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Immortality: Silicon Valley’s latest obsession ushers in the transhumanist era – South China Morning Post

Zoltan Istvan is launching his campaign to become Libertarian governor of the American state of California with two signature policies. First, hell eliminate poverty with a universal basic income that will guarantee US$5,000 per month for every Californian household for ever. (Hell do this without raising taxes, he promises.)

The next item in his in-tray is eliminating death. He intends to divert trillions of dollars into life-extending technologies robotic hearts, artificial exoskeletons, genetic editing, bionic limbs and so on in the hope that each Californian man, woman and AI (artificial intelligence) will eventually be able to upload their consciousness to the Cloud and experience digital eternity.

What we can experience as a human being is going to be dramatically different within two decades, Istvan says, when we meet at his home in Mill Valley, California. We have five senses now. We might have thousands in 30 or 40 years. We might have very different bodies, too.

I have friends who are about a year away from cutting off their arm and replacing it with a prosthetic version. And sure, pretty soon the robotic arm really will be better than a biological one. Lets say you work in construction and your buddy can lift a thousand times what you can. The question is: do you get it?

For most people, the answer to this question is likely to be, Erm, maybe Ill pass for the moment. But to a transhumanist such as Istvan, 44, the answer is, Hell, yes! A former National Geographic reporter and property speculator, Istvan combines the enthusiasm of a child whos read a lot of Marvel comics with a parodically presidential demeanour. Hes a blond-haired, blue-eyed father of two with an athletic build, a firm handshake and the sort of charisma that goes down well in TED talks.

Like most transhumanists (there are a lot of them in California), Istvan believes our species can, and indeed should, strive to transcend our biological limitations. And he has taken it upon himself to push this idea out of the Google Docs of a few Silicon Valley dreamers and into the American political mainstream.

Twenty-five years ago, hardly anybody was recycling, he explains. Now, environmentalism has conditioned an entire generation. Im trying to put transhumanism on a similar trajectory, so that in 10, 15 years, everybody is going to know what it means and think about it in a very positive way.

What were saying is that over the next 30 years, the complexity of human experience is going to become so amazing, you ought to at least see it

Zoltan Istvan

I meet Istvan at the home he shares with his wife, Lisa an obstetrician and gynaecologist with Planned Parenthood and their two daughters, six-year-old Eva, and Isla, who is three. I had been expecting a gadget-laden cyber-home; in fact, he resides in a 100-year-old loggers house built from Californian redwood, with a converted stable on the ground floor and plastic childrens toys in the yard. If it werent for the hyper-inflated prices in the Bay Area (Its sort of Facebook yuppie-ville around here, says Istvan) youd say it was a humble Californian homestead.

Still, there are a few details that give him away, such as the forbidding security warnings on his picket fence. During his unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year he stood as the Transhumanist Party candidate and scored zero per cent a section of the religious right identified him as the Antichrist. This, combined with Lisas work providing abortions, means they get a couple of death threats a week and have had to report to the FBI.

Christians in America have made transhumanism as popular as its become, says Istvan. They really need something that they can point their finger at that fulfils Revelations.

Istvan also has a West Wing box set on his mantelpiece and a small Meccano cyborg by the fireplace. Its named Jethro, after the protagonist of his self-published novel, The Transhumanist Wager (2013). And there is an old Samsung phone attached to the front door, which enables him to unlock the house using the microchip in his finger.

A lot of the Christians consider my chip a mark of the beast, he says. Im like, No! Its so I dont have to carry my keys when I go out jogging.

Istvan hopes to chip his daughters before long for security purposes and recently argued with his wife about whether it was even worth saving for a university fund for them, since by the time they reach university age, advances in artificial intelligence will mean they can just upload all the learning they need. Lisa won that argument. But hes inclined not to freeze his sperm and Lisas eggs, since if they decide to have a third child, 10 or 20 or 30 years hence, theyll be able to combine their DNA.

Even if theres a mischievous, fake-it-till-you-make-it quality to Istvan, theres also a core of seriousness. He is genuinely troubled that we are on the verge of a technological dystopia that the mass inequalities that helped fuel US President Donald Trumps rise will only worsen when the digital revolution really gets under way. And he despairs of the retrogressive bent of the current administration: Trump talks all the time about immigrants taking jobs. Bulls**t. Its technology thats taking jobs. We have about four million truck drivers who are about to lose their jobs to automation. This is why capitalism needs a basic income to survive.

And hes not wrong in identifying that emerging technologies such as AI and bio-enhancement will bring with them policy implications, and its probably a good idea to start talking about them now.

Stephen Hawkings question to China: will AI help or destroy the human race?

Certainly, life extension is a hot investment in Silicon Valley, whose elites have a hard time with the idea that their billions will not protect them from an earthly death. Google was an early investor in the secretive biotech start-up Calico, the California Life Company, which aims to devise interventions that slow ageing and counteract age-related diseases. Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel has invested millions in parabiosis: the process of curing ageing with transfusions of young peoples blood.

Another biotech firm, United Therapeutics, has unveiled plans to grow fresh organs from DNA. Clearly, it is possible, through technology, to make death optional, the firms founder, Martine Rothblatt, told a recent gathering of the National Academy of Medicine in Los Angeles.

In attendance were Google co-founder Sergey Brin, vegan pop star Moby and numerous venture capitalists. Istvan fears that unless we develop policies to regulate this transition, the Thiels of this world will soon be hoarding all the young blood for themselves.

Clearly, it is possible, through technology, to make death optional

Martine Rothblatt

Istvan was born in Oregon in 1973, the son of Hungarian immigrants who fled Stalins tanks in 1968. He had a comfortable middle-class upbringing his mother was a devout Catholic and sent him to Catholic school and an eye for a story. After graduating from Columbia University, he embarked on a solo round-the-world yachting expedition, during which, he says, he read 500 works of classic literature. He spent his early career reporting for the National Geographic channel from more than 100 countries, many of them conflict zones, claiming to have invented the extreme sport of volcano boarding along the way.

One of the things he shares in common with Americas current president is a fortune accrued from real estate. While he was making films overseas in the noughties, his expenses were minimal, so he was able to invest all of his pay cheques in property.

AlphaGos China showdown: Why its time to embrace artificial intelligence

So many people in America were doing this flipping thing at the time, explains Istvan. I realised very quickly, Wow! I could make enough money to retire. It was just quite easy and lucrative to do that.

At his peak, he had a portfolio of 19 fixer-upper houses, most of which he managed to sell before the crash of 2008. He now retains nine as holiday rentals and uses the proceeds to fund his political campaigns (he is reluctant to name his other backers). Still, he insists hes not part of the 1 per cent; the most extravagant item of furniture is a piano, and his groceries are much the same as you find in many liberal, middle-class Californian households.

Istvan cant think of any particular incident that prompted his interest in eternal life, other than perhaps a rejection of Catholicism.

Fifty per cent of me thinks after we die we get eaten by worms, and our body matter and brain return unconsciously to the cosmos [] The other half subscribes to the idea that we live in a holographic universe where other alien artificial intelligences have reached the singularity, he says, referring to the idea, advanced by Google engineer Ray Kurzweil, that pretty soon we will all merge with AI in one transcendental consciousness.

However, when Istvan first encountered transhumanism, at university via an article on cryonics (the practice of deep-freezing the recently dead in the hope that they can be revived at some point), he was sold. Within 90 seconds, I realised thats what I wanted to do in my life.

After a near-death experience in Vietnam he came close to stepping on a landmine Istvan decided to return to America and make good on this vow. I was nearing 30 and Id done some great work, but after all that time Id spent in conflict zones, seeing dead bodies, stuff like that, I thought it would be a good time to dedicate myself to conquering death.

He spent four years writing his novel, which he proudly claims was rejected by more than 600 agents and publishers. Its a dystopian story that imagines a Christian nation outlawing transhumanism, prompting all the billionaires to retreat to an offshore sea-stead where they can work on their advances undisturbed (Thiel has often threatened to do something similar).

Istvan continued to promote transhumanism by writing free columns for Huffington Post and Vice, chosen because they have strong Alexa rankings (ie, they show up high in Google search results).

I wrote something like 200 articles, putting transhumanism through the Google algorithm again and again, he says. I found it a very effective way to spread the message. I covered every angle that I could think of: disability and transhumanism; LGBT issues and transhumanism; transhumanist parenting.

Hes proud to say hes the only mainstream journalist who is so devoted to the cause. A lot of people write about transhumanism, but I think Im the only one who says, This is the best thing thats ever happened!

Why your biological age may hold the key to reversing the ageing process

Istvans presidential campaign was an attempt to take all of this up a level. It sounds as if he had a lot of fun. He toured Rust Belt car parks and Deep South mega-churches in a coffin-shaped immortality bus inspired by the one driven by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to promote LSD in the 1960s.

His platform Make America Immortal Again earned a fair amount of publicity, but Americans seemed ill-prepared for such concepts as the AI imperative (the idea that the first nation to create a true AI will basically win everything, so America had better be the first) and the singularity. At one point, he and his supporters were held at gunpoint by some Christians in Alabama.

The experience taught him a salutary lesson: unless you are a billionaire, it is simply impossible to make any kind of dent in the system. Hence his defection to the Libertarian Party, which vies with the Greens as the third party in American politics. Every town I go to, theres a Libertarian meet-up. With the Transhumanists, Id have to create the meet-up. So theres more to work with.

The Libertarian presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, received 3.27 per cent of the votes last year, including half a million votes in California. About seven or eight million are likely to vote in the California governor race, in which context, half a million starts to become a lot of votes, Istvan explains.

His own politics are somewhere between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, he admits, and he has a hard time converting the right wing of his new party to causes such as basic income. (The general spirit of libertarian America is, Hands off!) But he believes transhumanism shares enough in common with libertarianism for the alliance to be viable; the core precepts of being able to do what you like as long as you dont harm anyone else are the same. And the gubernatorial campaign serves as a primary for the 2020 presidential election, when he believes the Libertarian candidate will have a feasible chance of participating in the television debates.

