Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ciriello@lafcol.uucp (Patrick Ciriello II) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: immortality in this life? Message-ID: Date: 28 Jun 89 05:05:32 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: NET Manager, Lafayette College Lines: 38 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , wpg@mendel.acc.virginia.edu (William Gardner) writes: > I would like to pose a new question to this group. Two recent book have > speculated on the possibilities of achieving immortality through > technological means. Interesting concept. However, there is one aspect of the human physical being that the human whole being is missing ... the soul. You can probably replace, at sometime or another, everything in the human body with synthetics and other materials (basically becoming a robot with a brain). But what does that do? You have basically eliminated the only blessing that arose out of the Garden of Eden fiasco .. God didn't let us eat from the Tree of Everlasting Life, otherwise we would be forever separated from Him. This is the benefit that death brings .. those who are saved will no longer be separated from God. Of course, from a theological standpoint, I don't think we can have immortal bodies ... 'for it is appointed for a man to die once, and then the judgement' ... so we are all going to die, eventually, no matter what we come up with technologically. However, I did leave out the question ... how do you replace a brain? If that is where the soul resided, and the soul is spirit, how are you going to get it into the artificial brain? I think a lot of people are going to end up dying (for nothing?) if this particular goal is sought after. Anyway, there was quite a discussion on this topic in the StarTrek Echo of (i think) FidoNet ... perhaps someone on that net ( or this one ) has the archive of that discussion. Pat Ciriello II Supervisor of Networking and Tech. Services Lafayette College UUCP: ciriello!lafcol BITNET: ciriello@lafayett