We need face-to-face meetings in real life and in actual geographic locations. Internet "communities" are too hard to create. I once created a Facebook group called Immortalists for Immortalism because I had no desire to be part of transhumanist groups. However, creating a non-transhumanist immortalist group is easier said than done.
Transhumanists want to turn people into Borg and into gadgets. I have no desire to replace the body God gave me with machine parts nor do I have any desire to be "uploaded to the cloud" where presumably Google will own me. In non-Christian perspectives, there is no soul and no spirit. In commercial perspectives, nothing is of any value except money. I like money but if all I am to Big Data corporations is data, then they cannot have my data. To those who have ever bothered to think about the big questions of life beyond superficial philosophy and meaningless words said by shallow thinkers, a person is more than a body with a brain and more than the mind hosted by that brain and more than a set of memories that can be recorded by machines and thoughts more than what can be read by some evil government technology or some evil government telepaths (who hopefully do not exist).
It turns out that science is on my side. Atoms and subatomic particles are mostly empty space. That means that what we see at the human scale is somewhat different than at the microscopic scale. I don't buy into Hindu or Buddhist theology but they and science and Christianity are in agreement that appearances are not everything. Where I part company with the Buddhists is their atheism and where I part company with the Hindus is their plethora of gods. I am well aware that others find the bloody parts of the Judeo-Christian tradition a bit repugnant. Animal sacrifice (which is mostly carried out by Muslims and Santeria) and Jesus' words to eat His Body and drink His Blood can turn your stomach if you did not grow up on a steady diet of watching horror movies and slasher movies and murder mysteries and CSI television shows and other serial killer celebrations of autopsies and arterial spray. The young may find it shocking but not all of us think children should be exposed to carnography. For that matter, adults should not be exposed to carnography ― this Big Brother desensitization is why ephemerals have no moral compass nor understanding that life is precious and that their way is insanity and stupidity and evil.
It may be that that rascal Saint Paul who bullied the Twelve Apostles into a number of theological positions with which Jesus would have disagreed, may also have attributed those words to Jesus.
Paul writes to the Corinthians around 54 A.D. :
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25).Mark, our earliest gospel, written between 75-80 A.D. has the following scene of Jesus’ Last Supper:
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” (Mark 14:22-24).So before a critic of Christianity goes around calling Christians cannibals based solely on the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, they might want to get their facts straight and look at who is actually doing cannibalism today (ISIS) and who is doing barbaric and agonizingly slow, pain-filled blood-letting of animals.
Transhumanists want to turn people into Borg and into gadgets. I have no desire to replace the body God gave me with machine parts nor do I have any desire to be "uploaded to the cloud" where presumably Google will own me. In non-Christian perspectives, there is no soul and no spirit. In commercial perspectives, nothing is of any value except money. I like money but if all I am to Big Data corporations is data, then they cannot have my data. To those who have ever bothered to think about the big questions of life beyond superficial philosophy and meaningless words said by shallow thinkers, a person is more than a body with a brain and more than the mind hosted by that brain and more than a set of memories that can be recorded by machines and thoughts more than what can be read by some evil government technology or some evil government telepaths (who hopefully do not exist).
It turns out that science is on my side. Atoms and subatomic particles are mostly empty space. That means that what we see at the human scale is somewhat different than at the microscopic scale. I don't buy into Hindu or Buddhist theology but they and science and Christianity are in agreement that appearances are not everything. Where I part company with the Buddhists is their atheism and where I part company with the Hindus is their plethora of gods. I am well aware that others find the bloody parts of the Judeo-Christian tradition a bit repugnant. Animal sacrifice (which is mostly carried out by Muslims and Santeria) and Jesus' words to eat His Body and drink His Blood can turn your stomach if you did not grow up on a steady diet of watching horror movies and slasher movies and murder mysteries and CSI television shows and other serial killer celebrations of autopsies and arterial spray. The young may find it shocking but not all of us think children should be exposed to carnography. For that matter, adults should not be exposed to carnography ― this Big Brother desensitization is why ephemerals have no moral compass nor understanding that life is precious and that their way is insanity and stupidity and evil.
It may be that that rascal Saint Paul who bullied the Twelve Apostles into a number of theological positions with which Jesus would have disagreed, may also have attributed those words to Jesus.
Paul writes to the Corinthians around 54 A.D. :
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25).Mark, our earliest gospel, written between 75-80 A.D. has the following scene of Jesus’ Last Supper:
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” (Mark 14:22-24).So before a critic of Christianity goes around calling Christians cannibals based solely on the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, they might want to get their facts straight and look at who is actually doing cannibalism today (ISIS) and who is doing barbaric and agonizingly slow, pain-filled blood-letting of animals.
It is easy to verbally beat up on Christians and say all kinds of blasphemous things about Jesus because you know that Christians will turn the other cheek. Say the same things about another religion (you know which one) and they will kill you. That makes the critics of Christianity cowards to let them get away with mass murder, genocide of Yazidis and other minorities in their midst, rape of women, racism, deliberate and conscious destruction of archaeological sites (a crime against all of humanity), and yes, cannibalism.