But whats wrong with death? Dont we need old people to die to make space for new people? And by extension, we need old ideas and old regimes to die, too. Imagine if William Randolph Hearst or Genghis Khan were still calling the shots now. And imagine if Mark Zuckerberg and Vladimir Putin were doing so in 200 years. Innovation would cease, the species would atrophy, everyone would get terribly bored. Isnt it the ultimate narcissism to want to live forever?

Istvan does concede that transhumanism is a very selfish philosophy. However, he has an answer for most of the other stuff.

Im a believer in overpopulation Ive been to Delhi and its overcrowded, he says. But if we did a better job of governing, the planet could hold 15 billion people comfortably. Its really a question of better rules and regulations.

And when discussing the desirability of eternal life, he turns into a sort of holiday rep for the future.

What were saying is that over the next 30 years, the complexity of human experience is going to become so amazing, you ought to at least see it, Istvan says. A lot of people find that a lot more compelling than, say, dying of leukaemia.

Still, it comes as little surprise that hes finding live for ever an easier sell than give money to poor people in 21st-century America.

I cant imagine basic income not becoming a platform in the 2020 election, he insists. And if not then, at some point, someone is going to run and win on it. The Republicans should like it because it streamlines government. The Democrats should like it because it helps poor people. Right now, Americans dont like it because it sounds like socialism. But it just needs a little reframing.

Basic-income experiments are already under way in parts of Canada, Finland and the Netherlands, but how would he fund such an idea in the US? He cant raise taxes libertarians hate that. And he doesnt want to alienate Silicon Valley.

If we did a better job of governing, the planet could hold 15 billion people comfortably

Zoltan Istvan

How do you tell the 1 per cent youre going to take all this money from them? It wouldnt work, he says. They control too many things. But Istvan has calculated that 45 per cent of California is government-controlled land that the state could monetise.

A lot of environmentalists are upset at me for that, saying, Woah, Zolt, you want to put a shopping mall in Yosemite? Well, the reality is that the poor people in America will never be able to afford to go to Yosemite. Im trying to be a diplomat here.

And he insists that if Americans miss those national parks when theyve been turned into luxury condos and Taco Bells, theyll be able to replenish them some day if they want.

Theres nanotechnology coming through that would enable us to do that, Istvan argues. We have GMOs [genetically modified organisms] that can regrow plants twice as quick. In 50 or 100 years, were not even going to be worried about natural resources.

Such is his wager that exponential technological growth is around the corner and we may as well hurry it along, because its our best chance of clearing up the mess weve made of things thus far.

The safety of genetically-modified crops is backed by science

Didnt the political developments of 2016 persuade him that progress can be slow and sometimes go backwards? Actually, Istvan argues that what were witnessing are the death throes of conservatism, Christianity, even capitalism.

Everyone says the current pope is the best one weve had for ages, that hes so progressive and whatever. Actually, Catholicism is dying, says Istvan. Nobodys giving it any money any more, so the pope had better moderate its message. As for capitalism, all of this nationalism and populism are just the dying moments.

Its a system that goes against the very core of humanitarian urges. And while its brought us many wonderful material gains, at some point we can say, Thats enough. In the transhumanist age, we will reach utopia. Crime drops to zero. Poverty will end. Violence will drop. At some point, we become a race of individuals who are pretty nice to each other.

But now weve talked for so long that Istvan needs to go and pick up his daughters from childcare. He insists that I join him. What do his family make of all of this?

My wife is a bit sceptical of a lot of my timelines, he says. Lisa comes from practical Wisconsin farming stock, and its a fair bet that her work with Planned Parenthood keeps her pretty grounded. They met on dating website match.com. Does she believe in all this stuff?

I dont want to say shes not a transhumanist, he says, but I dont think shed cryogenically freeze herself tomorrow. I would. Im like, If you see me dying of a heart attack, please put me in a refrigerator. She thinks thats weird.

We arrive at the community centre where Istvans daughters are being looked after. They come running out in summer dresses, sweet and sunny and happy to be alive. Both of them want to be doctors when they grow up, like their mum.

The Times/The Interview People

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Immortality: Silicon Valley's latest obsession ushers in the transhumanist era - South China Morning Post

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Immortality, Transhumanism, and Ray Kurzweils Singularity

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. Vernor Vinge, Technological Singularity, 1983

Futurist and Inventor Ray Kurzweil has a plan: He wants to never die.

In order to achieve this goal, he currently takes over 150 supplements per day, eats a calorie restricted diet (a proven technique to prolong lifespan), drinks ionized water (a type of alkalinized water that supposedly protects against free radicals in the body), and exercises daily, all to promote the healthy functioning of his body; and at 60 years old, he reportedly has the physiology of a man 20 years younger.

But the human body, no matter how well you take care of it, is susceptible to illness, disease, and senescence the process of cellular change in the body that results in that little thing we all do called aging. (This cellular process is why humans are physiologically unable to live past the age of around 125 years old.) Kurzweil is well aware of this, but has a solution: he is just trying to live long enough in his human body until technology reaches the point where man can meld with machine, and he can survive as a cyborg with robotically enhanced features; survive, that is, until the day when he can eventually upload his consciousness onto a harddrive, enabling him to live forever as bits of information stored indefinitely; immortal, in a sense, as long as he has a copy of himself in case the computer fails.

What happens if these technological abilities dont come soon enough? Kurzweil has a back-up plan. If, for some reason, this mind-machine blend doesnt occur in his biological lifetime, Kurzweil is signed up at Alcor Life Extension Foundation to be cryonically frozen and kept in Scottsdale, Arizona, amongst approximately 900 other stored bodies (including famous baseball player Ted Williams) who are currently stored. There at Alcor, he will wait until the day when scientists discover the ability to reanimate life back into him and not too long, as Kurzweil believes this day will be in about 50 years.

Watch a video on Alcor and Cryonics here:

Ray Kurzweil is a fascinating and controversial figure, both famous and infamous for his technological predictions. He is a respected scientist and inventor, known for his accurate predictions of a number of technological events, and recently started The Singularity University here in Silicon Valley, an interdisciplinary program (funded in part by Google) aimed to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders around issues of accelerating technologies.

Ray Kurzweil

Kurzweils most well-known predictions are encapsulated in this event he forecasts called The Singularity, a period of time he predicts in the next few decades when artificial intelligence will exceed human intelligence, and technologies like genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and computer technology will radically transform human life, enabling mind, body and machine to become one.

He is also a pioneer of a movement called transhumanism, which is defined by this belief that technology will ultimately replace biology, and rid human beings of all the things that, well, make us human, like disease, aging, and you guessed itdeath. Why be human when you can be something better? When Artificial intelligence and nanotechnology comes around in the singularity, Kurzweil thinks, being biologically human will become obsolete. With cyborg features and enhanced cognitive capacities, we will have fewer deficiencies, and more capabilities; we will possess the ability to become more like machines, and well be better for it.

Watch A Preview For A Film About Kurzweil entitled Transcendent Man:

Kurzweil outlines his vision of our technological future in his article Reinventing Humanity: The Future of Machine-Human Intelligence for Futurist Magazine, which raises some juicy points to consider from the perspective of ethics and technology. He explains The Singularity, in his own words,:

We stand on the threshold of the most profound and transformative event in the history of humanity, the singularity.

What is the Singularity? From my perspective, the Singularity is a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so fast and far-reaching that human existence on this planet will be irreversibly altered. We will combine our brain powerthe knowledge, skills, and personality quirks that make us humanwith our computer power in order to think, reason, communicate, and create in ways we can scarcely even contemplate today.

This merger of man and machine, coupled with the sudden explosion in machine intelligence and rapid innovation in the fields of gene research as well as nanotechnology, will result in a world where there is no distinction between the biological and the mechanical, or between physical and virtual reality. These technological revolutions will allow us to transcend our frail bodies with all their limitations. Illness, as we know it, will be eradicated. Through the use of nanotechnology, we will be able to manufacture almost any physical product upon demand, world hunger and poverty will be solved, and pollution will vanish. Human existence will undergo a quantum leap in evolution. We will be able to live as long as we choose. The coming into being of such a world is, in essence, the Singularity.

The details of the coming Singularity, Kurzweil outlines, will occur in three areas: The genetic revolution, the nanotech revolution, and strong AI: which means, essentially, machines that are smarter than humans.

The first he describes is the nanotechnology revolution, which refers to a type of technology that manipulates matter on an atomic and molecular scale, potentially allowing us to reassemble matter in a variety of ways. Kurzweil believes nanotechnology will give us the capability to create atomic size robots that can clean our blood cells and eradicate disease; he also thinks nanotechnology will allow us to create essentially anything by assembling it through nanobots (for example, he thinks that nanotechnology will enable us to e-mail physical things like clothing, much like we can currently e-mail audio-files). He explains:

The nanotechnology revolution will enable us to redesign and rebuildmolecule by moleculeour bodies and brains and the world with which we interact, going far beyond the limitations of biology.

In the future, nanoscale devices will run hundreds of tests simultaneously on tiny samples of a given substance. These devices will allow extensive tests to be conducted on nearly invisible samples of blood.

In the area of treatment, a particularly exciting application of this technology is the harnessing of nanoparticles to deliver medication to specific sites in the body. Nanoparticles can guide drugs into cell walls and through the blood-brain barrier. Nanoscale packages can be designed to hold drugs, protect them through the gastrointestinal tract, ferry them to specific locations, and then release them in sophisticated ways that can be influenced and controlled, wirelessly, from outside the body.

In regards to AI, Kurzweil envisions what will eventually become a post-human future, where we upload our consciousness to computers and live forever as stored information:

The implementation of artificial intelligence in our biological systems will mark an evolutionary leap forward for humanity, but it also implies we will indeed become more machine than human. Billions of nanobots will travel through the bloodstream in our bodies and brains. In our bodies, they will destroy pathogens, correct DNA errors, eliminate toxins, and perform many other tasks to enhance our physical well-being. As a result, we will be able to live indefinitely without aging.

