We had a good debate about this in my forum but here's one of the things that I have problems accepting: Immortality/ Eternity. First of all this is spoken with the upmost respect for all religions and worldviews.

One of the features we give to -not only the Christian God but several other deities and gods of other religions is immortality. Merriam-Webster defines immortal as a state of everlasting existence. What I have trouble and always questions me is how can you attribute the concept of immortality to one being?

Using the Christian God as an example - okay God is immortal - cannot die. God is therefor alpha and the omega, and with him there is no end and there is no death. Therefor what we know as human beings to be concepts of death do not exist for immortal beings such as Gods.

Well what about age?


Every human being naturally ages , grows old, and dies. Therefor we can assume a being that is immortal is exempt from the aging process. Therefor why doesn't this apply to God(s).

That stereotypical image of an old man with a gray beard obviously cannot exist. From the moment you're born you grow old and die. Aging is part of the dying process - a being (?? - okay we can assume He[God] is very very very very old) cannot age without dying. If we can rationalize a being living this long, God would not assume the appearance of an elderly man in his late 80s with a gray beard,etc.

Spoiler:

In fact God cannot assume the appearance of any human age. We age because it reaffirms that we are mortal.

So how about we humor that God is born, conceived somehow (in other words a life still being conceived) in some sort of suspended state. Imagine a fetus in a womb, can we say that the fetus is immortal? Technically it verges upon life and death - something not yet born.

Why is this so, because the moment something enters this world - enters life - it is destined to age and die. The only way to rid yourself of the most basic cause of death (aging process) is to not enter life in the first place. Really think about this.

What if we disagree. What if this theory is wrong? Well, lets assume God ages to a certain point and stops aging - to me this is impossible and unnatural. The aging process doesn't begin and just stop. That's like putting a ball on a downhill slope and expecting it to stop rolling halfway down. So I obviously rule out this possibility..

So what if God ages and ages ... and ages and keeps aging... but never dies. Not only is this impossible and unnatural, but what would God look like? A bag of dust? No offense intended, but you leave an object around for only a century and it antiques. Think about leaving that object around for millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintillion, and (so on) of years? That object - what ever it may be (living or inanimate)- will look literally like dust. Aging is something that applies to everything. Both living things and non-living things will age.

I'm tempted to think that God is a spirit and is not subject to the human laws of nature. But then again the only thing we can definitely describe him as is a being - meaning he exists. What exists is subject to the laws of nature the same way every object and anything that exists is subjected. No object that has existed is completely immortal. Yeah I know people will say God makes his own rules, but it blows my mind how a being can defy the laws of nature and still exist within nature itself. If he separates himself from the laws of nature, he ceases to exist in nature. If he doesn't exist in nature where does he exist? And how does he interact with us humans who exist within nature?

So what if God is like a fetus suspended in time and space - existing outside the laws of nature, verging on life and death, never to be born. Never to age. Interesting thing to ponder. It is not a new theory, think about the species of jellyfish that reverts back to young cells after it reproduces therefor making itself immortal in a natural state (against aging that is)

Well am I saying that immortality doesn't exist?
Not completely so.

But think about the philosophical perspective as well. An infinite being like God could not promote justice of any important sort, cannot be benevolent to any significant degree, or exhibit courage of any kind that matters since life and death issues would not be at stake.
Meaning-conferring justice, benevolence and courage would not be possible if we were immortal, perhaps if we were not always aware that we could not die or if our indestructible souls could still be harmed by virtue of intense pain, frustrated ends, and repetitive lives. Someone who is immortal cannot (theoretically) center meaning behind anything, not even the prospects of life and death.

We as finite beings place "meaning" behind other finite things such as people, jobs, places, etc. Buddha once said that we as people who are impermanent attach to things which are impermanent. A being like God which is infinite cannot find meaning in things which are not infinite. Why would God attach himself to impermanent beings? From God's eyes just what reason would he place meaning into finite beings? Makes you wonder doesn't it?



According to the basic principle of the conservation of mass - nothing is ever created or destroyed. Nothing is ever destroyed not even in the process of being consumed by a black hole. Nothing amounts to nothing so it makes sense that great thinkers like Lucretius and Epicurus have argued these principles.

My argument is that immortality in existence is impossible - even the universe is not infinite as you may think. Singular objects like you or me or the planets or molecules which exist within the universe are immortal. No, everything must die - every object, being, etc. Could God be actually a product of the same principle? Maybe there are more than one God(s) the same way even the grandest of suns are said to burn out, fizzle and die only to be replaced by another star etc. Nothing produces nothing.

One person told me that if you're immortal everything is seemingly only a "dream," a "fleeting fancy". It is not real ... well at least not in the long run.

From the point of view of an immortal being nothing was or will have been created. Finite things should not apply to the infinite after all.


Therefore we can assume natural law does not apply to an immortal being like a god (as hard to believe as it may seem ).
Creation from nothing, defying conservation of mass, and all other affronts to the basic laws of nature and death would not really be much of an issue because it'll only be wrong for a split second ... relatively speaking.

This is all I have to say but yeah this is my rationalization of immortality. I'm not convinced with the absolute - things such as perfection, infinite, or immortality.

I read this article. I must say, i am impressed with your writing skills firstly.

ALso, i agree with most of your points.
True Immortality is not possible. Maybe its just transformation from one form to another.

thanks for reading

I very much identify with your response. I know many religions view the concept of a god as a being, but to me this is contradictory. I personally believe in a higher power but one as a presence and not a being.