Note the following use of passive voice. When a Christian is murdered for refusing to give up belief in Christ, Christians have always called such a victim a martyr. Note the following use of active voice. When a terrorist murders innocent people and perhaps blows himself or herself up to take even more innocent lives, terrorists call such a murderer a martyr. To my way of thinking, it is a perversion of a word originally coined and used by Christians two millennia ago to mean a caring, thoughtful witness who died for the faith. Terrorists today apply it to criminals.
In such a violent world full of confused people who attack Christians for being peaceful and nonviolent like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an internet community that does nothing is not useful. I left the Facebook group Immortalists for Immortalism because it did nothing. It is discouraging to write a blog and try to motivate people to save their own lives through individual and group effort and to get so little reaction. So I have written less and less.
I have tried a site called God's Faithbook but immediately left when they deleted my references to and belief that miracles and healing could happen in the 21st Century. The Bible has choice words to say about those whited sepulchers who have the form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. I have choice words also. I am a Christian because love, goodness, beauty, truth and justice have power. Let hate, evil, ugliness, lies and injustice collapse from its own weakness. We immortalists and we Christians do not have to participate in those forms of stupidity and insanity.
I have likewise slacked off from other Christian versions of Facebook because in discussion forums they initially accept the idea of miracles but then they call everything a miracle and completely water down the word. Perhaps deliberately or perhaps in ignorance. I use the word miracle to mean Technicolor "we-interrupt-this-program" news events too big to explain away. Those who apply the word to everything simply don't know the etymology of the word or the Biblical usage. Those who water down the word are a subtle threat.
Healing does not mean takes thirty or forty years to happen. It means instant. It means physicians and surgeons are shocked because they are better trained in health and medicine than the rest of us and so they know when something really good has happened that cannot be attributed to their skills or the body's ability to heal itself. We will always need doctors but we will always need (faith) healing also. Doctors are for the routine. Healing is for the non-routine and for when the sufferer asks God for help. Healing occasionally occurs when the sufferer has not asked for help and God takes the initiative.
However, our God is a gentleman who generally does not like to override our free will. He prefers that we ask and will take the initiative when He perceives that we simply are unable to ask. The expression God looks after drunks, fools, and little children comes to mind. Fools learn from their own mistakes (if at all). The wise learn from the mistakes of others.
So we have been fools long enough. We need to start establishing Christian immortalist communities or towns.
Note the following use of passive voice. When a Christian is murdered for refusing to give up belief in Christ, Christians have always called such a victim a martyr. Note the following use of active voice. When a terrorist murders innocent people and perhaps blows himself or herself up to take even more innocent lives, terrorists call such a murderer a martyr. To my way of thinking, it is a perversion of a word originally coined and used by Christians two millennia ago to mean a caring, thoughtful witness who died for the faith. Terrorists today apply it to criminals.
In such a violent world full of confused people who attack Christians for being peaceful and nonviolent like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an internet community that does nothing is not useful. I left the Facebook group Immortalists for Immortalism because it did nothing. It is discouraging to write a blog and try to motivate people to save their own lives through individual and group effort and to get so little reaction. So I have written less and less.
I have tried a site called God's Faithbook but immediately left when they deleted my references to and belief that miracles and healing could happen in the 21st Century. The Bible has choice words to say about those whited sepulchers who have the form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. I have choice words also. I am a Christian because love, goodness, beauty, truth and justice have power. Let hate, evil, ugliness, lies and injustice collapse from its own weakness. We immortalists and we Christians do not have to participate in those forms of stupidity and insanity.
I have likewise slacked off from other Christian versions of Facebook because in discussion forums they initially accept the idea of miracles but then they call everything a miracle and completely water down the word. Perhaps deliberately or perhaps in ignorance. I use the word miracle to mean Technicolor "we-interrupt-this-program" news events too big to explain away. Those who apply the word to everything simply don't know the etymology of the word or the Biblical usage. Those who water down the word are a subtle threat.
Healing does not mean takes thirty or forty years to happen. It means instant. It means physicians and surgeons are shocked because they are better trained in health and medicine than the rest of us and so they know when something really good has happened that cannot be attributed to their skills or the body's ability to heal itself. We will always need doctors but we will always need (faith) healing also. Doctors are for the routine. Healing is for the non-routine and for when the sufferer asks God for help. Healing occasionally occurs when the sufferer has not asked for help and God takes the initiative.
However, our God is a gentleman who generally does not like to override our free will. He prefers that we ask and will take the initiative when He perceives that we simply are unable to ask. The expression God looks after drunks, fools, and little children comes to mind. Fools learn from their own mistakes (if at all). The wise learn from the mistakes of others.
So we have been fools long enough. We need to start establishing Christian immortalist communities or towns.