Despite the wonderful future potential of medicine, real human longevity will only be attained when we move away from our biological bodies entirely. As we move toward a software-based existence, we will gain the means of backing ourselves up (storing the key patterns underlying our knowledge, skills, and personality in a digital setting) thereby enabling a virtual immortality. Thanks to nanotechnology, we will have bodies that we can not just modify but change into new forms at will. We will be able to quickly change our bodies in full-immersion virtual-reality environments incorporating all of the senses during the 2020s and in real reality in the 2040s.

Now, the idea of becoming nanobot driven robots is hard to wrap ones head around, particurlaly living in a time when people struggle to get their blue-tooths to work correctly. But even though to most people, these predictions seem very extreme, Kurzweil explains why he thinks these changes are coming fast, even if we cant conceive of them now. He explains that, in the vein of Moores law (which describes how the density of transistors on computer chips has doubled every two years since its invention), technology develops exponentially and thus the rate of change is rapidly increasing in the modern day:

We wont experience 100 years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of 20,000 years of progress

How is it possible we could be so close to this enormous change and not see it? The answer is the quickening nature of technological innovation. In thinking about the future, few people take into consideration the fact that human scientific progress is exponential

In other words, the twentieth century was gradually speeding up to todays rate of progress; its achievements, therefore, were equivalent to about 20 years of progress at the rate of 2000. Well make another 20 years of progress in just 14 years (by 2014), and then do the same again in only seven years. To express this another way, we wont experience 100 years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of 20,000 years of progress (again, when measured by todays progress rate), or progress on a level of about 1,000 times greater than what was achieved in the twentieth century.

Reflections

There are so many questions to ask, its hard to know where to start. Considering The Singularity, many questions arise (the first, which youre probably thinking, is Is this really possible?!) But that question put temporarily aside, some questions seem to be: what are the promise and perils of nanotechnology, and how can we approach them responsibly?What types of genetic engineering, if any, should we pursue, and what types should we avoid? If we really could live forever, should weparticularly if it meant living no longer as humans, but as machines? And what happens to who we are as human beings our beliefs, our religions and faiths, our thoughts about our purpose if we pursue this type of future?

Each of these topics is rife with ethical and existential questions; and discussion of many of them requires scientific knowledge that extends beyond my ability to represent them here. But contemplating these questions broadly, even in spite of extensive knowledge of their specifics, brings into focus some fundamental questions about the principles of human experience, and about the broad issue of our technological future and how to approach it.The more we envision a technologically saturated future, I think, the more our human values are called upon to be revealed as we react, respond, flinch, or embrace the pictures of our future reflected in these predictions. They ask us to consider: what do we value about being human? What do we want to hold on to about being human, and what do want to replace, augment, and transform with technology? Is living as stored information really any life at all?

In addition to these questions, exploring these futuristic issues calls us to consider some of our fundamental principles about technology. A basic yet extremely complex question arises: Should all technology be pursued? In other words, should we ever restrict technological innovation, and say that some technologies, because of their risks to humanity, or to certain human values simply shouldnt be developed?

Reflections on this question bring up the topic of techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, which I wrote about briefly here.

Kurzweil, it seems to go without saying, is a fullfledged techno-optimist, interested in letting technology run its full reign, even if that means leaving everything that is recognizeably human behind. He concedes that we need to be responsible about our use of nanotechnology a technology which some fear could bring about the end of the world (see the grey goo theory) but for the most part is a proponent of full fledged technological expansion. Reflection is important, but no amount should limit technologies:

We dont have to look past today to see the intertwined promise and peril of technological advancement, he says. Imagine describing the dangers (atomic and hydrogen bombs for one thing) that exist today to people who lived a couple of hundred years ago. They would think it mad to take such risks. But how many people in 2006 would really want to go back to the short, brutish, disease-filled, poverty-stricken, disaster-prone lives that 99% of the human race struggled through two centuries ago?

We may romanticize the past, but up until fairly recently most of humanity lived extremely fragile lives in which one all-too-common misfortune could spell disaster. Two hundred years ago, life expectancy for females in the record-holding country (Sweden) was roughly 35-five years, very brief compared with the longest life expectancy today-almost 85 years for Japanese women. Life expectancy for males was roughly 33 years, compared with the current 79 years. Half a day was often required to prepare an evening meal, and hard labor characterized most human activity. There were no social safety nets. Substantial portions of our species still live in this precarious way, which is at least one reason to continue technological progress and the economic improvement that accompanies it. Only technology, with its ability to provide orders of magnitude of advances in capability and affordability has the scale to confront problems such as poverty, disease, pollution, and the other overriding concerns of society today. The benefits of applying ourselves to these challenges cannot be overstated.

But another, more technologically conservative view is important to consider, one characterized by thinkers who question whether these technologies should be proliferated, or even pursued at all.

William Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, famously countered Kurzweils predictions in his article, Why The Future Doesnt Need Us. He opens his article discussing his meeting with Kurzweil:

I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. But now, from someone I respected, I was hearing a strong argument that they were a near-term possibility

From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21stcentury. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.

I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. But now, from someone I respected, I was hearing a strong argument that they were a near-term possibility. I was taken aback, especially given Rays proven ability to imagine and create the future. I already knew that new technologies like genetic engineering and nanotechnology were giving us the power to remake the world, but a realistic and imminent scenario for intelligent robots surprised me.

Joy then discusses how these technologies (namely nanotechnology and artificial intelligence) pose a new, unparralleled threat to humanity, and that as a result, we shouldnt pursue them in fact, we should purposefully restrict them, on the principle that the amount of harm and threat they pose to humanity itself outweighs what benefit they could bring.

Accustomed to living with almost routine scientific breakthroughs, we have yet to come to terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology pose a different threat than the technologies that have come before. Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control.

Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of sciences quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own.

We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. Have we already gone too far down the path to alter course? I dont believe so, but we arent trying yet, and the last chance to assert control the fail-safe point is rapidly approaching. We have our first pet robots, as well as commercially available genetic engineering techniques, and our nanoscale techniques are advancing rapidly. While the development of these technologies proceeds through a number of steps, it isnt necessarily the case as happened in the Manhattan Project and the Trinity test that the last step in proving a technology is large and hard. The breakthrough to wild self-replication in robotics, genetic engineering, or nanotechnology could come suddenly, reprising the surprise we felt when we learned of the cloning of a mammal.

He closes his essay saying:

Thoreau also said that we will be rich in proportion to the number of things which we can afford to let alone. We each seek to be happy, but it would seem worthwhile to question whether we need to take such a high risk of total destruction to gain yet more knowledge and yet more things; common sense says that there is a limit to our material needs and that certain knowledge is too dangerous and is best forgone.

Neither should we pursue near immortality without considering the costs A technological approach to Eternity near immortality through robotics may not be the most desirable utopia, and its pursuit brings clear dangers. Maybe we should rethink our utopian choices.

Another view that counters Kurzweils is presented by Richard Eckersley, focused a bit less on the scientific dangers and more on the threat to human values:

Why pursue this(Kurzweils) future?The future world that Ray Kurzweil describes bears almost no relationship to human well-being that I am aware of. In essence, human health and happiness comes from being connected and engaged, from being suspended in a web of relationships and interestspersonal, social and spiritual that give meaning to our lives. The intimacy and support provided by close personal relationships seem to matter most; isolation exacts the highest price. The need to belong is more important than the need to be rich. Meaning matters more than money and what it buys.

We are left with the matter of destiny: it is our preordained fate, Kurzweil suggests, to advance technologically until the entire universe is at our fingertips. The question then becomes, preordained by whom or what? Biological evolution has not set this course for us; Is technology itself the planner? Perhaps it will eventually be, but not yet.

We are left to conclude that we will do this because it is we who have decided it is our destiny.

Joy and Eckersley powerfully warn against our pursuit of a Kurzweil-type future. So we may be able to have the technical ability to achieve machine-like capacities; does that mean we should? This technological future, though perhaps possible, should not be preferable. The technologies that Kurzweil speaks of are dangerous, presenting a new type of threat that we have not before faced as humans and the risks of pursuing them far outweigh the benefits.

We may find ourselves equipped with the capacity to alter ourselves and the world, and yet unable to handle or control that immense power

If we are to continue down Kurzweils path, we may be able to pursue remarkable things conceived of mostly so far in science fiction a future where we are no longer humans at all, but artifacts of our own technological creations. But if we are to heed Joys and Eckersleys views, we would practice saying enough is enough we would say we have sufficient technology to live reasonably happy lives, and by encouraging the development of these new technologies, we might be unleashing entities of pandoras box that could put humanity in ruins forever. We would say, Yes, there is tremendous promise in these technologies; but there is more so a tremendous risk. We need to hold fast to the human values of restraint and temperance, lest we find ourselves equippedwiththe capacity to alter ourselves and the world, and yet unable to handle or control that immense power.

So the camps seem to be these: Kurzweil believes technology reduces suffering, and that we should pursue it for that reason to any end even until we are no longer human, but become technology ourselves. (Indeed, he feels we have a moral imperative to pursue them for this reason.) Joy believes there are too many dangers in this type of future. And Eckersley asks, why would we want this future, anyway? I am left thinking about a number of things:

First, I am intrigued by Kurzweils unwavering love for technology because it seems to me like technology has both its strengths and its weaknesses, and that such faith in a technological system greatly overinflates the capacities of technology to cure all of the worlds problems while overlooking its very real drawbacks.I wonder about putting so much faith in technology, to solve all our ills, and replace all our deficiencies. Is it really such a healing, improving force? Would it really be possible to achieve this technological utopia without some potentially disastrous consequences?

I also cant help but wonder what role technology, as its own force, plays in this debate. People often fear about rebellious robots or artificially intelligent beings taking over; but is technology already, in a sense guiding us, in control of us, instead of us controlling it? It seems harder and harder to resist the grip of technology, even as we face a future that, as Joy says, no longer needs us. Isnt there something a bit strange about humans contemplatingand preferring a post-human future? Does it indicate, in some sense, that technology has already overtaken man, and is gearing us down a path until it fully reigns supreme?

