The Corean Chronicles
Living Forever -- Fact, Faith, or F&SF?
The other day, my wife made an interesting observation. She asked, "If so many people believe in Heaven and an afterlife, and Heaven is so wonderful, why is everyone trying to live forever?" At that, I got to thinking about the associations and corollaries. According to the polls and statistics, the
Yet, if the true believers are right, what's the point? Heaven is obviously a far better place than here on earth. If it weren't, how could it be Heaven? So why are we spending billions to keep the most elderly barely alive, if that, when they could be in a better place... that is, if you're a believing and practicing Christian or Muslim? And why have so many books and stories centered on immortality?
Now, I'm not disabusing medicine or medical research. People shouldn't have to suffer horrible diseases or die of infections or be paralyzed for life or otherwise incapacitated when medicine can cure them or improve their life or condition. Yet, the plain fact of medicine is that, in the United States, the vast majority of medical care and expense goes to those who are in their last year of life, and far, far, less money in research and treatment goes to children and infants.
If those dying of old age are going to a better life anyway, wouldn't it make much more sense to spend more of that medical funding on finding cures for children's ailments... or providing better nutrition and preventative care for the young?
But then, do all those true believers really believe in Heaven and the afterlife? It's often been said that actions speak louder than words and that people put their money in what they believe... and they read that which interests them. If that's so, all the medical scrambling to extend lives and find immortality might suggest a certain, shall we say, shallowness of belief. Even hypocrisy, perhaps? Or, too, perhaps they do indeed believe in an afterlife, and subconsciously don't want to face the theological nether regions reserved for those whose actions are less than charitable and worthy.
Either way, I find it food for thought. Exactly why does a society with so many true believers support medical age-extension and the quest for physical and earthly immortality anyway? And why is there now such an increase in books about immortal vampires and werewolves and the like? Are the two trends connected... and if they are... how do they square with the fact that the fastest growing religions are those which are best described as fundamentalist evangelical... with the attendant belief in an afterlife?
It is a quandary that so many profess one thing and promptly do another.
The few plausible reasons you give for such double-minded behavior are also thought provoking.
Do we fear the God we so fervently believe in because we've failed to live moral, ethical lives? Do we really not believe in anything at all? Do we fear that when we pull back the curtain of death that we will find the mighty Oz--great and powerful--to be a fake? Or do we fear that we cannot continue in our own lives if we let the ones we've grown dependant upon leave us by dying.
My grandfather just died. He feared death and did a lot to stall the inevitable. Part of his fear came from the unknown, part from the life he lived, part from his lack of belief in eternal things.
My grandmother died 20 years ago. She did nothing to prolong her life. She embraced her death like a long lost friend. It was the rest of us who couldn't let go. It was the rest of us who chained her to her body with medical miracles until she screamed, "Enough!" and left us anyway.
interesting the difference between the two of them, and I'd never thought about it until just now. Thanks for the new pondering material.
I think there are many reasons for this. Fear of the unknown, an evolved survival instinct, and the fear of judgment day and the possibility of Hell rather than Heaven.
And there are a huge number of Christians "in name only" who don't attend church, don't read or understand the bible, don't have Christian values, yet feel they are Christian because they were born into a Christian family. They are understandably not comforted by a Heaven that never really enters their thoughts.
And of course even in America there are many Atheists and Agnostics.
I would guess that the only real connection between fundamentalist religion and physical immortality is fear. Fundamentalism gains converts by fear (Hell is bad, if you don't join us you'll go there) and the desire for physical immortality is fear (death is bad, avoid it as long as possible)
Very interesting blog entry, though shouldn't it be the US is the most religious developed nation? A recent BBC poll "Nigeria leads in religious belief" placed the US 6th of 10 surveyed countries.
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