There is a minor theme in Science Fiction (among so many major themes) about how it is very likely that with sufficient knowledge 'eternal life' is quite likely to be accomplished. Give us a few centuries and humans, pretty much still like us, would never have to die.

From this, many thematic sequences can evolve. The one that interests me is the one where humans eventually discover 'everything'.

What would you do if you KNEW everything that would or could happen to you before it happened? What if, literally, there was nothing new for you to experience?

All the things we consider treats would no longer be treats. There would be nothing you could imagine that you hadn't already done; you could never experience something new, novel, interesting.

ETERNAL ENNUI!!!!

Most of the novels I've read in which this theme is addressed postulate that such a race of beings would do ANYTHING to experience something new. Usually, it's leaving this universe, on the off chance that a new universe will provide something new.


I think this relates to mormonism because of the promise of Eternal Life, as omniscient, all-powerful, eternal beings: You can become a God (p'tuey!) if you follow the fluctuating rules of mormomism.

So then, Yay! ...An eternity of making babies and raising spirit children, all to gain status/rank, but always relegated to being subservient to the ghawd who made you...and the ghawd who made him, etc., ad infinitum. Yeah, Turtles, but all the way UP!

And all you can do is be perfect and wait for your Jesus to boost you up a level, and then his Jesus boosts both of you up a level, and then ...   Get the picture?

The only way you can 'advance' is by comparison with those who come after you; your place in the line of commissioned ghawds never changes. Eventually, you've got an impressive 'downstream', but the guy above you beats you by one. And there's a guy above him ...

This would be your only distinction: time in rank. Other than that, you're all EXACTLY the same: you know the same things, do the same things ... ARE the same things... Forever and ever and ever...

oh, yeah, the streets are paved with gold. Isn't it weird how all-powerful beings are seen as being so enchanted with gold and precious stones?

Sure, call me a cynic, but I think this whole godhood, living forever thing is nothing more than a masturbatory fantasy, what with all the wives each ghawd gets.




            Revolt of the Goddesses in 1,000,000 A.D.


That would stir things up!

Will it be like the movie "groundhog day" ?

kinda, sorta ...



No.

But will there be golf?? If so, how would THAT work out??

Like you ruled North Korea!










...this refers to one of the Kim Jun No. Korean godlings deciding to play a round of golf. The No. Korean press reported that his score after 18 holes was ... 18!

Yeah, the press reported that the first, and only time, he played golf, he got a hole-in-one on every hole.

I once heard you boast of an 18. I was impressed until your partner said that was on the first hole.

         Mean girl . . .

Sometimes the truth hurts, Cousin.

Boredom can set in long before even a current human lifespan.

You don't have to know everything or have done everything, you just need to be able to imagine what a thing is like.

When you've been around long enough to have the experience required to imagine a result, you can bore yourself before you even make a move.

Even in my short lifetime and with my infinitesimally small amount of knowledge, it gets harder and harder to be entertained...

How can you be bored to death if you’re already dead?

Where are all the ‘eternals’ gonna live? There won’t be enough food or water to go around. Pensions systems will collapse.

Gates will not be pleased.

THIS!

I have always thought the prospects of eternity presented by theists in general (not just TSCC) have sounded DREADFUL!

"Follow Christ and be with him, praising him for eternity!"

I'll take my chances with the gays and coffee drinkers in hell, thankyouverymuch!

And the mormons make it worse with "Be with your family for eternity"

YIKES.

oxymormon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And the mormons make it worse with "Be with your
> family for eternity"
>
> YIKES.


This resonates deeply with me.

[The maternal side of my family was frequently a real life case study of Hell.]

Yea, verily, God was so bored--omnisciently bored--that he drowned the world in an attempt to finally feel something, anything. He already knew he wouldn't.

So then He went all out and tortured and killed his only son trying to believe that would do the trick. But alas, no sorrow, no pain, not even guilt--- as he already knew.