If we arent drawing the line at genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, does that mean we will never actually draw a line?

I am also left wondering, in part because of the aforementioned reason, whether it is possible to forego the development of certain technologies, as Joy suggests, given our current track record and inclinations towards the use of technology. It always seems with technology that if we have the capacity to do something, then we inevitably will. Is it possible to stop the development of technology, especially if that means also giving up some of its potential benefits? And if we arent drawing the line at genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, does that mean we will never actually draw a line? What does that say about human nature that we forever seek this sort of technological progress, even when it robs us of what we currently conceive of as making us human? Are there core values to being human that will persevere, or are we really just a fleeting blip in the evolutionary climb towards becoming transhumans?

Concluding Thoughts

The ideas Kurzweil puts forth as his vision of our future really forces one to consider what things about being human seem worth holding onto (if any). And even if his predictions dont materialize in the way or the time frame he anticipates, it does seem undeniable that we are at a critical turning point in our species history. Indeed, the decisions we choose to make now in regards to these fundamentally reshaping technologies will affect generations to come in a profound way generations whose lives will be radically different based on what roads we choose to go down in regards to genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology.

But making these choices is not strictly a technical task, concerned merely with what we are able to, technologically speaking, accomplish; rather, it really requires us to decideour core beliefs about what makes a good life; to consider what is worth risking about being human beings, not only to alleviate suffering but also to engage in these self-enhancing technologies that will supposedly make us stronger, smarter, and less destructible; and to grapple with these fundamental questions of life and death that are not technological issues but rather metaphysical ones. Indeed, its no small philosophical feat to reshape and change the human genome; its no small feat to create artificial beings smarter than human beings; and its no small feat to eradicate what has, since the birth of mankind, defined our human experience: the fleeting nature of life, and the inevitability of death. Taking this power and control into our own hands requires not just the capability to achieve extended life from a technical standpoint, but a completely redefined scope of who we are, what we want, and what our purpose is on this planet.

There are questions, of course, about the moral decision of living forever. What would we do about overpopulation would we stop procreating completely? Does a person living now have more of a right to be alive than a person who hasnt been born yet? Where would we derive purpose from in life if there was no end point? These would all be real questions to consider in this type of scenario; and they are questions that would require real reflection. With a reshaped experience of what it means to be human, we would be required to make decisions about our lives that weve never even had to consider making before.

But if Kurzweil is correct, then never have we had such power over our own destinies. In Kurzweils world, there is no higher power or God divining our life course, nor is there an afterlife or Heaven worth gaining entrance to. The biological and technical underpinnings of life are, in his view, manipulatable at our will; we can defy what some might call our God- given biology and we can become our own makers. We can even make our own rules. And along with that power, would come the responsibility to answer some very weighty philosophical questions, for nothing else would be determining those answers for us.

My question is, do we really want that responsibility? Are we really equipped to handle that type of power? And furthermore, does getting caught up in all the ways these technologies could enhance our lives in getting caught up in the idea that all technological innovation is definitively progress are we less and less able to step back and ask the philosophical and ethical questions about if this isreally what a good life looks like?

Questions:

When you envision our technological future, do you share Kurzweils dreams? Joys fears? Eckersleys questions about our human values being lost?

Should we place limits on certain technologies, given the dangers they present? Are there any types of technologies we simply shouldnt pursue?

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Immortality, Transhumanism, and Ray Kurzweils Singularity

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Immortality or Resurection? – Biblical Perspective

Click to return to overview

Four of the ten chapters can be accessed by clicking their titles below::

The Debate over Human Nature and Destiny

The Old Testament View of Human Nature

The Biblical View of Death

Hell: Eternal Torment or Annihilation?

Chapter IV

THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF DEATH

Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D., Andrews University

Throughout human history, people have refused to accept the finality that death brings to life. Death brings an unacceptable, sudden interruption to ones work, plans, and relationships. Though the inscription on many tomb stones often reads "Rest in Peace," the truth of the matter is that most people do not welcome the peaceful rest of the grave. They would rather be alive and productive. Thus, it is not surprising that the subject of death and afterlife always has been a matter of intense concern and speculation. After all, the death rate is still one per person. Each of us at the appointed time will face the grim reality of death.

Today we live in a death-denying culture. People live as if death did not exist. Doctors and hospital personnel generally think that death is something that should not happen. Regardless of how miserable people may feel, they usually respond to "How are you?" with an artificial smile, saying: "Just fine." When we can no longer maintain the facade, we begin to wonder, "What is going to happen to me now?"

Even at the end of life, we tend to deny the reality of death by embalming the dead and using cosmetics to restore the corpse to a natural, healthy look. We dress the dead in suits and gowns as if they were going to a party instead of returning to dust. A special mourning color that has been prevalent in most countries, such as white or black, is gradually disappearing, because people do not want to believe that death is an intrusion that terminates their life.

In recent years, courses on death and dying have been introduced in many colleges and high schools. Some colleges and universities also offer courses on the occult and other phenomena such as near-death experiences which allegedly offer scientific evidence for life beyond death. All of these trends suggest there is a renewed interest today to unravel the mystery of death and to gain reassurance about some form of life after death.

Objectives of This Chapter. This chapter pursues two major objectives. First, we briefly review the history of the belief in the survival of the soul, focusing especially on recent developments that have revived the notion of conscious existence after death. We shall see that spiritualism, the study of near-death experiences, and the channeling (promoted by the New Age Movement, especially through the influence of actress Shirley Maclaine) have all contributed to promoting the view that death is not the cessation of life, but a transition to a different form of existence.

Second, we examine the Biblical understanding of the nature of death. Does the Bible teach that death is the separation of the immortal soul from the mortal body? Or, does the Bible teach that death is the termination of life for the whole person, body and soul? In other words, is death according to the Bible the cessation of life for the whole person or the transition to a new form of life for the immortal component of our being?

To find answers to these questions, we will search the Scriptures examining all the pertinent passages. We have followed this procedure in the previous chapters when studying the Biblical view of human nature. Scripture must always be allowed to interpret the Scripture. Passages which pose some problems must be interpreted in the light of those that are clear. By following this principle known as the analogy of faith, we can resolve the apparent contradictions we find in the Bible.

PART 1: A HISTORICAL GLIMPSE OF THE

BELIEF IN THE SURVIVAL OF THE SOUL

"You Will Not Die." To set the stage for the study of the Biblical view of death in this chapter and of the state of the dead in the following chapter, it may be helpful to look briefly at the history of the belief in the survival of the soul after death. The serpents lie, "You will not die" (Gen 3:4) has lived on throughout human history to our time. The belief in some form of life after death has been held in practically every society. The need for reassurance and certainty in the light of the challenge that death poses to human life has led people in every culture to formulate beliefs in some form of afterlife.

In the history of Christianity, death has been defined generally as the separation of the immortal soul from the mortal body. This belief in the survival of the soul at the death of the body has been expressed in various ways and given rise to such corollary doctrines as prayer for the dead, indulgences, purgatory, intercession of the saints, the eternal torment of hell, etc. Since the time of Augustine (A. D. 354-430), Christians have been taught that between death and resurrectiona period known as "the intermediate state"the souls of the dead either enjoy the beatitude of Paradise or suffer the affliction of Purgatory or Hell. The disembodied condition of the soul is supposed to continue until the resurrection of the body which will bring completion to the salvation of the saints and to the damnation of the wicked.

During the Middle Ages, the fear of death and speculation about what happens to the soul after death gripped the imagination of people and inspired literary and theological works. Dantes Divina Commedia is only a small fragment of the immense literary and artistic works which graphically depict the torments of the sinners soul in Purgatory or Hell, and the blessedness of the saints soul in Paradise.

The belief in the survival of the soul contributed to the development of the doctrine of Purgatory, a place where the souls of the dead are purified by suffering the temporal punishment of their sins before ascending to Paradise. This widely believed doctrine burdened the living with emotional and financial stress. As Ray Anderson puts it, "Not only did one have to earn enough to live, but also to pay off the spiritual mortgage for the dead as well."1

Reformers Rejection of Purgatory. The Protestant Reformation started largely as a reaction against the medieval superstitious beliefs about the afterlife in Purgatory. The Reformers rejected as unbiblical and unreasonable the practice of buying and selling indulgences to reduce the stay of the souls of departed relatives in Purgatory. However, they continued to believe in the conscious existence of souls either in Paradise or Hell during the intermediate state. Calvin expressed this belief far more aggressively than Luther.2 In his treatise Psychopannychia,3 which he wrote against the Anabaptists who taught that souls simply sleep between death and resurrection, Calvin argues that during the intermediate state the souls of the believers enjoy the bliss of heaven; those of the unbelievers suffer the torments of hell. At the resurrection, the body is reunited with the soul, thus intensifying the pleasure of paradise or the pain of hell. Since that time, this doctrine of the intermediate state has been accepted by most Protestant churches and is reflected in various Confessions.4

The Westminster Confession (1646), regarded as the definitive statement of Presbyterian beliefs in the English-speaking world, states: "The body of men after death return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received unto the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies: and the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day."5 The confession continues declaring as unbiblical the belief in purgatory.

By rejecting as unbiblical the popular superstitions regarding the suffering of souls in purgatory, the Reformers paved the way for a reexamination of human nature by the rationalistic philosophers of the Enlightment. These philosophers did not immediately abandon the notion of the immortality of the soul. The first significant attack on the belief in the survival of life after death came from David Hume (A. D. 1711-1776), an English philosopher and historian. He questioned the immortality of the soul, because he believed that all knowledge comes from the sensory perceptions of the body.6 Since the death of the body marks the end of all sensory perception, it is impossible for the soul to have conscious existence after the death of the body.

