Well, I’m working on it. Stay tuned.
Well, I’m immortal … so far.
It’s a “take it one day at a time” thing, doncha know.
Whoa, calm down there…
I wasn’t accusing you of anything, Bosda, but I guess it could be read that way. I was simply surmising that what you only described as “Hebrew tradition” had been corrupted by these “conspiracy nut-jobs” into the Zionist Elders crap. I didn’t mean to suggest you were one of these types. My apologies for being too terse.
For what it’s worth, I definitely side with Bosda (who I think is a really cool poster).
The idea of the 36 tzaddiqim is prevalent, especially in Lubavitcher Chassidism.
The source of this is from the Talmud: “There are not less than 36 tzaddikim/righteous persons in the world who receive the Shekhinah/the Divine Presence” - from the Babylonian Talmud: Sanhedrin 97b, Sukkot 45b. (This according to http://www.toddweinstein.com/art/text.htm).
Also:
From http://headcoverings-by-devorah.com/OrachChayim/HebglossTz.html under “Tzaddik (pl. Tzaddikim)”.
Other links are:
http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=54382 - a story from Chabad.org
http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=2136 - another story from Chabad.org
As an aside, the charge of believing in or promoting anti-Zionist conspiracyism is a very serious one and should not be lobbed without serious consideration, forethought, and preparation to present proof thereof. I am quite puzzled what would make av8rmike think that Bosda’s post was what he claimed it to be. Sounds like quite an innocent belief.
For what it’s worth, despite studying Judaism for so long and having been aware of this tradition, it totally slipped my mind until Bosda mentioned it.
WRS - be’ezret HaShem
Actually it’s quite easy. I’m not sure where the instruction came from but the only requirement is that you make sure to breath in right after you breath out.
Vandervecken
The Struldbrugs
Tithonus
Some people are cursed to stay alive forever…
See also the concept of Quantum Immortality; if true, we are all immortals;
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_immortality
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
The way I heard it was that there were 36 righteous men in the world . However, even they don’t know who they are. Which is a clever addition to the lore, if true. It makes one more thoughtful, etc.
IIRC I heard someone explaining why we die on the radio months ago. (Notice how wildly unreferenced this post is… It was probably on Norwegian station NRK Alltid Nyheter or the BBC World Service.)
Thing is, after a while our cells stop dividing, or whatever it was, or something. This is built in - if they didn’t, we’d drop dead from cancer a lot sooner than we now drop dead from old age. …So just find a different way to prevent cancer, and reengineer how cells work, or maybe it was DNA, what do I know, and people could live forever. …Note that this is the online version of What Some Bloke Said In The Pub. I have no clue. =)
IIRC I heard someone explaining why we die on the radio months ago. (Notice how wildly unreferenced this post is… It was probably on Norwegian station NRK Alltid Nyheter or the BBC World Service.)
Thing is, after a while our cells stop dividing, or whatever it was, or something. This is built in - if they didn’t, we’d drop dead from cancer a lot sooner than we now drop dead from old age. …So just find a different way to prevent cancer, and reengineer how cells work, or maybe it was DNA, what do I know, and people could live forever. …Note that this is the online version of What Some Bloke Said In The Pub. I have no clue. =)
“We feel and know we are eternal.”–Spinoza
There are plenty of philosophers/theologians who have thought that every one of us is immortal.
The decay, worms and ashes thing just makes internalizing it kinda tough.
Well, depends. What is “us” - our bodies or our souls/spirits.
If it’s the former, we’re all mortal. If the latter, many would argue we’re all immortal or at least some of us are immortal*. No proof for the latter, though.
*If a remember correctly, Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the saved/redeemed will reawake after the Parousia (Second Coming) while the damned will not wake up, condemned to having their life ended upon physical death.
WRS
My friend, the answer to this question is going to come down to your opinion. Creation or Evolution?
Mormon rumor has it that their are seven sons of perdition, and the way that you can know them is that when you meet them, they will not shake your hand.
“I intend to live forever – or die trying!” --Spider Robinson
Five, actually. I believe. Throw Cain onto that list, though his was more a curse than anything.
Never heard that. Not seven sons of perdition, anyway.
There are many immortals among us, but there can be only one!
In several of the sci-fi stories that I’ve read concering immortals living among mortals, they are explained as not being actually immortal, but merely ageing at a vastly reduced rate (maybe 1/100th of the normal) as a resul;t of some freak mutation - this makes for a good story, but usually skirts round (or totally ignores) the fact that immortals would spend several hundred years as vulnerable toddlers - unable to assume a series of identities by themselves.
Art Bell (Coast to Coast radio) used to put aside a night every once in a while for Immortals to call in; he always got lots of calls.
I suspect they were talking about telomeres. Rather than explain them myself, you can read about them here.
quote:
Originally posted by Kjetil
Thing is, after a while our cells stop dividing, or whatever it was, or something. This is built in - if they didn’t, we’d drop dead from cancer a lot sooner than we now drop dead from old age.
Well if you use this logic, then look at a dog, then look at a human, you’d be hard pressed to explain why the human can live so long without dying of cancer not long after the dog. Obviously it’s a bit more complex than that, animals are programmed by their genes to live as long as they do, and once this programming is sorted out, there will be effectively immortal people. People reach a certain point, and their bodies stop repairing themselves properly.
It is quite possible that somehow somewhere, there is someone with a mutation in the gene that makes a difference in the lifespan of a dog vs the lifespan of a human, that indefinately extends said lifespan. However, it is extremely unlikely, it probably involves multiple genes, and all such genes would have to be mutated in the same way- towards longer life.
It is much more likely that someday in the future, someone will make such a combination of genes on purpose.
The Comte de St Germain is a key character in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum (one of those books I like having on my library shelf, read with great concentration, and just didn’t get it).
On a more accessible level, in volume 8 of Neil Gaiman’s award winning and acclaimed Sandman comics, there is a discussion of the number of people who have been around for a long time. One of them gets killed by a falling brick wall, while thinking of the smell of wet mammoths in his youth.
Outside the realm of literature, I did read somewhere that a particularly long-lived people in Nepal grew back their teeth when they were in their 120s, suggesting that humans might be designed to live for a long time. No cite, sorry, and I’d be interested to know if indeed it was factually true.