I recently read a line in Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Immortals that really got me thinking.
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Isrealites, Christians and Moslems profess immortality, but the veneration they render this world proves they believe only in it, since they destine all other worlds, in infinite number, to be its reward or punishment.
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It seems to me that the essence of life is to be able to change and grow. The essence of consciousness is to be able to make decisions. The essence of meaningful conscious existence is to be able to make decisions with consequence (freewill). A theology that professes to believe that the consequences of this life determine the afterlife, and that after this life no decisions have any bearing on eternity, does not believe in immortality at all. Such an eternity would be an eternity of subjective non-existence where the concept of consciousness is meaningless. Free will would become non-existent and thus so would consciousness itself. Beings would become mere objects. Thus, only in this world do we truly live. This is the case for the Judeo/Christian/Moslem as much as for the atheist. In fairness, however, I should conclude with Borges’ next line.
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The wheel of certain Hindustani religions seems more reasonable to me; on this wheel, which has neither beginning nor end, each life is the efrect of the preceding and engenders the following, but none determines the totality…
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I might concur.
12-26-2002, 09:35 PM
Nobody believes in immortality
