From the Pope’s April 3rd (“Holy Saturday”) address, via Aubrey:
An ancient Jewish legend from the apocryphal book “The life of Adam and Eve” recounts that, in his final illness, Adam sent his son Seth together with Eve into the region of Paradise to fetch the oil of mercy, so that he could be anointed with it and healed. The two of them went in search of the tree of life, and after much praying and weeping on their part, the Archangel Michael appeared to them, and told them they would not obtain the oil of the tree of mercy and that Adam would have to die. Later, Christian readers added a word of consolation to the Archangel’s message, to the effect that after 5,500 years the loving King, Christ, would come, the Son of God who would anoint all those who believe in him with the oil of his mercy. “The oil of mercy from eternity to eternity will be given to those who are reborn of water and the Holy Spirit. Then the Son of God, Christ, abounding in love, will descend into the depths of the earth and will lead your father into Paradise, to the tree of mercy.” This legend lays bare the whole of humanity’s anguish at the destiny of illness, pain and death that has been imposed upon us. Man’s resistance to death becomes evident: somewhere – people have constantly thought – there must be some cure for death. Sooner or later it should be possible to find the remedy not only for this or that illness, but for our ultimate destiny – for death itself. Surely the medicine of immortality must exist. Today too, the search for a source of healing continues. Modern medical science strives, if not exactly to exclude death, at least to eliminate as many as possible of its causes, to postpone it further and further, to prolong life more and more. But let us reflect for a moment: what would it really be like if we were to succeed, perhaps not in excluding death totally, but in postponing it indefinitely, in reaching an age of several hundred years? Would that be a good thing? Humanity would become extraordinarily old, there would be no more room for youth. Capacity for innovation would die, and endless life would be no paradise, if anything a condemnation. The true cure for death must be different. It cannot lead simply to an indefinite prolongation of this current life. It would have to transform our lives from within. It would need to create a new life within us, truly fit for eternity: it would need to transform us in such a way as not to come to an end with death, but only then to begin in fullness. What is new and exciting in the Christian message, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, was and is that we are told: yes indeed, this cure for death, this true medicine of immortality, does exist. It has been found. It is within our reach. In baptism, this medicine is given to us. A new life begins in us, a life that matures in faith and is not extinguished by the death of the old life, but is only then fully revealed.
It’s been more than 5,500 years, and God never showed up, so now what? In fact, it’s been 200,000 years since the beginning of Mankind. God, maybe you’re a little bit late, don’t you think? Also, note how the Pope casually mentions Christian readers “(adding) a word of consolation” about an Archangel to the text, and refers to Apocrypha as theologically meaningful. Does making stuff up count as theologically significant if it was done far enough in the past?
The Pope asks, “Would that be a good thing?”, in reference to living hundreds of years. Well, the average human lifespan used to be around 20, and now it’s roughly four times longer, so is that a good thing? Why do people have to live so long? Why does your criticism of hundreds of years of life not apply to today’s elderly folks?
The Pope says, “Humanity would become extraordinarily old, there would be no more room for youth.” This isn’t so, because old people will modify their neurology to make it more fluid, like that of youth, in unprecedented combinations that retain executive maturity while allowing youthful creativity and flow. If we can heal neural aging, then it will only be a matter of time before we can heal the neural rigidity that causes fluid intelligence to decline after roughly the age of 30.
Never mind a brain with a hundred billions neurons, like we have now — we ought to have brains with tens of trillions of neurons, not necessarily even in the same place. Once we expand and distribute our cognitive architectures, our lives really will be eternal, unless we are pursued by those with the ability to truly snuff out every branch of our mental tree.
The Pope says, “Capacity for innovation would die, and endless life would be no paradise”, but wasn’t that the idea behind the imaginary Paradise that you believe in? Wouldn’t God grant us endless life? Why would we retain our capacity for innovation in Heaven but not on Earth? I suppose that Catholics believe that God will magically restore our capacity for innovation if we make it to Heaven, but why do you believe that magic can do it and science never can? The Bible barely even says anything about Heaven — for all we know, references to being closer to God after death are probably entirely metaphorical. The detailed descriptions of New Jerusalem are a joke, obviously made up by Bronze Age writers with Bronze Age beliefs. Does God really think that a city of gold would impress people in the 21st century? No, because God has never communicated with humanity outside from delusional human beings today and delusional human beings from the past whose stories got transcribed into “sacred texts”.
The Pope says, “Man’s resistance to death becomes evident: somewhere – people have constantly thought – there must be some cure for death.” He expresses uncertainty because he doesn’t want to say outright that indefinite life extension is possible, but he implicitly acknowledges that life extension into centuries is possible. I’m tired of accusations that mix together incredulity with a moral response — if the technology isn’t feasible, then it doesn’t deserve a moral response. If it is feasible, then it deserves a stronger moral response, immediately.
The Pope reveals Christian deathism when he says, “A new life begins in us, a life that matures in faith and is not extinguished by the death of the old life, but is only then fully revealed.” Please then — look forward to your death. A corpse is nothing but worm-food, unfortunately. When the neurons stop firing and start being consumed by bacteria, you die forever. Only a crude simulacra can ever be assembled thereafter.
Eternal life on Earth is not necessarily incompatible with Christianity. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that life extension is a bad thing. We’ve been “creating life” for centuries by creating new plants and animals for agriculture. Why didn’t the Church speak out against that? Because the Church is ultimately forced to approve what people want, and it has no guidance of its own, because God is nowhere to be seen, and his manifest absence makes communication quite difficult.
Even if God did exist, his lack of communication with us, and his alleged genocidal acts in the past, his threats of Hell condemn him as an evil being. If God did exist, we ought to defeat him. We need to grow up and make our own rules — not depend on an invisible and silent Bronze Age Hebrew deity.
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