Funny, I was aware of this meme in Western culture but I never associated it with religion. (I was raised mostly secular, modulo a little residual Catholicism in my family.) Immortality often shows up as a goal in media, but almost exclusively as a villainous one: heroes accept their fate, villains fight against it. Often the methods of obtaining immortality lean towards the cartoonishly evil (the mythical version of Elizabeth Bathory bathing in virgins’ blood; Lord Voldemort’s horcruces), but just as often they’re fairly benign and the pursuit itself is seen as hubristic and therefore evil. At best, a hero (Gilgamesh, say) will pursue it for a while before learning better, but this is actually pretty rare.
This seems to tie into another thought of mine about how villains and heroes get constructed in our culture, but that’d be a bit of a sideline in this context. I don’t think I’m familiar with the construction of immortality in a Christian context, though, aside from incredibly esoteric stuff like medieval alchemy; can you tell me more?
Yeah, you know what, why is immortality portrayed as evil in all of these different places? There must be some specific spot in the bible, but I can’t recall it. Maybe it isn’t even from the bible. Now I’m really curious to find out exactly where this cultural association between immortality and evil came from...
The closest the Bible gets, as far as I remember, is the bit in Genesis about the Tree of Life, and that’s pretty ambiguous. It’s been a while since I’ve read it, though.
I’m not actually sure, but I think this is mainly a hubris thing. For whatever reason, there’s a fairly well-defined set of activities in our culture that are thought of as outside the proper domain of humanity; this might have gotten its start in a religious context, but it’s certainly not limited to that anymore. (Consider “frankenfoods”.) Seeking immortality’s on that list, along with playing with the building blocks of life or, worse, creating new life; doing any of these things seems to be considered usurping the role of God or nature, and therefore blasphemous or at least very close to it. This is, of course, nothing new.
Where we get that list from is another question. I don’t think it’s purely Christian; cautionary tales about immortality go back at least to the Epic of Gilgamesh, although as far as mythological treatments go I think the Cumaean Sibyl’s has more punch.
cautionary tales about immortality go back at least to the Epic of Gilgamesh
I never read Gilgamesh as a story against immortality. On the contrary, it is a tragedy that Gilgamesh loses the flower of immortality that he has brought back. The gods in this story are enemies who keep immortality for themselves.
Lol somebody ate an apple once, now we’re not allowed to live forever.
Even if that was real, I don’t see cryonics as a means of living forever. Forever is a long time. There’s no guarantee of that.
set of activities … thought of as outside the proper domain of humanity
Now that’s interesting. I wonder if that might actually be more of an instinct to avoid screwing up important things, or just common sense, than something that’s religious. Even if it has been codified in religion, might it have originally stemmed from a sense of not wanting to screw up something important. It’s true that we are flawed and that whenever we attempt to do something ambitious, there is a risk of horribly screwing things up. Eg: communism. There can be unintended side-effects. Eg. X-ray technicians used to x-ray their hands every morning to make sure the machine was warmed up. You can imagine the horror they encountered years later...
I think we’re right to have a sense of trepidation about messing with life and death. It’s a big deal, and we really could gravely screw something up, there really could be unexpected consequences.
Funny, I was aware of this meme in Western culture but I never associated it with religion. (I was raised mostly secular, modulo a little residual Catholicism in my family.) Immortality often shows up as a goal in media, but almost exclusively as a villainous one: heroes accept their fate, villains fight against it. Often the methods of obtaining immortality lean towards the cartoonishly evil (the mythical version of Elizabeth Bathory bathing in virgins’ blood; Lord Voldemort’s horcruces), but just as often they’re fairly benign and the pursuit itself is seen as hubristic and therefore evil. At best, a hero (Gilgamesh, say) will pursue it for a while before learning better, but this is actually pretty rare.
This seems to tie into another thought of mine about how villains and heroes get constructed in our culture, but that’d be a bit of a sideline in this context. I don’t think I’m familiar with the construction of immortality in a Christian context, though, aside from incredibly esoteric stuff like medieval alchemy; can you tell me more?
Yeah, you know what, why is immortality portrayed as evil in all of these different places? There must be some specific spot in the bible, but I can’t recall it. Maybe it isn’t even from the bible. Now I’m really curious to find out exactly where this cultural association between immortality and evil came from...
The closest the Bible gets, as far as I remember, is the bit in Genesis about the Tree of Life, and that’s pretty ambiguous. It’s been a while since I’ve read it, though.
I’m not actually sure, but I think this is mainly a hubris thing. For whatever reason, there’s a fairly well-defined set of activities in our culture that are thought of as outside the proper domain of humanity; this might have gotten its start in a religious context, but it’s certainly not limited to that anymore. (Consider “frankenfoods”.) Seeking immortality’s on that list, along with playing with the building blocks of life or, worse, creating new life; doing any of these things seems to be considered usurping the role of God or nature, and therefore blasphemous or at least very close to it. This is, of course, nothing new.
Where we get that list from is another question. I don’t think it’s purely Christian; cautionary tales about immortality go back at least to the Epic of Gilgamesh, although as far as mythological treatments go I think the Cumaean Sibyl’s has more punch.
I never read Gilgamesh as a story against immortality. On the contrary, it is a tragedy that Gilgamesh loses the flower of immortality that he has brought back. The gods in this story are enemies who keep immortality for themselves.
Lol somebody ate an apple once, now we’re not allowed to live forever.
Even if that was real, I don’t see cryonics as a means of living forever. Forever is a long time. There’s no guarantee of that.
Now that’s interesting. I wonder if that might actually be more of an instinct to avoid screwing up important things, or just common sense, than something that’s religious. Even if it has been codified in religion, might it have originally stemmed from a sense of not wanting to screw up something important. It’s true that we are flawed and that whenever we attempt to do something ambitious, there is a risk of horribly screwing things up. Eg: communism. There can be unintended side-effects. Eg. X-ray technicians used to x-ray their hands every morning to make sure the machine was warmed up. You can imagine the horror they encountered years later...
I think we’re right to have a sense of trepidation about messing with life and death. It’s a big deal, and we really could gravely screw something up, there really could be unexpected consequences.
New objection: Unexpected Consequences