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act
by Thomas Donaldson
Not every one that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Matthew 7:21
This article is one more in a series
on the historical precursors of immortalism. Let me
begin by saying straight out that I am an atheist
and place no moral or factual credence upon the
stories of The Bible, either Old or New
Testament. It's not even clear to me that a living
Christ, as a historical figure, ever existed, nor
that the sayings attributed to him were ever said by
him if he did exist.
However, in common with most
immortalists, and even more with cryonicists, I've
had to consistently meet with Christians, or people
who claim to be Christians, who insist adamantly
that immortality just isn't God's will, and so forth
and so on.
Finally I decided to actually
read The New Testament. This was an
interesting experience. I thought that I would share
it with other cryonicists.
The books of The New Testament
are very badly written, and in places quite
incoherent. Jesus does not always show up as a very
admirable character, doing things such as petulantly
blasting a fig tree because it had no figs and he
was hungry1. I cannot agree with the
morality of Jesus, which seems to me to be brutal,
unkind and primitive (cf for example on
divorce2). His constant admonitions that
we must follow his word seem quite
egotistical. This guy is not really a very admirable
character.
However, after reading The New
Testament I find many severe problems with the
standard interpretation of Jesus' teachings. Just
what did Jesus believe (according to these stories)
about physical immortality?
The very first thing we notice on
reading The New Testament seriously is that
very many of the miracles performed by Jesus consist
of: (guess what?) reviving the dead. He
doesn't do this just once. He does it all over the
place, and it seems that this constant resurrecting
of people was the major reason why he
achieved such a following. Lazarus is only the most
famous example; you might care to look at other
places in The Bible too, such as Matthew
9:23-25. Sure, Jesus also gave sight to the blind,
healed those with palsy, etc, but his major starring
miracles consisted of reviving the dead.
Not only did Jesus revive the dead,
but he gave his apostles the same power, and urged
them to go out into the world doing the same3.
I will quote:
Heal the sick, cleanse the
lepers, RAISE THE DEAD, cast out devils; freely have
ye received, freely give.
The ability to do these miracles
depends on belief.4
... verily I say unto you, if ye
have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say
unto this mountain, "Remove hence to yonder place;"
and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible
to you.
Jesus is saying that if we believe
in him, we too will acquire his powers.
Furthermore, if we read The
Bible in the sense of ordinary language, we
discover that Jesus was claiming that belief in him
would result in eternal EARTHLY life. The story of
Lazarus in The Gospel according to St John
brings all this out very clearly. I will quote it at
length, particularly because much of its meaning
depends on its context.5
21. Then Martha said unto Jesus,
Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not
died.
22. Jesus said unto her, They
brother shall rise again.
23. Martha said unto him, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the
last day.
24. Jesus said unto her, I am
the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
25. AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND
BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE. Believeth thou
this?
What is happening here is that Jesus
is telling Martha that he is NOT referring to
Lazarus rising from the dead "at the last day", but
instead he is saying that Lazarus will rise NOW. He
is drawing a clear distinction between the
immortality HE offers and the standard religious
interpretation of resurrection on the last day.
We can find plenty of support for
this interpretation in other books of The New
Testament. If we want some really good passages
we can look, for instance, in Revelations
20: and 21:1-4.
As an atheist, I will say here that
copyists and religious charlatans have obviously
rewritten the New Testament books many
times. The first four books, in particular, read
transparently as a pastiche. They could only read
the way they do if they had been edited, fixed, and
stuffed about to support one or other religious
view. George Orwell's 1984 has existed
throughout human history! However the quotations I
have given are still there.
Friend Stuart, a Christian who has
argued that Jesus was proposing physical
immortality, has pointed out the quotation from John
11:26. Especially when read in context, it is
definitely NOT talking about spiritual resurrection
in the Last Day.
Anyone who considers these passages
is faced with three possible interpretations:
1. The entire story is a load of
bull.
2. These statements were meant to be
interpreted allegorically or metaphorically.
3. These statements were meant to be
interpreted literally. They therefore mean that NO
ONE since Jesus Christ has truly believed Christ's
teachings.
I believe that it is very hard to
support interpretation 2. If the point of Jesus'
message is simply that we will achieve a spiritual
resurrection on the Last Day, then why does
Jesus resurrect Lazarus in the first place? If
death only means that we go to heaven, and
particularly if it means going to heaven FOR
BELIEVERS, then what is to be achieved by
resurrection? What would be the point of the Lazarus
story in the first place?
Clearly, physical resurrection must
have some very real value for believers in Jesus'
teachings. Not only that, but Jesus himself in his
answer to Martha is specifically denying
the metaphorical interpretation.
As for the third interpretation, it
has the embarrassing consequence that no one has yet
learned how to "believe" Jesus. What, after all, is
this belief to consist of? Clearly this belief
cannot consist of mindless repetition of the sayings
of Jesus, since there is a lot of that going on and
we notice that all those that do it have died.
Furthermore, just to shake up the
Christians a bit, NOWHERE in this book do we find
any strictures on the MEANS that believers in Jesus
are to employ in order to live forever. It does not
say that we are to achieve this goal by singing and
dancing about lighted candles and a pentagram, or by
attending a church, or by standing on street corners
reading The Bible. It just says that if we
believe in HIM we shall never die.
If someone dies, that shows they
cannot have believed. Whatever they were doing, it
wasn't the right thing. We note that the world is
littered with the bodies of revivalists, prelates,
and preachers of all kinds.
It does seem that prayer and fasting
are required to achieve these powers. Just after he
says that all thing are possible to those who
believe, Jesus says6: "Howbeit this kind
goeth not out by prayer and fasting." For what it is
worth (just trying to pursue this line of thought
further), if in 1985 we want to find people trying
to cure palsy and raise the dead, and have some
success in that endeavour, we'd look towards
scientific medicine. Perhaps all those who say that
it would be impious to do all these things badly
misapprehend the meaning of "belief", or "prayer",
or even "fasting". Perhaps more atheists than
prelates believe in Christ.
We all know of millenarian and
charismatic versions of Christianity. The Watchtower
Society (Jehovah's Witnesses -ed), when we read
their literature, claim an interpretation which
comes hauntingly close to out and out immortalism.
Unfortunately they seem to equate belief in Jesus
with some kind of psychotic fugue. Moreover, its
numbers also aren't noted for fantastic longevity.
The interesting point, though, is that their
interpretation of The Bible is actually
better founded in what The Bible SAYS than
the standard interpretation! This observation, of
course, only bears as much weight as we wish to put
upon The Bible itself.
Actually, of course, as read by
immortalists the one thing which comes out very
strongly in these old stories from The Bible
is exactly how desperately people did want
immortality in those days. Two thousand years ago,
before even the English language existed, people
felt as immortalists do about grief, death, and
immortality, and clutched at every preacher for some
hope that the death they saw falling upon everyone
around them would never fall upon them.
References:
1. The Gospel according to St
Matthew 21:18-19
2. The Gospel according to St
Luke 16:18
3. The Gospel according to St
Matthew 17:20
4. The Gospel according to St
Matthew 17:20
5. The Gospel according to St
John 11:21-44
6. The Gospel according to St
Matthew 17:21
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