The decline in the belief in an afterlife reached its climax by the mid-eighteenth century as atheism, skepticism, and rationalism spread in France, England, and America. The publication of Darwins Origin of Species (1859) inflicted another blow on supernaturalism and especially on the immortality of the soul. If human life is the product of spontaneous generation, then human beings have no divine spirit or immortal soul in them. Darwins theories challenged people to seek "scientific" evidence for supernatural phenomena, such as the survival of the soul.

Spiritualism and the Revival of Interest in the Soul. Public interest in the life of the soul after death was soon revived with the publication of The Coming Race (1860) by Bulmer-Lytton. This book influenced a host of writers who contributed to making occult practices fashionable in British society. In America, the public interest in communicating with the souls of the dead was ignited by the sances held by the Fox sisters who lived in Hydesdale, New York. On March 31, 1848, they conducted a sance in which the alleged spirit of a murdered man, who called himself William Duesler, informed them that if they dug in the basement, they would find his corpse. This proved to be true; a body was found.

Since the spirits of the dead at the Fox house communicated by a rapping sound on the table, "table rapping" sances became fashionable all across America and England as a way of communicating with the spirit of the dead. This phenomenon attracted the attention of numerous learned persons, who in 1882 organized the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Henry Sedgwich, a noted philosopher at Cambridge, became instrumental in gathering into the society some of the most influential people of the day, including William Gladstone (former British prime minister) and Arthur Balfour (future prime minister).

An important outcome of the SPR movement is represented by the work of Joseph Banks Rhine, who in 1930 began researching conscious life after death. Rhine was trained as a biologist at the University of Chicago and later became involved with the SPR while teaching at Harvard University. He redefined and relabeled the subjects that the SPR had researched for years by coining such terms as "extrasensory perception" (ESP), "para-normal psychology," or "parapsychology." This was designed to give scientific credibility to the study of the afterlife. Later Rhine, together with William McDougal who served as president for both the British and American SPR groups, set up a Department for Psychic Studies at Duke University. The Russians conducted their own psychic experiments. Their findings were published in a popularized form in Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder (1970).

In the late 1960s, the late Episcopal bishop James A. Pike gave new and widespread attention to the idea of communicating with the spirits of the dead by communicating on a regular basis with his deceased son. Today our society is flooded with mediums and psychics who advertise their services nationwide through TV, magazines, radio, and newspapers. In their book At the Hour of Death, K. Osis and E. Haraldson write: "Spontaneous experiences of contact with the dead are surprisingly widespread. In a national opinion poll . . . 27 per cent of the American population said they had encounters with dead relatives, . . . widows and widowers . . . reported encounters with their dead spouses twice as often51 per cent."7 Communication with the spirits of the dead is not just an American phenomenon. Surveys conducted in other countries reveal a similar high percentage of people who engage the services of mediums to communicate with the spirit of their deceased loved ones.8

In their book Immortality or Extinction? Paul and Linda Badham, both professors at St. David University in Wales, devote a chapter to "The Evidence from Psychical Research" to support their belief in conscious life after death. They wrote: "Some people believe that direct contact with the dead can be achieved through mediums who allegedly have the ability, while in a state of trance, to transmit messages between the dead and the living. Belief in the reality of such communications is the lifeblood of the Spiritualist Churches, and mourners who consult mediums are often impressed by the convincing descriptions of departed loved-ones which the mediums give. On occasion a medium may also show knowledge of the deceaseds former life."9

The Badhams acknowledge that in many cases mediums are charlatans who base their communications on "acute observation and intelligent guesswork."10 Yet, they believe that there is "genuine evidence for the human personalitys survival of bodily death."11 They support their belief by reporting the cases of several members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), who after their death began sending messages to living members of the SPR to prove that they had survived death.12

It is not our intent to dispute the ability of some mediums to receive and transmit messages from spirits. The question is whether such messages are from the spirits of the dead or from the spirits of Satan. We address this question later in this chapter, in conjunction with our study of King Sauls consultation of the medium of Endor (1 Sam 28:7-25). At this juncture, it suffices to note that spiritualism still plays a major role today in fostering the belief in the survival of the soul after death. People who through mediums have been able to communicate with the alleged spirits of their deceased loved ones have reason to believe in the immortality of the soul.

Near-Death Experiences. Another significant development of our time, which has contributed to promote belief in the survival of the soul, is the study of "near-death experiences." Such studies are based on reports from people who have been resuscitated from a close encounter with death, and from doctors and nurses who have recorded the deathbed experiences of some of their patients.

The experiences reported by persons who have had a close encounter with death often parallel what many believe to be the life of the soul in Paradise. Though no two reports are the same, some of the common characteristics are: the impression of peacefulness, the sensation of being pulled very rapidly through a dark space of some kind, floating in a weightless, spiritual body, the awareness of being in the presence of a spiritual being, an encounter with a bright light, often identified with Jesus Christ or an angel, and a vision of a city of light.13 Such experiences are interpreted as proof that at death the soul leaves the body and lives in a disembodied condition.

Reports of near-death experiences are not new. They can be found in Classical literature, such as the History of the English Church and People by the Venerable Bede, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Primitive Culture by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, and the Republic by Plato.14 In the Republic, Plato gives a remarkable account of a near-death experience, which he uses to substantiate the belief in the immortality of the soul.

He wrote: "Er, the son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian. He once upon a time was slain in battle, and when the corpses were taken up on the tenth day already decayed, was found intact, and having been brought home, at the moment of his funeral, on the twelth day as he lay upon the pyre, revived, and after coming to life related what, he said, he had seen in the world beyond. He said that when his soul went forth from his body he journeyed with a great company and that they came to a mysterious region where there were two openings side by side in the earth, and above and over against them in the heaven two others, and that judges were sitting between these, and that after every judgment they bade the righteous journey to the right and upward through the heaven with tokens attached to them in front of the judgment passed upon them, and the unjust to take the road to the left and downward, they too wearing behind signs of all that had befalled them, and that when he himself drew near they told him that he must be the messenger to mankind to tell them of that other world, and they charged him to give ear and to observe everything in the place. . . . Yet how and in what way he returned to the body he said he did not know, but suddenly recovering his sight he saw himself at dawn lying on the funeral pyre."15

Plato concludes his story with this revealing comment: "So the tale was saved. . . . And it will save us if we believe it . . . that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all the extremes of good and evil."16 One wonders what kind of salvation the belief in the immortality of the soul can offer to a person. Survival as a disembodied soul or spirit in an ethereal world hardly compares with the Biblical hope of the resurrection of the whole person to a real life on this planet earth renewed to its original perfection. To this question we return in the final chapter which examines the Biblical vision of the world to come.

Studies of Near-Death Experiences. In our time, the study of near-death experiences was largely pioneered by American psychiatrist Raymond A. Moody. His two seminal books, Life after Life (1975) and Reflections on Life after Life (1977) have generated a multitude of books, articles, and debates that address out-of-body experiences.17 "More recently, a bibliography of books and articles relevant to near-death experiences has been published, listing two and a half thousand titles."18

Moody studied 150 persons who had near-death experiences and, in some cases, who clinically were dead. The question is how the data should be interpreted. Moodys publisher asserts that the reports are "actual case histories that reveal there is life after death."19 Moody himself, however, is far more cautious. He explicitly denies that he tried "to construct a proof of survival of bodily death," even though he regards the data as "highly significant" for such a belief.20 He leaves open the possibility of conceiving of near-death experiences as intimations of immortality or merely as the result of terminal physiological events.

It is not our intent to examine the alleged probative value of near-death experiences for the belief in the survival of the soul. Our normative authority for defining human nature is not the subjective near-death experiences of people, but the objective revelation God has provided us in His Word (2 Pet 1:19). Thus, only three basic observations about near-death experiences are considered here.

First, there is the problem of defining death. The Editor of Lancet, a journal dedicated to medical research, points out that "only a deliberate use of obsolete definitions of death can enable one to claim that anybody has, under clinical conditions, returned to tell us what lies beyond death, for by working definition, periodically updated, death is just beyond the point from which anybody can return to tell us anything."21 Similarly, Professor Paul Kurts comments, "We have no hard evidence that the subjects had in fact died. Such a proof is not impossible to obtain: rigor mortis is one sign and brain death is another. What the accounts actually describe is dying process or near-death experience, not death itself."22

Second, we need to remember, as Paul and Linda Badham observe, that "any person hovering between life and death must be suffering profound physical and psychological stress. A brain starved of oxygen, drugged by hallucinatory painkillers, or excited by fever is hardly likely to function properly and who knows what visions could be accounted for by its disturbed conditions?"23 Some research has shown the similarity that exists between near-death experiences and the effects caused by psychedelic drugs. "Modern consciousness-research has shown that these similarities can be reproduced by drugs in psychedelic sessions. These experiences, thus, tend to belong to the continuum of psychic experiences, which have proved, not life after death, but that the relation between the conscious self and the embodied self is more complex than previously thought."24

Lastly, how can it be established that near-death experiences are "real experiences," rather than the product of the patients own mind? And why is it that nearly all the reports of near-death experiences concern happiness and heavenly fulfillment, but no glimpses of the fiery torments of hell? It is evident that when people are dying they prefer to dream about the bliss of heaven rather than the suffering of hell. But even the vision of heaven depends largely upon ones religious background.

Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson evaluated the reports of more than 1,000 deathbed experiences in the USA and India. They found that the vision of the Hindu patients was typically Indian, while that of the American was Western and Christian. For example, one college-educated Hindu woman had the experience of being brought to heaven on a cow, while an American patient who had prayed to St. Joseph encountered her patron saint in the experience.25 Such reports about afterlife experiences reflect the personal beliefs of the patients. What they experienced in the process of dying was most likely conditioned by their personal beliefs.

We should always remember that deathbed or near-death experiences are experiences of people who are still alive or whose mind have regained consciousness. Whatever they experience under such circumstances is still part of their present life and not of life after death. The Bible does report the cases of seven of people who were raised from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:25-37; Luke 7:11-15; 8:41-56; Acts 9:36-41; 20:9-11), but none of them had an afterlife experience to share.

