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gustine also regarded rnen's souls as
being essentially eterna!.
But not everyone accepted the
concept of rnan's intrinsic irnrnortal–
ity. The Epicureans and Stoics be–
lieved that there was no hereafter.
The Sadducees of Jesus' day like–
wise rejected the idea, taught by the
Pharisees, that the dead would be
resurrected frorn their graves at
sorne future date.
However, after traditional Chris–
tianity becarne established in the
Western world, the concept of a res–
urrection proliferated, as evidenced
by the custorn in ancient Sweden of
burying a looking glass with an un–
married wornan so that she could fix
her hair on the day of the resurrec–
tion, or the ancient Irish practice of
rernoving the nails from the coffin
lid just before lowering it into the
grave so that the dead would have
no trouble getting out on the day of
judgment.
Many of today's secular thinkers
are generally skeptical of an after–
life. But the view currently held by
most of the world's religions is that
man is sorne kind of immortal soul
in a material body, and that this
soul will be punished or rewarded
after the man dies.
And Now, lmmortality
Through Technology?
The prospect of living forever has
intrigued man through the cen–
turies. But only in recent years has
man actually attempted by tech–
nological means to achieve immor–
tality. This new technology is called
the science of cryogenics.
Associations have been formed
for people who believe that if their
bodies are quick-frozen when they
die, perhaps sometirne in the future
- 50 years, 100 years, 1,000 years,
who knows? - science rnay even–
tually discover a cure for whatever it
was that killed thern. They would
then be thawed out, revived, and
administered the cure, and thus be
granted renewed physical life (and
eterna! life if science could sorne-
Mike Hendrickson -
Ploin Truth
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