process. But we'll see. Or, I should say, let's hope we don't see, but if we do, then let us ponder the consequences.

Do you feel that science will also provide a solution to the emotional side of this? Assume that we are able to live to 120, 200, or beyond. Aside from the societal consequences of this -- which would be dramatic -- is there a point in time where one might simply grow weary of the existence? Particularly if that existence is not the stuff of Hollywood movies, where life's every wish and whim was just a finger-snap away? I think there is ... I think that our human emotional capacity to exist, year after year, decade after decade, has a limit. I could be wrong. But that's what I think.

To your question about how such a development might affect our thoughts of heaven and hell, of God and the devil ... I think it would most certainly further erode what little regard we pay it now. But here's the essential question: does our attendance to consideration of God change the reality of God? An atheist would say, I suppose, that it would simply confirm that God never existed in the first place. And we're back to the fundamental issue of "proving" (or disproving) the existence of God, which is impossible.

Let's turn the question over and ask it a different way -- assume that we humans never developed an awareness of our mortality. We live with no understanding or expectation of death, and then die. We see others die, but make no connection in our minds whatever. Were that the case, would we humans have developed religion? In other words, is a necessarily precursor to religious belief an understanding of the inevitability of death?

Then, consider this: might our awareness of our own mortality be one element of God's revelation to Himself to us? This is a thread I might pick up when I start expanding on my "Cornerstones" of faith and belief.

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Personally, I find the notion of living forever quite dismal. A more powerful emotion is the fear of the actual process of dying, which is why were I to face the choice at this age of choosing death or choosing life I would opt for the latter. But at the ripe old age of 45 I can start to see some of what I believe people of advanced age feel.

Note: to that one might logical reply, "Ah, but those of advanced age who grow weary of life do so because of physical imfirmities. Were they healthy and vigorous, they would not look upon life in the same way." Perhaps. But I'm not so sure. The key here is that life absent disease does not necessarily imply life without unhappiness. And unhappiness can hang heavy on a man's soul, eventually taking all desire for life with it.

A thought just crossed my mind. God gave us intelligence and an inquisitive nature. It serves us well in many areas (food production, health care) and is our plague in others (nuclear weapons, bio-terrorism). Science might very well provide an answer to aging. Might it be yet another exercise in Free Will, one not desired by God but permitted nevertheless?

Wormwood and the End of Our Planet

Underlying your discussion of asteroids and the eventual nova of our sun is the assumption that God won't first bring about the destruction of all this in the Second Coming of our Lord. I suppose it's possible that God might use those natural mechanisms to actually bring about the destruction of all this.

To be honest, I have trouble looking out 600 years -- a mere trifle in time -- and find it entirely impossible to consider existence millions or billions of years from now. Perhaps its just fatalism. Or perhaps it's wishful thinking -- the thought of the destruction of the earth by an asteroid removes all the choices and uncertainties about life, living and death from our shoulders, doesn't it? There is some comfort in the inevitable.

My thinking on all this is starting to jump the rails of rational thought and settle more on thoughts of God's control of all things. I can't prove anything, and I can't really defend my conclusions. But they are what they are.

I have lived 45 years on this planet ... some of those in complete denial of such things, some of those in complete dread, and now there is dawning in my mind and heart an awareness of God's Glory extending over it all. I have a sense of the numinous, and from that I do not wish to turn.

Grace and peace, brother.