Lazarus was brought back to life after being clinically dead for four days did not report any exciting out-of-the-body experiences. The reason is simple. Death according to the Bible is the cessation of life of the whole person, body and soul. There is no form of conscious existence between death and resurrection. The dead rest unconsciously in their tombs until Christ will call them forth on the glorious day of His coming.

New Age Movement. The belief in conscious life after death is popularized today especially by the New Age Movement.26 Defining this popular movement is not easy, because it represents a network of organizations and individuals who share common values and a common vision. These values are derived from Eastern/occult mysticism and a pantheistic world view according to which all share in the One who is God. They envision a coming "new age" of peace and mass enlightment, known as the "Age of Aquarius."

New Agers may differ on when and how the New Age begins, but they all agree that they can hasten the new order by becoming involved in the political, economic, social, and spiritual life. According to some social analysts, the New Age Movement has become a major cultural trend of our time. Elliot Miller defines it as "a third major social force vying with traditional Judeo-Christian religion and secular humanism for cultural dominance."27

For the New Agers, the ultimate reality is a pantheistic God manifested as an impersonal, infinite consciousness, and force. Human beings are part of the divine consciousness and are separated from God only in their own consciousness. By means of specific techniques, like meditation, chanting, ecstatic dancing, and sensory deprivations, New Agers seek to experience oneness with God. Thus, salvation for the New Ager is equated with self-realization through special spiritual techniques.

The Channeling Craze. An important aspect of the New Age Movement is the alleged communication with departed human and extra-human intelligences. This phenomenon is known as "channeling," but it has been rightly called "Spiritism New Age Style."28 Miller rightly notes that "spiritism has played a part historically in virtually all forms of paganism. Those who have allowed spirits to use their bodies in this way have been called a variety of names, including shaman, witch doctor, medicine man, oracle, fortune-teller, and seer. In our culture, the common term has been medium, but in recent years is has been largely abandoned in favor of channel or channeler, reflecting, in part, a desire to break free from negative stereotypes that have come to be associated with mediums over the years."29

A "channeler" is essentially a person who claims to be the recipient of teachings and wisdom from the great spirits of the past. The channeling business is booming in all the major American cities. According to the Los Angeles Times, in a decade the number of known professional channelers in Los Angeles has increased from two to over one thousand in a decade.30 This is compelling channelers to employ Madison Avenue psychology to sell their services.

An advertisement by Taryn Krive, a popular channeler, gives a good idea of the services they provide: "Through Taryn, a number of Spirit Guides bring forth their teachings and messages. They will answer your questions regarding this life and other lives. They will help you identify your life lessons and unblock your highest potential for living and loving. . . . Meet your Spirit Guides. Learn to recall your past lives and release their influences from the present. Develop your channeling abilities (conscious channeling, automatic writing, trance channeling)."31

The person who has played a leading role in promoting the New Age Movement, especially channeling, is the famous actress Shirley Maclaine. Her books have sold over five million copies. The Out on a Limb mini-series sparked an unprecedented interest in channeling. MacLaine takes seriously her role as the chief evangelist of the New Age. Following her TV mini-series, she held two-day, nationwide seminars called "Connecting with the Higher Self." Later she used the proceeds from the seminars to establish a 300 acre spiritual center near Pueblo, Colorado. The purpose of the center is to provide a trusted place where people can communicate with higher Spirits.32

An important factor which has contributed to the success of the New Age is its claim to connect people not only with their deceased loved ones, but also with the Great Spirits of the past. As parapsychologist and channel Alan Vaughan points out: "The thrill, the immediacy of that contact with another consciousness, may be the driving force behind the phenomenal growth of the practice of channeling."33

Death as Transition to Higher Existence. Communicating with the spirits of the dead is based on the belief that death is not the end of life, but merely a transition to a higher plane of existence which makes it possible in time to reincarnate either on earth or elsewhere. Virginia Essene, who claims to be speaking as a channel for "Jesus," states: "Death is an automatic and nearly immediate entrance into a greater sphere of learning, growth, and service to which you are well-accustomed already. You simply live at that higher level of purpose, joy and understanding."34

In many ways, the New Ages view of death as the immediate entrance into a higher sphere of living reflects the traditional Christian belief in the conscious survival of the soul at death. Both beliefs can be traced back to the first lie uttered by the serpent in the Garden of Eden: "You will not die" (Gen 3:4). This lie has lived on through the centuries with devastating effects on both Christian and non-Christian religions.

In his penetrating analysis of the New Age Movement, Elliot Miller keenly observes: "It has been rightly noted by many Christian observers that the core New Age/channeling doctrines, You can be as God, and You shall not die, were first uttered by the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:4-5). Embraced then, this gospel produced all of the worlds misery. Embraced now, it will make all that God has done in Christ to remedy the situation of no avail to the individual in question."35

Miller is right in noting that the belief in innate immortality promoted by the New Age today makes of no avail Christs provision of salvation, since people think they already have the resources to enter into a higher level of existence after death. Unfortunately, Miller fails to realize that the success of the New Age in promoting such a belief is largely due to the traditional Christian dualistic view of human nature. Christians who believe that the body is mortal and the soul immortal have no major difficulty in accepting the New Age view of death as the transition into a higher sphere of living. After all, the latter largely corresponds to the belief in the conscious existence of the saints souls in the bliss of Paradise.

Conclusion. The preceding survey shows how Satans lie, "You shall not die" (Gen 3:4) has lived on in different forms throughout human history until our time. While during the Middle Ages, belief in the afterlife was promoted through literary and artistic, superstitious representations of the bliss of the saints and the torments of the sinners, today such a belief is propagated in a more sophisticated way through mediums, psychics, "scientific" research into near-death experiences, and New Age channeling with the spirits of the past. Satans methods have changed, but his objective is still the same: make people believe the lie that no matter what they do they will not die but become like gods by living for ever. Our only protection against such a deception is through a clear understanding of what the Bible teaches about the nature of death and the state of the dead. To these questions we now turn our attention.

PART II: THE NATURE OF DEATH

The Death of Socrates and of Christ. To illustrate the Biblical view of death, Oscar Cullmann contrasts the death of Socrates with that of Jesus.36 In his book Phaedo, Plato offers an impressive description of the death of Socrates. On the day of his death, Socrates taught his disciples the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and showed them how to live out such a belief in dying. He explained to his disciples how to liberate the soul from the prison of the body by occupying oneself with the eternal truths of philosophy. Since death completes the process of liberating of the soul, Plato tells us that Socrates went to his death by drinking the hemlock in complete peace and composure. For Socrates, death was the souls greatest friend because it sets the soul free from the shackles of the body.

How different was Jesus attitude toward death! On the eve of His death in Gethsemane, Jesus was "greatly distressed and troubled" (Mark 14:33) and said to His disciples, "My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death" (Mark 14:34). For Jesus, death was not a great friend but a dreadful enemy, because it would separate Him from His Father. He did not face death with the composure of Socrates who met death peacefully as a friend. When confronted with the reality of death, Jesus cried to God saying: "Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36).

Jesus knew that to die meanstto be separated from God. Thus, He cried to God because He did not want to be forsaken by the Father or even by His disciples. What a contrast between Socrates and Jesus in their understanding and experience of death! Cullmann notes that "The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews . . . writes that Jesus with loud cries and tears offered up prayers and supplications to him who was able to save him (Heb 5: 7). Thus, according to the Epistle of Hebrews, Jesus wept and cried in the face of death. There is Socrates, calmly and composedly speaking of the immortality of the soul; here Jesus, weeping and crying."37

The contrast is evident, especially in the death-scene. Socrates drank the hemlock with sublime calm. Jesus cried: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). This is not "death as a friend," but as an enemy. Paul rightly calls it "the last enemy" (1 Cor 15:26), which at the end will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14).

If death released the soul from the body and thus made it possible for the soul to enjoy communion with God, then Christ would have welcomed death for offering Him the opportunity to be reunited with His Father. But Jesus saw death as separation from God, who is life and the Creator of all life. He sensed this separation more than any other human being, because He was and still is closely connected to God. He experienced death in all its horror, not only in the body but also in His soul. This is why He cried: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt 27:46).

The contrast between the death of Socrates and the death of Jesus helps us to appreciate the Biblical view of death. In Greek thought, the death of the body was not in any sense the destruction of the true life. In Biblical thought, death is the destruction of all life created by God. "Therefore it is death and not the body which must be conquered by the resurrection."38 This is why the resurrection of Jesus is so fundamental to the Christian faith. It provides the needed reassurance that death has been conquered for those who accept Christs provision of salvation.

Cullmann points out that "belief in the immortality of the soul is not belief in a revolutionary event. Immortality, in fact, is only a negative assertion: the soul does not die, but simply lives on. Resurrection is a positive assertion: the whole man, who has really died, is recalled to life by a new act of creation of God. Something has happeneda miracle of creation! For something has also happened previously, something fearful: life formed by God has been destroyed."39

Sin and Death. To understand the Biblical view of death, we need to go back to the account of creation where death is presented, not as a natural process willed by God, but as something unnatural opposed to God. The Genesis narrative teaches us that death came into the world as a result of sin. God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and added the warning: "In the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Gen 2:17). The fact that Adam and Eve did not die on the day of their transgression has led some to conclude that human beings do not actually die because they have a conscious soul that survives the death of the body.

This figurative interpretation can hardly be supported by the text, which, literally translated, reads: "dying you shall die." What God simply meant is that on the day they disobeyed, the dying process would begin. From a state in which it was possible for them not to die (conditional immortality), they passed into a state in which it was impossible for them not to die (unconditional mortality). Prior to the Fall the assurance of immortality was vouchsafed by the tree of life. After the Fall, Adam and Eve no longer had access to the tree of life (Gen 3:22-23) and, consequently, began experiencing the reality of the dying process. In the prophetic vision of the New Earth, the tree of life is found on both sides of the river as a symbol of the gift of eternal life bestowed upon the redeemed (Rev 21:2).

