{"id":3924,"date":"2024-08-19T09:09:55","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T13:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3924"},"modified":"2024-08-19T09:10:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T13:10:35","slug":"a-life-that-never-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/19\/a-life-that-never-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"A Life That Never Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>

So, you want to live forever?

Most people do, you know.

\u201cOur frantic efforts to outlive ourselves\u201d have been primary shapers of human culture for thousands of years. That\u2019s the conclusion of Professor Clay Jones, a faculty member at Talbot Seminary in Los Angeles, in his recent book Immortal: How the Fear of Death Drives Us and What We Can Do About It<\/em>.

Jones points out that the history of philosophy is essentially a record of how people, apart from God, make valiant attempts to figure out how to cheat death \u2013 or at least cope with the reality that life, for each one of us, has an expiration date. The Humanist Manifesto II (1973) is blunt: \u201cNo deity will save us. We must save ourselves.\u201d What might that look like?

To start with, we can pursue one of the three D\u2019s.

There\u2019s denial<\/strong>. \u201cI\u2019m the exception to the rule that everyone dies. Science, somehow, is going to save me.\u201d As deadpan comic Steven Wright puts it, \u201cI plan to live forever. So far, so good.\u201d

There\u2019s distraction<\/strong>. There\u2019s a reason people crowd their minds with rock stars, sports heroes, celebrities, video games, casinos, and booze. It keeps them from pondering their own demise.

There\u2019s depression<\/strong>. In an interview with author Lee Strobel in his book The Case for Heaven<\/em>, Jones notes that suicide has become a serious issue within the atheist community. When Strobel points out that taking one\u2019s own life seems a counter-intuitive way of facing death, Jones replies that self-harm appears to be a way of seizing final control over that which controls us. Such \u201cdeaths of despair\u201d are also connected with the sorrowful conclusion that staying alive seems to have no real point.

What about the dream that one day we can all download our minds into some kind of machine, and then \u201clive on\u201d as avatars? That\u2019s science fiction, says Jones \u2013 and much more fiction than science.

So far the human brain, by a long stretch, is the most complex entity we have discovered anywhere in the cosmos. It is comprised of thousands of trillions of neurological connections. Even if we could ever reproduce such a marvel, would \u201cconsciousness\u201d naturally emerge?

Some people are betting on cryonics \u2013 the preservation of a deceased person\u2019s head and body in separate tanks of liquid nitrogen. Perhaps they can be reunited and restored to life one day when science has solved the mysteries of death.

The bodily remains of baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams, who died in 2004, are currently in deep freeze. His daughter has said, \u201cCryonics is like a religion; it\u2019s something we can have faith in.\u201d So far there is no scientific evidence that the breath of life will ever be able to reanimate the Splendid Splinter.

Why do these strategies fall short? Jones notes Hebrews 9:27, which affirms that God has arranged things in such a way that people live once, die once, and then face a divine evaluation of what they have done with their one shot at the gift of life.

If you can\u2019t experience physiological, this-world immortality, perhaps you can pursue what might be called symbolic immortality.

You can try to live on through your family, your fortune, your legacy, or your name. Maybe you can transcend death by participating in something that your own demise cannot erase.

The late actor Peter Ustinov suggested that children are the only form of immortality we can count on. The problem, of course, is that any children you bear or choose to adopt may not cooperate with your earnest efforts to be fondly remembered. When it dawned on Sigmund Freud that his brilliant student Carl Jung was not going to carry on his work in psychoanalysis as he had hoped, Freud fainted. Twice.

Jones frequently asks his students if any of them know the first names of their great-great-grandparents. So far only one student has said yes. No one seriously remembers or cares about the lives of those who have gone only a few generations before.

In other words, this-world memories fade quickly. In less than a century it\u2019s likely that no one will remember you were ever here.

What about everyone having their \u201c15 minutes of fame\u201d?

A commercial that aired 20 years ago began, \u201cSomeone once said everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.\u201d The wonderful irony is that the person who actually said that, pop artist Andy Warhol, wasn\u2019t even mentioned. Apparently his 15 minutes have already come and gone.

What can you do to live on in societal memory? You can put your name on a building. But it\u2019s likely someone else will one day buy the naming rights and put their <\/em>name over the entrance. You can set a record that no one else will ever break \u2013 like the guy who made it into the Guinness Book of World Records by breaking 46 toilet seats over his head in one minute. Perhaps you should aim a bit higher than that.

Or you can aim lower.

More than a few people have tried to become \u201csomebody\u201d by means of a spectacular crime. Mark David Chapman, who assassinated John Lennon, admitted that he wanted to steal the Beatle\u2019s global fame. \u201cThe bright light of fame, of notoriety, was there, and I couldn\u2019t resist it.\u201d More than 200 people falsely claimed to have kidnapped the Lindbergh baby 90 years ago. They yearned to become part of that scandalous international story.

Perhaps we can convince ourselves that dying is no big deal.

Dying is good, said Apple founder Steve Jobs, because it clears the way for others to come along and do new things. For the sake of the common good, we should be glad we\u2019re leaving the scene. But that hasn\u2019t proved to be comforting to many people.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus wondered why anyone felt the need to worry about their own demise. None of us remember the nothingness we experienced before we came into existence, so why should we feel despair about the nothingness that lies ahead?

Besides, say a number of atheists, heaven \u2013 if such a reality even exists \u2013 would be a terminal bore. Who wants that, anyway? Science writer Isaac Asimov is said to have remarked, \u201cWhatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.\u201d

When all the options are taken into account, it\u2019s challenging for those who disbelieve in God\u2019s existence to face death with a sense of peace and assurance.

It\u2019s hard to figure out a formula for \u201cliving forever\u201d when all the data seem to be screaming, \u201cYour life is going to end. You\u2019re never going to see your loved ones again, or enjoy a sunset, or laugh, or cry, or go to Dairy Queen, or take a walk on the beach. You\u2019re going to be forgotten, and there\u2019s nothing you can do about it.\u201d

Followers of Jesus, however, are convinced there are good reasons for believing that God<\/em> has done something about it.

As creatures who bear the image of their Creator, our destiny is not dissolution in a cemetery but the receiving of the gift of resurrected bodies in the new creation.

Even though approaching death may feel like walking into a bank of impenetrable fog, Jesus suddenly emerges from that fog, walking toward<\/em>us out of the future<\/em> and saying, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die\u201d (John 11:25-26).

Will the next world be boring, with the same old hymns playing on an endless loop?

Hardly. The God who crafted this world with beauty and wonder and joy will surely out-do himself in the new creation. Scripture assures us, \u201cNo eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him\u201d (I Corinthians 2:9).

Best of all, God knows who you are.

God knows what has made your life a joy and what has made your life at times a real struggle.

You will never be forgotten, because if you have abandoned yourself to Jesus, you are part of his forever family. That means you will always have a story to tell \u2013 and people who will want to hear it.

No wonder the apostle Paul wrote so confidently, when faced with the prospect of his own life\u2019s end, \u201cTo live is Christ and to die is gain\u201d (Philippians 1:21).

May God bless each of us with that same confidence on this summer day.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here So, you want to live forever? Most people do, you know. \u201cOur frantic efforts to outlive ourselves\u201d have been primary shapers of human culture for thousands of years. That\u2019s the conclusion of Professor Clay Jones, a faculty member at Talbot Seminary in Los Angeles, in his recent book Immortal: How the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,36],"class_list":["post-3924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death-and-dying","tag-heaven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3924"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3927,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions\/3927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}