Immortality @ MindSay

I watched an intriguing movie last night -- Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth. Bixby, who died last year before the film was released, was a known writer for episodes of Star Trek and the Twilight Zone. Although the subject matter of this film is a departure from this type of work, it still has that similar feel to it.

David Lee Smith (who plays Calleigh Duquesne's IAB boyfriend on "CSI:Miami") plays John Oldman, a professor at the local college.  The entire film takes place the afternoon of his impromptu "going away party" when he announces that, after ten years at the college, he'll simply be "moving on."  He's packing everything from his house into his truck and isn't telling anyone where he's going. His colleagues, concerned about him and the mystery of his departure, come on over to talk with him.

And then he lets them in on a shocking secret that they discuss for the duration of the movie: He grew up as a latter paleolithic cro-magnon man. He stopped aging at around age 35, and has been alive for the 14,000 years since then. He leaves his job and his friends every ten years or so when they start to notice that he doesn't age.

And everyone reacts. Some with fervent belief, some as skeptics. All of them trying to poke holes into and substantiate his story from biological, anthropological, Biblical and psychological points of view. But he seems to have an answer for every one of them.

And that's it. No action scenes (aside from a minor scuffle), no sex scenes, no changes of location. Just tenured professors (and one undergrad who allegedly is boning her professor with whom she arrived).  Some of them are downright annoying. (Example: John Billingsley plays Harry, the biology professor. He's the actor who played Dr. Phlox on Enterprise. As well as many other nerdy characters with annoyingly nasal voices. But he plays this part extremely well.) Richard Riehle (the old guy from "Office Space" who gets laid off, hit by a drunk driver, and invents the "Jump to Conclusions Mat") plays Dr. Will Gruber, a psychologist who can't decide between believing Dr. Oldman's story or committing him for further observation.

Every question is asked and receives a relatively good answer: Have you ever been sick? Are there any others out there like you? When did you come to America? How do you know that you were in what is now France thousands of years ago? What were you doing in 1292 AD? Did you know any figures from the Bible? 

And the way it ends will set your heart a poundin'.

Great movie. I give it 54 out of 57 stars.

When a bone is broken and heals in an otherwise healthy body, the place where the bone had been broken is afterward stronger than it had been. The body builds it up with extra reinforcements, if you like, as protection.

Many times, we must be broken before we can learn to be strong. We have to overcome a weakness and work on strength in an area of our lives before that area is strong. But then, for many, the improved area is stronger than it may be in others, though they were never concerned with that part of themselves before.


Our bodies are perishable. We get hurt. We scar. We have weaknesses. We get sick, get old, break bones, and just overall break down over time. We are not meant, in our lives, to be ever-living, ever-young, eternal.

That is not the plan. The plan for us, eventually, is to be eternal. To live with God in his kingdom. To do so eternally, we will have to be broken down and remade.


This new body that we will get will be amazing, I am guessing. Immortal. Imagine that. People dream of immortality, some have even actively pursued it by one means or another.

I do not believe these imperishable bodies will have to die again. They will be immortal.  There isn't a reincarnation on the schedule.  Those who are asleep -- the dead, according to Paul, here -- will be changed. Those still alive will be changed, too.  (More on that another day.)

When?  And what does this have to do with the great and terrible Day of the Lord I've been going on about lately?

I do not believe that this transformation will take place before that day, no. I believe it will be after. How long after? I cannot say. But after the initial beginning of the tribulations the world will face, almost certainly.  We are taught about the new bodies, the immortality we can look forward to, for a good reason:


There is hope for those who have died, over the millenia. There is hope for those who suffer now in body and spirit. There is hope for those of us who have said goodbye to a dear one who has passed already.  The bodies were broken, but they shall be raised again. All of them. Incorruptibly.

It is certainly something to be hopeful about in the midst of trial and heartache.  At least, I think so.

Comments I have made on eternidad s blog, I post them here to encourage healthy discussion and debate:

 

My comments: (some of which i have said is said much more succinctly by others in comments on his/her blog, but i shall not plagerise, please: go look for yourself.)

 

eternidad has made comments about wishing to be cryogenically frozen so as to hybernate and live forever.

 

In order for you to live, someone else must die, it is the order of things. Earth can only sustain so many people. Imagine a world where there are no natural resources left, because the food that normally would have sustained a normal population has to feed those that normally would have died, not just the new borns. Humanity would become a virus in the galaxy, spreading unchecked in our need for resources.

Birth contol would be the answer in such a society, are you willing to make someone loose the chance of life through not being born just so you can live for more than your fair share?

we are mortal for a reason, let that be.

 

 Consider:

Ancient Greek Mythos tells of the goddess Aphrodytie, who fell in love with a mortal. She begged the gods to grant her wish of making her lover immortal, eventually having her wish granted. Now, the gods live in eternal beauty and youth, not just immortality, so after a brief time together, the Lover grew old, while Aphrodytie did not. Ashamed of her lack of foresight, realising that she had asked for immortality for him, forgetting eternal youth to go with it, Aphrodytie hid her old and ugly Lover in a deep dungeon, away from the eyes of gods and men, where he lives trapped forever, ugly, old, frail and alone.

Don't make the same mistake as Aphrodite.

immortality does not equal youth. imagine living in a frail, arthritic body, incontinent and unable to even feed yourself.

 I would suggest you yern for youth as long as possible, before you think about immortality.

 

This is the time where i point out what being frozen does to human cells...

ever heard of frostbite?

it kills human cells as simply as burning them.

cryogenics is a nice idea for science fiction, but not really plausable in real life.

search deeper, you may be able to come up with a successful idea.

 

There have been experiments done that prove that the faster you move, the slower time is for those moving.  The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time is for you.

So, theoretically, of you put a space ship in orbit around the solar system as close to the speed of life as possible, those inside would be in suspended animation untill they slowed down.

 

What is the purpose of  living beings? As opposed to not living things who do not have a life.

What is the purpose of human beings as whole?

What is the purpose of your life?

 

You can get the right answers only by asking the right questions?

All knowledeges are created by observing the outside, but they originate inside our ourselves.

 

Vinod