The divine pronouncement found in Genesis 2:17 places a clear connection between human death and the transgression of Gods commandment. Thus, life and death in the Bible have religious and ethical significance because they are dependent upon human obedience or disobedience to God. This is a fundamental teaching of the Bible, namely, that death came into this world as a result of human disobedience (Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:21). This does not diminish the responsibility of the individual for his participation in sin (Ez 18:4, 20). The Bible, however, makes a distinction between the first death, which every human being experiences as a result of Adams sin (Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:21), and the second death experienced after the resurrection (Rev 20:6) as the wages for sins personally commited (Rom 6:23).

Death as the Separation of the Soul from the Body. A major question we need to address at this point is the Biblical view of the nature of death. To be specific: Is death the separation of the immortal soul from the mortal body, so that when the body dies the soul lives on? Or, is death the cessation of existence of the whole person, body and soul?

Historically, Christians have been taught that death is the separation of the immortal soul from the mortal body, so that the soul survives the body in a disembodied state. For example, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "By death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul."40 Augustus Strong defines death in similar terms in his well-known Systematic Theology: "Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. We distinguish it from spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God."41

In his Lectures in Systematic Theology (widely used as a textbook), Calvinistic theologian Henry Clarence Thiessen expresses himself in a similar way: "Physical death relates to the physical body; the soul is immortal and as such does not die."42 In his Christian Dogmatics, Francis Pieper, a conservative Lutheran theologian, states most clearly the historic view of death: "Temporal death is nothing other than a tearing asunder of men, the separation of the soul from the body, the unnatural disruption of the union of soul and body which has been created by God to be one."43 Statements like these could be multiplied, since they are found in most systematic theology textbooks and in all major confessional documents.

The above historical view of the nature of death as the separation of the soul from the body has come under a massive attack by many modern scholars. A few examples suffice to illustrate this point. Lutheran theologian Paul Althaus writes: "Death is more than a departure of the soul from the body. The person, body and soul, is involved in death. . . . The Christian faith knows nothing about an immortality of the personality. . . . It knows only an awakening from real death through the power of God. There is existence after death only by an awakening of the resurrection of the whole person."44

Althaus argues that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul does not do justice to the seriousness of death, since the soul passes through death unscathed.45 Moreover, the notion that a person can be totally happy and blessed without the body denies the significance of the body and empties the resurrection of its meaning.46 If believers are already blessed in heaven and the wicked are already tormented in hell, why is the final judgment still necessary?47 Althaus concludes that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul rips apart what belongs together: the body and the soul, the destiny of the individual and that of the world.48

In his book The Body, John A. T. Robinson states: "The soul does not survive a manit simply goes out, draining away with the blood."49 In his monograph Life after Death, Taito Kantonen makes this pointed statement: "The Christian view of death is in full accord with the view of natural science as far as the latter goes. When we die we are really dead. Our hopes and desires cannot change this fact. Man does not differ from the rest of creation by having a soul that cannot die."50

Even the liberal Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, in its article on death explicitly states: "The departure of the nephesh [soul] must be viewed as a figure of speech, for it does not continue to exist independently of the body, but dies with it (Num 31:19; Jud 16:30; Ez 13:19). No Biblical text authorizes the statement that the soul is separated from the body at the moment of death. The ruach spirit which makes man a living being (cf. Gen 2:7), and which he loses at death, is not, properly speaking, an anthropological reality, but a gift of God which returns to him at the time of death (Eccl 12:7)."51

The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia acknowledges that "we are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea, that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. The whole man dies, when in death the spirit (Ps 146:4; Eccl 12:7), or soul (Gen 35:18; 2 Sam 1:9; 1 Kings 17:21; Jonah 4:3), goes out of a man. Not only his body, but his soul also returns to a state of death and belongs to the nether-world; therefore the Old Testament can speak of a death of ones soul (Gen 37:21; Num 23:10; Deut 22:21; Jud 16:30; Job 36:14; Ps 78:50)."52

This challenge of modern scholarship to the traditional view of death as the separation of the soul from the body has been long overdue. It is hard to believe that for most of its history, Christianity by and large has held to a view of human death and destiny which has been largely influenced by Greek thought, rather than by the teachings of Scripture. What is even more surprising is that no amount of Biblical scholarship will change the traditional belief held by most churches on the intermediate state. The reason is simple. While individual scholars can and will change their doctrinal views without suffering devastating consequences, the same is not true for well-established churches.

A church that introduces radical changes in its historical doctrinal beliefs undermines the faith of its members and thus the stability of the institution. A case in point is the Worldwide Church of God which lost over half of its members when doctrinal changes were introduced by its leaders early in 1995. The high cost of rectifying denominational religious beliefs should not deter Bible-believing Christians who are committed, not to preserve traditional beliefs for traditions sake, but to constantly seek for a fuller understanding of the teachings of Word of God on issues relevant to their lives.

Death as Cessation of Life. When we search the Bible for a description of the nature of death, we find many clear statements that need little or no interpretation. In the first place, Scripture describes death as a return to the elements from which man originally was made. In pronouncing sentence upon Adam after his disobedience, God said: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for . . . you are dust and to dust you shall return" (Gen 3:19). This graphic statement tells us that death is not the separation of the soul from the body, but the termination of ones life, which results in the decay and decomposition of the body. "Since man is created of perishable matter, his natural condition is mortality (Gen 3:19)."53

A study of the words "to die," "death," and "dead" in Hebrew and Greek reveals that death is perceived in the Bible as the deprivation or cessation of life. The ordinary Hebrew word meaning "to die" is muth, which occurs in the Old Testament over 800 times. In the vast majority of cases, muth is used in the simple sense of the death of men and animals. There is no hint in its usage of any distinction between the two. A clear example is found in Ecclesiastes 3:19, which says: "For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other."

The Hebrew muth "to die" is sometimes used, as in English, in a figurative way to denote the destruction or elimination of a nation (Is 65:15; Hos 2:3; Am 2:2), a tribe (Deut 33:6; Hos 13:1), or a city (2 Sam 20:19). None of these figurative uses supports the idea of individual survival. On the contrary, we find that the word muth ["to die"] is used in Deuteronomy 2:16 in parallel with tamam, which means "to be consumed" or "to be finished." The parallelism suggests that death is seen as the end of life.

The corresponding, ordinary Greek word meaning "to die" is apothanein which is used 77 times in the New Testament. With few exceptions, the verb denotes the cessation of life. The exceptions are mostly figurative uses which depend upon the literal meaning. For example, Paul says: "We are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died" (2 Cor 5:14). It is evident that this is not referring to physical death but to the effects of Christs death on the believers position before God. We could translate "therefore all have died" as "therefore all are counted to have died." None of the literal or figurative uses of the Hebrew muth or of the Greek apothanein suggests that the "soul" or "spirit" survives the death of an individual.

Old Testament Descriptions of Death. We have just noted that the Hebrew and Greek verbs used in Scripture for "to die" do not really explain the meaning and nature of death, except to tell us that the death of men and animals is identical. More revealing is the use of the Hebrew noun maveth which is used about 150 times and is generally translated "death." From the use of maveth in the Old Testament, we learn three important things about the nature of death.

First, there is no remembrance of the Lord in death: "For in death [maveth] there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can give thee praise" (Ps 6:5). The reason for no remembrance in death is simply because the thinking process stops when the body with its brain dies. "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that day his thoughts perish" (Ps 146:4). Since at death the "thoughts perish," it is evident there is no conscious soul that survives the death of the body. If the thinking process, which is generally associated with the soul, survived the death of the body, then the thoughts of the saints would not perish. They would be able to remember God. But the fact is that "the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing" (Eccl 9:5).

Second, no praise of God is possible in death or in the grave. "What profit is there in my death [maveth], if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise thee? Will it tell of thy faithfulness?" (Ps 30:9). By comparing death with dust, the Psalmist clearly shows that there is no consciousness in death because dust cannot think. The same thought is expressed in Psalm 115:17: "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence." Here the Psalmist describes death as a state of "silence." What a contrast with the "noisy" popular vision of the afterlife where the saints praise God in Heaven and the wicked cry in agony in Hell!

Third, death is described as a "sleep." "Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death" (Ps 13:3). This characterization of death as "sleep" occurs frequently in the Old and New Testaments because it fittingly represents the state of unconsciousness in death. Shortly we examine the significance of the "sleep" metaphor for understanding the nature of death.

Some argue that the intent of the passages we have just quoted and which describe death as an unconscious state "is not to teach that the soul of man is unconscious when he dies," but rather that "in the state of death man can no longer take part in the activities of the present world."54 In other words, a dead person is unconscious as far as this world is concerned, but his soul is conscious as far as the world of the spirits is concerned. The problem with this interpretation is that it is based on the gratuitous assumption that the soul survives the death of the body, an assumption which is clearly negated in the Old Testament. We have found that in the Old Testament the death of the body, is the death of the soul because the body is the outer form of the soul.

In several places, maveth [death] is used with reference to the second death. "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ez 33:11; cf. 18:23, 32). Here "the death of the wicked" is evidently not the natural death that every person experiences, but the death inflicted by God at the End on unpenitent sinners. None of the literal descriptions or figurative references to death in the Old Testament suggests the conscious survival of the soul or spirit apart from the body. Death is the cessation of life for the total person.

New Testament References to Death. The New Testament references to "death," a term rendered by the Greek thanatos, are not as informative regarding the nature of death as those found in the Old Testament. The reason is partly due to the fact that in the Old Testament many of the references to death are found in the poetic or wisdom books like Psalms, Job, and Ecclesiastes. This kind of literature is absent in the New Testament. More important is the fact that death is seen in the New Testament from the perspective of Christs victory over death. This is a dominant theme in the New Testament which conditions the Christian view of death.

