People Meant To Live Forever

choosing life

I was thinking about the reasoning the watchtower used as a proof that people were really meant to live forever. They said that because our cells continually replace themselves, we really were made to live forever. They even went so far as to say scientists could not figure out why this process didn't go on forever and were puzzled by this.

Then I realized that all animals have the same mechanisms in place, yet the witnesses say they were not meant to live forever. I wonder why it took me so long to put 2 and 2 together? Sometimes, I can't believe I didn't see through such faulty reasoning. Anyone else remember this argument?

Do you think man was ever meant to live forever in a physical body?

Superslave

This question is the hardest because everything dies.

I remember long ago seeing a tract from a church & it had the life span of animals in comparison to that of a human. It was giving the idea that it was unfair that humans only live for 80years. But to be fair everything dies...the only natural conclusion is that its natural.

Would are brains explode from too much knowledge? Would we get bored & kill our selves? These are some questions a study asked me once & I was baffled. It doesn't really answer this in the bible does it. You think God would put a little bit more in there about this sort after prize of ever lasting life?

Honesty

Read Hebrews 9:27

Sad emo

No.

It doesn't say so in the Bible plus the fact that God promised Adam & Eve that they would die the day they ate from the tree - and they didn't physically die, suggests only two possibilities:

a) God lied and the serpent was telling the truth.

b) He was talking of a different kind of death (which I understand to be spiritual), a theory which JWs discount by doing mental gymnastics with the time scale!

The big problem for JWs (and a lot of other Christians too) as far as I can see is that they believe everything was created perfect - and physical death just doesn't fit into that category. The reality is that God created everything very good - ie just as it should be, along with the laws of nature, weather systems, earthquakes, viruses etc, and death - He created a complete natural order which is in a sense, 'perfectly flawed'.

That is a massive difference and hard to grasp if you can't imagine a perfect God creating something in a seemingly imperfect manner.

Carmel

One of my first questions as a JW child was regarding the story of Adam and Eve. I wondered why a "perfect" creation could fail a simple test of obedience. Clearly an absolutist would have to say perfection was flawed to make the story line work. Of course I've long since decided the mythical story was not intended to be taken literally and that there are many "creation" stories in different cultures. As a scientist who has had the experiance of studiing evolutionary theory, one of the fundamental concepts of evolution is that protoplasm must die so that protoplasm can live. Meaning, the method of adapting to a changing environment involves the re-combination of DNA through sexual combinations that gives rise to opportunities for natural selection to operate at the level of the allel. The evidence of this is overwhelming as a mechanism for adaptation. So, it is unlikely that cellular replacement in living organisms has anything at all to do with how long the organism was intended to live. Some species are alive for an hour or less, others are for over a century. All are subject, however, to needing to present new options each generation to facilitate the long term survival of that species. My scientific training has not caused me to loose my faith, only to inform it and force it to be in conformity with physical reality. If reality is "one" then religion and science have to conform even though they may be viewing it from different perspectives. carmel

choosing life

Hebrews 9:27 says,"Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement". Other translations use the word "appointed" rather than "destined".

I am inclined to believe that nothing physical can last forever, nor was meant to . The same afflictions that affect humans also affect animals. I am still amazed at the faulty reasoning of the watchtower on the simplist of issues. Their whole idea of mankind being created to live forever physically is so easily debunked.

Makes me wonder about my own intelligence though.

gaiagirl

There is a good article on cell replacement in the newest issue of Scientific American, which compares the method used in salamanders with that in humans. If humans were REALLY meant to live forever, they would use the salamander method, which allows new limbs to grow if one is lost. Perhaps salamanders were meant to live forever.