Not that fun being a computer made of flesh and blood.

Becoming a god is the real hell. Lucifer is the way and the light.

God was bored. Enter Luria’s zimzum. God got what He wanted; we got this, our life.

Thank God there is an ending.

Human Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> God was bored. Enter Luria’s zimzum. God got
> what He wanted; we got this, our life.
>
> Thank God there is an ending.

In Hebrew, the sound "tz" is a [single] letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The usual transliteration of Luria's writings into English is tzimtzum (which is more Googleable).

For me personally, one of the things I appreciate about Judaism is the concept of "gilgul," which is also part of Jewish mysticism, and is pretty much the very-familiar-to-me reincarnation I grew up with--sometimes taken a few steps further than was mentioned in the Hinduism I was familiar with from my very young childhood through my young adulthood.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2021 07:52PM by Tevai.

What a difference a decade makes. OR, two.

When I was a kid the concept of "Eternal Progression" was constantly on the lips of Priesthood leaders, SS teachers and Sacrament talkers. My testimony rotated around "never ending learning" like the airplanes spinning on cables from the center post of an amusement park ride

We, the elite Mormons, were going to God School when we died! No one thought it was going to be Presto! Chango! Poof--you're a God! We would learn all the tools of the trade and at graduation would be given our own planet. Mine was going to be mostly flowers and chickens, and cookie bake-offs. ( I was kind of tired of everything else by 12.)

So boredom was not on the menu. This was going to be a hundred steps up from Nuclear Physics, Advanced Botany, and French Cooking all combined , so what's not to like?

Years ago I wrote a short piece on that theme:

===============

Welcome to the Celestial Kingdom!

And Congratulations on having successfully achieved Godhood! Here is your diploma, and your license to perform all those offices and acts associated with your Divine Office. (You may use the duplicating room to make several thousand copies so that each of your wives can have her own).

You are now authorized to organize your own worlds and universes. Do-it-yourself plans are available for you on the Internet at http://www.god.gov/creating.html.

You are now authorized to start procreating spirit children with your celestial wives, through spiritual sex, which will have to be pretty frequent and pretty quick, depending on the size worlds you create.

You will now be able to watch your spirit children disobey you and frustrate you and make a mess of everything you try to do. (You are only allowed one complete Flood per world to give them a second chance.)

You are now authorized to communicate with your spirit children in any way except directly (because they don't deserve that sort of one-on-one relationship from you), but you are allowed to give them "hunches," which they will probably misunderstand and start thinking that ordinary hunches are messages from you (but - hey - they should know).

You are also allowed to choose prophets from among them, with whom you can talk directly, but you are not allowed to give your prophets any messages that are plain enough to be understood by any of your children without several people who don't really know anything giving them differing interpretations of what you said.

You can have your prophets write down your message in books, but you have to allow them to put it into their own words so that the meaning isn't really very clear. You can't correct their grammar or their spelling, either, or tell them when they've left out a word.

You are not allowed to change your mind, once you have given a commandment. Well, if it was really a mistake, it's all right to change your mind. But you are not allowed to ADMIT it was a mistake. You have to say the new commandment is better, and your children are getting it because they've been so good.

If your children really mess up, you're going to have to make them pay. Or if you can find one who's willing, make him pay up for all of them (and you can make it real gory if you want), and then you can let the others off the hook. You can name a church after him, if you want.

Now that you are a God, enjoy it. It's going to last forever and ever and ever and ever and you will get to do this again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again ....

Back in the old days, when church leaders claimed to know just about everything regarding the afterlife, I was taught that if/when we create our own worlds without number we don't get to make them just anyway we want, that they all have to be identical to the one true master design that has existed throughout all time. When I heard that I lost all interest in becoming a god/franchisee.

One way around the boredom would be to have our minds partially erased now and then. And who knows, maybe that's what we're experiencing right now.

I expect the dirt nap to be without any stimuli whatsoever...like an eternal sleep should.