Through His victory over death, Christ has neutralized the sting of death (1Cor 15:55); He has abolished death (2 Tim 1:10); He has overcome the devil who had power over death (Heb 2:14); He has in His hand the keys of the kingdom of death (Rev 1:18); He is the head of a new humanity as the first-born from the dead (Col 1:18); He causes believers to be born anew to a living hope through His resurrection from the dead (1 Pet 1:3).

Christs victory over death affects the believers understanding of physical, spiritual, and eternal death. The believer can face physical death with the confidence that Christ has swallowed up death in victory and will awaken the sleeping saints at His coming (1 Cor 15:51-56).

Believers who were spiritually "dead through trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1; cf. 4:17-19; Matt 8:22) have been regenerated into a new life in Christ (Eph 4:24). Unbelievers who remain spiritually dead throughout their lives and do not accept Christs provision for their salvation (John 8:21, 24), on the Day of Judgment will experience the second death (Rev 20:6; 21:8). This is the final, eternal death from which there is no return.

The figurative meanings of the word thanatosdeath depend entirely on the literal meaning as cessation of life. To argue for the conscious existence of the soul on the basis of figurative meaning of death is to attribute to the word a meaning which is foreign to it. This runs contrary to literary and grammatical rules and destroys the connections among physical, spiritual, and eternal death.

Death as Sleep in the Old Testament. In both the Old and New Testaments, death is often described as "sleep." Before attempting to explain the reason for the Biblical use of the metaphor of "sleep" for death, let us look at a few examples. In the Old Testament, three Hebrew words meaning "sleep" are used to describe death.

The most common word, shachav, is used in the frequently occuring expression so-and-so "slept with his fathers" (Gen 28:11; Deut 31:16; 2 Sam 7:12; 1 Kings 2:10). Beginning with its initial application to Moses ("Behold, you are about to sleep with your fathers" Deut 31:16), and then to David ("Thou shall sleep with thy fathers" 2 Sam 7:12, KJV), and Job ("Now I shall sleep in the dust" Job 7:21, KJV), we find this beautiful euphemism for death running like an unbroken thread all through the Old and New Testaments, ending with Peters statement that "the fathers fell asleep" (2 Pet 3:4). Commenting on these references, Basil Atkinsom aptly observes: "Thus the kings and others who died are said to sleep with their fathers. If their spirits were alive in another world, could this possibly be regularly said without a hint that the real person was not sleeping at all?"55

Another Hebrew word for "sleep" is yashen. This word occurs both as a verb, "to sleep" (Jer 51:39, 57; Ps 13:3) and as a noun, "sleep." The latter is found in the well-known verse of Daniel 12:2: "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Notice that in this passage both the godly and ungodly are sleeping in the dust of the earth and both will be resurrected at the End.

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American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine – Wikipedia, the …

The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) is a United States registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes the field of anti-aging medicine and trains and certifies physicians in this specialty. As of 2011, approximately 26,000 practitioners had been given certificates.[1] However, the field of anti-aging medicine is not recognized by established medical organizations, such as the American Board of Medical Specialties and the American Medical Association (AMA). In addition to certifying practitioners, the Academy's activities include lobbying, education of the public, and public relations. The A4M was founded in 1993 by Dr. Robert Goldman[disambiguation needed] and Dr. Ronald Klatz, osteopathic physicians,[2] and now has grown to 26,000 members from 110 countries. The organization sponsors several conferences, such as the Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine.[3]

Several of the anti-aging methods recommended by the Academy have wide support among experts in the field, such as exercise and a healthy diet, but others, such as hormone treatments, do not have support from a consensus of the wider medical community. Many scientists studying aging dissociate themselves from the claims of A4M,[4][5] and critics have accused the group of using misleading marketing to sell expensive and ineffective products.[6] In contrast, the Academy sees itself as acting within science, stating that it bases its ideas on mainstream scientific research, and arguing that its ideas challenge current medical practice.[7] The A4M's founders and merchants who promote products through the organization have been involved in several legal and professional disputes.

The activities of the A4M are controversial: in 2003 a commentary on the response of the scientific community to the promotion of anti-aging medicine noted that the activities of the A4M were seen as a threat to the credibility of serious scientific research on aging.[8] According to MSNBC, anti-aging advocates have responded to such criticism by describing it as censorship perpetrated by a conspiracy of the US government, notably the Food and Drug Administration, the AMA, and the mainstream media,[9] motivated by competing commercial interests.[8]Thomas Perls of the Boston University School of Medicine, a prominent critic of the organization, has stated that claims of censorship and suppression are a common theme in what he calls "anti-aging quackery".[10]

The Academy's website states that the goal of the A4M is the "advancement of technology to detect, prevent, and treat aging related disease and to promote research into methods to retard and optimize the human aging process."[3] The website also argues that the "disabilities associated with normal aging are caused by physiological dysfunction which in many cases are ameliorable to medical treatment" and states that such treatments could extend the normal human lifespan.[3] More simply, according to The New York Times, their co-founder and president Ronald Klatz stated that "We're not about growing old gracefully. We're about never growing old."[11] With Klatz being quoted in 2004 as stating that: [12]

We the leaders of the Anti-Aging movement will help to usher in a new modern age for humanity: The Ageless Society. There is a remedy for this apocalypse of aging, and this remedy comes just in time to save America. This remedy is the new science of Anti-Aging Medicine represented by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.

The A4M believe that an "anti-aging transformation" can be produced by a combination of interventions, which include hormones, antioxidants, lifestyle modifications and exercise.[13] A 2002 presentation produced by Klatz highlights many widely recommended interventions to maintain health in old age, such as staying slim, avoiding smoking, regular exercise, maintaining an active social and sex life, continued mental stimulation, avoiding stress, a healthy diet, and moderate alcohol consumption. The presentation also recommends consuming antioxidant supplements, and avoiding tap water, which it describes as "dangerous" due to it being contaminated with toxic chemicals.[14] The A4M argues that the application of this set of interventions can produce "practical immortality", which are human lifespans in excess of 150 years, and predict future lifespans ranging up to 200 years old before the year 3000.[15] Writing in 2006, Klatz predicted that such dramatic increases in lifespan will be produced by emerging technologies such as nanotechnology or stem cell therapy, which he states "shows ubiquitous promise for everything from stroke to spinal cord injury."[16] With the discovery of such future technologies, Klatz believes that "Humankind will evolve toward an Ageless Society, in which we all experience boundless physical and mental vitality."[17]

Writing in the 2001 issue of the journal Generations, historian Carole Haber of the University of Delaware, states that Klatz' aspirations and the rhetoric of the A4M "reflect well-worn ideas and the often-enunciated hopes of the past", drawing parallels with the ideas of the 19th century physiologists Charles-douard Brown-Squard, Serge Voronoff and Eugen Steinach. Haber states that the current resurgence of these ideas may be due to their appeal to the aging Baby Boom Generation, in a culture that is focused on the ideal of youth.[18] Haber has also discussed the strong continuities within the philosophy of the anti-aging movement, writing that "For Steinach and Voronoff, as for the members of the A4M, old age was a "grotesque" disease that could be scientifically eradicated through the correct combination of hormones, diet, and surgery."[19]

The chairman of the A4M is Robert Goldman and the president is Ronald Klatz. The senior vice president is Joseph Maroon of the University of Pittsburgh and Nicholas DiNubile of the University of Pennsylvania is the vice president.[20] The Academy states that it has over 26,000 members from 110 countries, and that this membership is made up of physicians, scientists, researchers, health practitioners and members of the public.[21] In 2007, the organization reported just over seven million dollars in assets.[22] However, a 2006 review of anti-aging medicine notes that of the researchers who are interested in this topic, the "vast majority dissociate themselves from the A4M."[4] The Los Angeles Times states that "Many physicians, researchers and scientists, delving into the physiological aspects of human aging, view the Academy's activities with disdain, saying that the organization is an inappropriate blend of scientific and commercial interests."[5]

The main activity of the A4M is outreach, education, and advocacy for anti-aging medicine. It does this through publications, on-line activity and sponsoring conferences: such as the "World Anti-Aging Congress and Exposition" and the "Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine".[3][5] According to a 2008 A4M press release, "The World Congress is undisputed global gathering of international industry leaders" and quotes Klatz as stating, "our Annual Congress Sessions are regarded as the gold standard for physician education in advanced preventive medicine."[23] Some of these conferences are in conjunction with an organization called the "World Anti-Aging Academy of Medicine", which is an umbrella group for several national anti-aging organizations that is also headed by Goldman.[24] The LA Times, reporting from the 2004 annual conference of the A4A at Las Vegas, stated that this conference presented a mix of "scientific and technical presentations" and exhibitors selling "wrinkle creams, hair-growing potions, sexual enhancement pills and hormone treatments".[5] In a 2008 press release about the Annual World Congress, the A4M stated that:[23]

The physicians of A4M, along with the advocacy of aging intervention and biomedical research, have brought millions of new consumers to the realization that aging is not inevitable. Thanks in large part to these combined efforts, anti-aging medicine and regenerative biomedical technology is a $96.89 billion global industry. The Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging bundles this rapid momentum into a global marketplace of ideas, suppliers and solutions, enabling professionals to: connect with their peers on the latest hot-button issues; source cutting edge products; learn about the latest advancements and technologies; and get ahead of their competition.

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Scott Foley Promoted to Scandal Series Regular

ABC has made it official: Scott Foley will be a series regular on Scandal Season 3.

The beloved actor was introduced as Jake Ballard toward the end of Season 2, coming on board as a mysterious character who grew especially close to Kerry Washington's Olivia.

We can't say for sure what Jake will be up to in the fall, of course, but Foley can say he's very excited to find out along with us.

“I’m thrilled to join such a talented, enthusiastic and professional group of people,” he said in a statement. “Shonda [Rhimes] and company have created a troupe of layered complex characters and to be able to be part of that is both exciting and humbling.”

Scandal returns with new episodes in September.

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http://www.tvfanatic.com/2013/06/scott-foley-promoted-to-scandal-series-regular/

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