The difference one might say is that a being is a physical existence while a presence leaves more openness to subjectivity. The other quality attributed to gods are omnipresence - which makes a lot more sense to me. God would be everything. What seems more comforting to many people is placing an actual "being." People need to direct their beliefs to "something." As you said it could be a transformation, not "something" but the presence many different things.

But again the counterargument is that if the state of immortality exists it would not be subject to nature rather to be that which exists as nature itself. A God being the God of creation (Alpha) and God of destruction (Omega) is essentially the argument, An infinite being like God is essentially more "real" than us finite beings.

The same way we are more "real" than characters in a video game, laws in their virtual world is different than our real world. It makes me wonder different things about free-will and the state of our existence for that matter - at best our lives could be that of only an illusion, a simulation..

This is a scary thought to think that reality is based on existence. After all all we live our lives (reality) by what they believe to be true (existence).

Take this example. The universe is indeed finite but keeps expanding - far beyond what we can grasp. Is the universe infinite - no, but to us humans it may be.

All human beings place importance and meaning behind our lives more than say that of .. ants, because we sense ourselves to have a higher plane of existence. My friend actually brought up the work of Erich von Däniken (see Stargate Universe) who brought up the argument that what we know to be "God" nowadays is actually pointing to alien races superior in terms of intelligence that came to Earth thousands of years ago and sort of "guided" people to start becoming civilized. Advanced alien life forms or what we consider to be beings called "Gods" could consider us the same way - our existence being nothing more than ants.

Immortality and the Infinite could be a long-winded way to describe something which is of another (perhaps higher) plane of existence.

I agree god is not a living being. But, i guess just a power. Maybe a form of energy or something. Religions are just path's made by people to follow/worship something.

Alpha & Omega, might be true.

I like what you said about spirituality and organized religion.

The alpha/omega mention is something debatable and a definite quandary in the argument of free-will. Cause and effect w/ room for variables and the contradiction comes in having a God who is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-present (omnipresence), and all-knowing (omniscient) yet we claim to have free-will.

I started a paper about this very same subject not too long ago actually (hooray metaphysics ).

We have no "free will", because we are just automated, self-repeating conditioning & programming.
That we are sentient, or individuals at all, is just an illusion we have, because as physical matter we are self-aware. All the matter in the cosmos is "self aware". The cosmos itself is "God".

But no one knows any details, or any further on that. And no one knows where it ends and how it began, because the unthinkable idea of something generating itself is the only thing that occurs to us when we try and think of it. Well, there is that we're a four-dimensional creature, theoretically in an 11-dimensional universe, so our sense of where we are, and "beginnings" and "ends" may just be that we're hopelessly inadequate to ever be able to comprehend how things actually are. We, you might simplify it, are as ants contemplating the sky (they haven't got a chance, they're too small, and too simple to ever be able to comprehend it. And sadly, we are too small.

What gave me existential angst when I went through that was the realization that we feel self-important, but may only actually be as significant as moss on a rock, in a vast universe full of billions of other planets...

There really is no way to get satisfied with this quandary all humans face. In my experience, you just tire of grappling with it, and accept it, in a defeat that comes with loss of feeling so you actually don't care anymore if the answer is ever known by anybody.

I hate to say it, but it is youth that makes things seem so important. By 40...meh, whatever! is how you feel. And nothing will ever grab you as intensely ever again, as you continue to fade over some years and finally expire.

Its this understanding that we expire, that we're temporary, which is disturbing. Perhaps that sense of it being "not right" (to end) is what some call the "god consciousness" in us (that vast consciousness which is the cosmos, which is as infinite as its size and its age... we are part of that, our awareness is...and life is a dream..even particles respond to what we imagine.. it really is just a dream... maybe physicality is even an illusion..I don't know. But like I said, I got old, so I don't feel impulsed towards needing to know anymore.

But I do know I will die, when i do, expecting nature will make the pain tolerable somehow, and I'll either fade to nothing, as consciousness, or get a surprise. Either way is ok. I'm not really expecting a surprise, so I don't see death as disappointing any more.

Sorry if this isn't wonderful and happy enlightenment, but really, I think life is right now...and later, there may not be a later. So enjoy now! It's ok to be temporary awareness, on a quest to understand. Ending is ok.

But just enjoy now. Because existential angst is most disconcerting, when focused into full flower. I think it better to be hedonist and live in the moment.
Because it's what we DO have.

So true, Live like there is no Tomorrow

“I think therefore I am”'
Reality is based entirely in the eyes of the perceiver. That which we perceive to be true is a reality – illusions are there to stand in stark opposition to the reality we have created. We can only justify the existence of ourselves and what we see to be the truth (our reality) so again anything which opposes that reality is considered an "illusion." Reality is bounded by limits of construct. Things can only be bred to die and what we know is only that which can be proved by the boundaries of reality.

Reality is so fragile that it can never be fully validated to the point of precision. X=Y but there is no valid to truth to support that Y=X , ideally though that is the reverse thought process many of us use to offer validity to that of our existence. X and Y being that which we equate to be reality and the validation of the existence of said reality respectively.

Hedonism and that whole school of Epicurean thought of living like there is no tomorrow provides could be the way, but not for me personally. I do like what you said about nature if there is anything absolute, nature has the truest source of meaning. Surely as dusk and dawn will not part from each other, nature creates this (near)perfection of order, balance, and purpose.

About free-will vs the illusion of choice, something is reasonably predictable if you have all the variables. Obviously in life we don't have all the variables or the variables don't behave as they are to. Looking at it I would like to think I have free-will certainly more than the countless roadkill - but that's just the problem as humans are no less predictable.