Mushroom Man

So, we are made up of cells, correct? All cells have to die at some point, but our bodies produce them to stay alive. When we die our bodies cut off production of new cells therefore once all cells has died we are essentially dead and gone for good.
Now, going back to the thought of cells. We have just evolved over such long period of time we've become how we are today. Try this, think about your idea of Heaven...


...Now I bet you didn't think of an elephant being there or even your pet..just human beings. What I'm trying to get to is that we put ourselves on this throne thinking we're the sophisticated creatures of the world, yet with so little known of the creator of our existence, we're really nothing at all and when we die its just that, even taking lucid dreaming or astral projection into consideration. Your done-zo. As if we're just machines of nature and when we short-circuit it's just another broken computer, and you never think of it again (Hell our dreams could be the trash your emptying from your recycling bin from the day!).

Like stated before, at our basic form we're cells, no matter what they create at the end of the day they die and when our cells are done producing we are done being. This sounds really pessimistic which I wasn't trying to imply its just a thought I've been thinking about. Does this make sense to anyone else?

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Vicki

Ugly bags of mostly water.

I heard that on an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation. However, it is true. Cells are mostly water.

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IGemini

Thanks, Vicki. Now I'm gonna be up all night trying to remember what episode you were talking about. I know I've heard that before!

My rationale is I don't try to think about the end of physical being as the end-all be-all. The reason is going one step further. Further than cells, we are all made of elements that don't "live." It really is appropriate that they call it the miracle of life.

There are a lot of things in this universe I don't pretend to understand. The afterlife is one of them. Though it's certainly an interesting thing to speculate.

Vicki

I've been trying to think of it too, but it just isn't coming to me. It's been a while since I've seen that episode, and I can't remember enough about it to even try and find it on imdb.com.

newcarcaviar

And when our cells die, do they go to heaven? Is heaven filled with a shitload of dead cells?

I don't want to get too far off topic here, but you bringing up elephants in heaven reminded me of a thought I had driving home from work earlier: If heaven is supposedly this place where all good people go and everything there is good for everyone and everyone's blissful, etc, etc, there has to be some flaw there somewhere. I mean, in the physical life the world is filled with people who are fundamentally good people, but between all of them, they don't all get along with each other.

So when all these good people die they supposedly go to heaven...but then wouldn't they not get along in heaven in the same way that they didn't get along on Earth and therefore heaven would not be this perfect place. Am I wrong?

Anyway, back on topic. I've always found it fascinating to think that we, along with all these other advanced forms of life on this planet, are living things made up of smaller living things. Tiny, tiny little creatures molded together to form one exponentially larger, more advanced being....whew. Wow.

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SpiralArchitect

We are all constantly dying and being reborn if you think of our life on a molecular level. I like how IGemini put it though, we are made up of stuff that doesn't necessarily 'live'.

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Mushroom Man

Yeah, I was watching some documentary and it stated that over your lifetime, whether it be 5 years to 50 years, every cell or molecule that makes up your body will die and be replaced, therefore your body regenerates and replaces itself throughout your life...so technically you wont be living in the same body as you were when you were born.

Ah, these things are too crazy to think about. As a reply to IGemini, I usually don't think of these things either and although I have my own beliefs, when I thought of this it made a lot of sense so I decided to get 2nd opinions

Buzzby

While it's true that we're made up of cells, that in no way implies that we're just a bunch of cells. Ultimately, all matter is made up of a few different kinds of quarks. It's true that we're made up of quarks, saying that we're just a bunch of quarks is in no way a useful description of a human being.

A human being is made up of a lot more than his physical components. Since you started a computer analogy, think about this: a brand new computer with no software installed has exactly the same physical components as a computer with an OS, tons of applications, and gigabytes of files. Are they the same? Not by a long shot.

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stonedK1982

I have to agree with Buzzby again.(Jesus buzzby are you ever wrong? You are like a library of info.) Yes it's true we are made up of cells but you can go much deeper than that as well. I mean cells have instructions for their functions(DNA) which are just chains of amino acids. Like a computer it's function is based on codes. And then you could continue going deeper and deeper but there's really no point in me doing that. Human's may be made up of all those things but you can't really classify humans as such. What gives us the ability to think, feel, etc.? There are mysterys that still haven't been unlocked in the scientific community. But humans are much more and each is valuable regardless. As for your afterlife problem I couldn't tell you what happens and honestly neither can anyone else. You will just have to decide what you believe. :-)

runamukk

This is something i wrote i another post that i figured was relevant.

You sir are a manifestation of your physical biology that is a necessary in order for you to cater to all the needs of your physical biology. When your physical biology ceases to exist, your manifestation ie:conciousness/soul will go revert back to the same state before your physical biology was created. While your here though......do whatever makes you happy!!!!