Thanks for your interesting thoughts.
Nark you said, "I guess we all deeply want to die as much as we want to live..." Could you elaborate on that?
Jez, can you hold that thought for a thousand years and I'll back to you?
I seem to get the impression that there's not much happiness on this forum, am I wrong? I asked this question because I personally find life wholesome and rewarding even though we live in a sick world. Why do we prevent and make excuses for building a better life for ourselves? Are we allowing the influence of the org. to get the better of us?
A car battery has a positive and a negative post, without it, the car won't start. How is that we're happy to hear when the doctor tells us that our x-rays are negative? This negative is a positive, how's that?
Why can't we make our negative experiences positive? Over the years I've made it a practice to extract the good of bad experiences. By doing this, I've come to have a better balance in life. Hey, my life is not without problems but I meet my problems head-on.
I'm thinking out loud again.
Golf
What's Your View of Living Forever?
by Golf 71 Replies latest jw friends
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Golf
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frankiespeakin
I think the WT's teaching it's followers the false hope that they will live forever makes death even more painful than it normally is.
When a person comes to terms with the birth and death process,,and they except it, they take a lot of sting out of it.
Where as when a person has been told over and over again by the WT that they would live forever and that soon God will put an end to death it in thier life time,, it makes the dying process that much harder as the person puts up more resistance to it. Exceptance makes it much easier.
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Golf
FS, thanks for your interestig thoughts. If you read the short exchange of ideas between Valis and I, life has endless choices. I'm not into fishing, but fly and deep sea fishing would perk up my interest. Now if we had the opportunity to 'just' fish worldwide on a daily basis we would never come to an end! When you consider ALL the streams, rivers, oceans, and seas globally, why bother to say, we're going to accomplish it because you won't even with all the time on your side. Now, just think of ALL the other activities we can engage in, again, we would NEVER ever be able to do everything even with time on our side. It's not being negative its saying, hey look what we can do, and we have all the 'time' in the world to do it! We have NO TIME limits.
Some of the reply's remind me of certain competitive golfers,these golfers can't reach the 'top'or peak of their game because they put a 'ceiling' on themselves, they say, I'm only so good and they stop. We need to complete the task at hand and take on the next challenge. My question is, are we up to it especially when we have ALL the 'time' on our hands?
If you think I'm day dreaming tell me. I'm a man of purpose.
Golf -
Narkissos
I guess I just find the idea of successive generations of different people fishing successive generations of different fish in all the rivers and lakes of the world way more attractive, aesthetically. Oh, and it just happens to be the way it is.
I am definitely not a man of purpose .
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Golf
Nark, I can't believe your man without a purpose. Is that your child in the picture? I know some parents mostly moms who live ONLY for their children. That's a purpose.
I'm into other activities and it interest me to see others engaging in hobbies and work habits. I have three patent inventions. I've gone to inventors conventions and and what has impressed me the most is seeing 'children's inventions. When I view all the children's inventions I see great minds at work. Mind you, these are only the children's section. When you go and see adult inventions that's also impressive.
The very fact you contribute your thoughts and ideas on this forum has a purpose.
As a high steel worker I've learned how to erect steel in 'different'
ways. Yes, there's repetition in this trade, however, you always get to learn 'new' ways to erect steel. Erecting skyscrapers is basically repetition but NOT so when you work on airport hangers or powerhouses. Everyday you work your faced with danger and you need to stay alert at ALL times, if not, well, that's it folks.
Sorry, you can't convince me your a man without a purpose. I would like to follow you around for a few hours or a whole day to prove my point.
Golf -
Narkissos
Golf,
I guess there is some room between "a man of purpose" (which obviously suits you nicely) and "a man without a purpose". I'm not of the highly planning type, probably more of a contemplative sort. But I am not "without a hope" either.
Yes, it's my daughter on the picture (she was 6, now 8), and every day she is a wonderful reminder of the limited place I hold in the chain of life and time. I'm certainly more "interested" in what she does and will do with her life than by the fancy prospect of extending my own self beyond its natural limits. My father who was a JW hardly looked at his grand-daughter when he was alive -- he had the prospect of living forever. Now he is dead, and little of him will survive in his descendents.
I think understanding one's finitude is part of a healthy approach of life, and this does include the thought of death. Repressing it with a fake dream of "eternal life" only leads to self-delusion imo.
