Will Human Immortality Ever Become Possible? This is very controversial question for many human being.The idea of an immortality life is linked essentially with the idea of God. We have to see how far the idea of God itself is compatible with the conditions of our scientific civilization. Modern science realizes the existence of a Makes who has given such uniformity and continuity to nature that science itself is bemused in unravelling the mysteries of our world. To deny at this infant stage of scientific evolution that there is no such thing as God “would be quite non-sense.” As a matter of fact intelligent scientists like Newton, Julian Huxley and Sir James Jeans have confessed the enormity of undiscovered knowledge. Newton himself said that the more he knew how little he knew. That the present world and its institutions are ideal would be the virtual negation of the scientific idea of evolution.
At the present stage of its development we must remark that it has failed signally to evaluate the importance of emotion in human life. It has created comfort, wealth and leisure for mankind, but it has failed to and to human happiness. Rather it has been exploited by certain cliques to perpetuate misery and poverty for a large number of human beings. Even those who are immersed in the late discoveries and inventions of modern science agree that once a day at least they have to think and act in unscientific terms.
They may read the poetry of Tagore or Shelley or go for a solitary walk or say prayers in some old-fashioned mosque or temple. They admit that there is something within, which yearns for fellowship with nature or man, which is constantly panting for a kind of happiness, an ecstasy which the laboratory can never afford. That something of which poets have sung of ages, which makes the life of a millionaire miserable and that of S beggar glittering and happy, does not yield to the mathematical analysis of modern scientific research. It is something which runs through the very grain of our life. It is the real basis of the activity of our life.
Without it we are worse than dead. It is the soul of man—his unsophisticated conscience which though pressed with all the weight of modern superficiality and robberies rises with fresh vigour every lime we contemplate and think. We may commit crimes and murders with any amount of cleverness and scientific precision but the soul will revolt. It will prick us every time we think of it. And then though we may have gained wealth or social position by such criminal acts we shall search in vain for peace of mind. We shall search for that ecstatic activity of our limbs which is very life.But all in vain?
The Philosophy Of Will Human Immortality Ever Become Possible
- The platonic theory of Reminiscence
It was Plato who first discerned the beauty of the soul in man. His doctrine of ideas is based on it. He said that our knowledge of concepts was occasioned but not derived from sense-perception. Our ideas did not differ from one person to another. They were realties themselves having an existence apart from the sensory world. Our knowledge was a grasp of the same changeless reality. The world of the senses kept on changing while the ideas remained fixed like the sun. In a previous antennal existence we actually contemplated the ideas which we try to recollect now imperfectly in this temporal existence which is full of flux and change. Soul is the only moving element in human life. Wordsworth’s whole philosophy of immortality of the soul is derived from the Platonic theory.
- Religious evidence e in favour of immortality
Almost ALL the great religions of the world preach with slight variations the immortality of the soul. Christianity put forth the doctrine of resurrection when all men rise after death and will be rewarded according to their deeds in this world. Islam also puts forth the same view. It has a strong belief in a life beyond the grave and in resurrection. It states that there will be an intervening period between death and resurrection called ‘Barzakh’ when evil doers will be punished and the virtuous elated. Hinduism also believes in the immortality of the soul though in a slightly different fashion. Its fundamental doctrine is that of metempsychosis which states that the soul will shift from one body to another and again return to temporal existence. It shall be requited for evil and virtuous deeds in the new transformation.
So far as the fundamental question of immortality of the soul goes all religious are in agreement. As for requite some believe in recital during the temporal existence, others in atonement and the existence of Heaven and Hell. Here we are not concerned with these differences of opinion. What we most desire is a good and rich life in this world and the hereafter. All religions are meant for this purpose—to enrich and glorify your lives, spiritual and temporal. That there is a spiritual existence ahead no intelligent person can deny. Shrewd observers can tell it in this very existence. The sensible criminal, the emotional poet, or any other intelligent student of life known it thoroughly. He cannot analyse it. But he feels it like the existence of God.
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- Aristotle’s theory
Aristotle also associates himself with the formulations of the theory of soul’s immortality. He regards body as kind of dead matter which becomes alive and self-moving as the soul enters it. He compares body to a kind of dead mass like marble. When the sculptor, gives it shape, it assumes a beautiful form which infuses every onlooker with a kind of emotional sensation. It moves some people as nothing can. This form is the soul of the statue. Similarly in the case of human beings the body acquires a fresh glory and beauty as soon as the soul enters. The soul thus becomes the motive of life. It abides through all the changes that the individual undergoes. Soul like the finished and perfected statue is the form of the body. But soul and body though distinct constitute one substance only. There is an essential unity in human nature.
- Conclusion
This aspect of the unity of life has been ignored by religious people and the followers of Platonism. They have considered the spiritual side of life as the only side. They have given no importance of the material aspect which is generally associated with the baser passions of man. We agree that, the material stage in the evolution of human life though base and shabby is yet an essential stage. It is a stage to which the soul has got to adopt its other worldly ideas at any cost of remorse or pain. And it should be the endeavour of both the soul and the body to preserve unity of human life.