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DanTheMan
Now if we had the opportunity to 'just' fish worldwide on a daily basis we would never come to an end!
I don't know. I think that after a trillion trillion years, you would have had every possible fishing experience imaginable. Probably long before that.
I remember a brother telling me how great it will be to climb mountains in the new system. But I thought, isn't the whole excitement of mountain climbing based on the risk involved? If we were truly immortal, wouldn't the excitement disappear? What would it mean to be a perfect (getting into the WT version of immortality here) person, in regards to something like climbing a mountain? Would it mean that we wouldn't be capable of making a climbing mistake? In that case it would simply be a robotic exercise. Would it mean that if we did fall, we couldn't get hurt? We'd just land on our feet, brush ourselves off, and try again?
I just can't imagine having immortality in our current physical state, it seems to me that our minds would turn into jell-o if there were no risks and we couldn't fail. I believe in evolution, and seeing as survival of the fittest is how we humans got to be here to begin with (by outwitting, outplaying, and unfortunately in many cases out-murdering the competition) that eternal life in peaceful conditions is completely counter-intuitive. Our big-brains are the product of billions of years of refinement, the source of the refinement being the fact that life is dangerous and tricky in innumerable overt and subtle ways.
The neanderthals were pretty intelligent, they actually had larger brains than we do. They just didn't have quite the speech facilities, and their thumbs may have been a little clumsy. I bet they wanted to live forever. But our species made sure that didn't happen.
Dan, life-is-a-cruel-hoax class
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prophecor
I still believe and would like to live without dying. There is truly no end to the ability to do things in the perfect world, we know so little about the planet now. Everyday, technology is bringing us new ways of looking at old problems.
The earth could be such a beautiful place if we all were in alignment with God's purposes and original intent. The planet we live on is beautiful as it is in its nakedness, imagine it brought up to God's standards. The Grand Canyon, The Colorado river, the wonder that is the islands. If we remove all the vestiges of urban sprawl, high rise towers, infrastructure, mass transit, the need for airports, hospitals, police & fire departments, everyone having their own piece of property with a good distance between our neighbors, enough space to have more than enough privacy between you. It could all be so beautiful.
Short of the problems that we face being human in an imperfect world, do you really ever long for the day when you say, I'm tired of this and I would like to die now? I don't know anyone unless they're suffering some wasting disease of the body, who wants to die. Everyday I awake is regarded to me as a miracle, and it's a good thing to be alive, especially in this country.
I think of those in places like Ahfganistan, Iraq and others in the middle, the Sudan situation, they have it hard, they experience pain on a level that most Americans, I believe, could not understand. So when I awaken to life again from my sleep, just knowing how blessed we are as a country, makes me want to live another day here, even in all its superficiality. Now multiply that times my desire to live forever in the perfect world, and I could just go on and on and on..............................
Please forgive the ranting, I've not had my evening cup of coffee yet, but life to me is very precious, everything that has breath in its body, wants to continue breathing, I believe. I don't know anything or anyone that would suddenly oneday like to stop breathing.
Arthur
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Golf
Nark, that's my point, you have a purpose. You hold your beautiful daughter sacred. This is your pride and joy! You'll go out of your way to do things for her. I'm sadden to learn what your dad failed to do. I make it a point to hug and kiss my grandchildren and I feel good about it. By showing affection to our children and grandchildren we are doing our part to build a wholesome community. Thanks for your comments and give her a hug for me.
DanTheMan, no you don't have to live in the new syatem to climb a mountain. Mountains goats have a good sense of balance, why not us under the right conditions?
Our minds turning to jello? Really now. Why are you so worried about having a small or big brain? Am I to understand that you don't presently 'enjoy' life?
Name me some of the things you enjoy doing?
Proph, yeah, there is so much out there to do and learn that sometimes it overwhelms us. But like anything else, we gotta start somewhere and stay the course.
You know, if people just made it a point to spice up their life, what a difference their world would be. It really doesn't take much. Just saying a kind word to someone gives one a sense of worth. We don't need to perform miracles to bring sunshine into one's life. A simple smile and hello will do for some.
I enjoyed your ranting.
Golf -
Valis
He Golf...how long would it take you to play all the golf courses on the planet? And could you wedge your way out of the Sahara?
Sincerely,
District Overbeer