Stranger Things 3: Immortality

In this episode, we continue our Stranger Things series with a deep dive into the human fascination with immortality. 🕰️ From mythic quests and Tolkien’s elves to modern science’s pursuit of longevity, we explore how cultures across time have wrestled with the desire to escape death. ⚰️ The conversation unpacks the psychological, societal, and theological sides of this longing, revealing why ancient stories often warn of immortality’s cost—and how the Christian vision of eternal life offers something profoundly different. 🌿 We reflect on what it means to cherish our earthly lives while embracing the deeper promise of spiritual renewal and eternal hope. ✨

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Chapters

• 0:00 Debating Immortality and Longevity
• 15:14 Mythological Quests for Eternal Life
• 25:40 Modern Pursuits of Longevity
• 32:22 Psychological Effects of Longevity
• 39:17 Biblical Perspective on Immortality
• 52:58 The Role of Death in Life

Transcript

Stranger Things - Immortality

David: [00:00:00] if you look at the elves, right? And so who is it? Galadriel is in love with, uh,

JR: not leg

David: Lego, no.

JR: No Legolas is the elf.

David: I wanna say Strider. 

JR: It is St Strider.

David: Well, it is Strider, but that's not his king name. 

JR: Oh come on 

Vigo Mortenson Is that who you're talking about

David: Yeah.

JR: Aragorn Dang! You remember Donahue, right? 

David: Oh yeah.

JR: Yeah. the Oprah Before Oprah. 

David: Yeah.

JR: But when I was a kid, I remember I was home sick one day and you know how you're looking for stuff to watch on tv?

I don't know what the deal was, but I just remember seeing an episode with people lined up in the chairs on stage and they were saying that they're gonna live forever. And so it was like four or five of 'em. They were probably in their, I don't know, from what I remember, they were in their forties or fifties or something like that they just kept saying, yes, we're gonna live forever.

And it's an exciting way to view the world knowing that I'm gonna be eternal. And I remember as a kid thinking, huh, what's going on? Like, what are they thinking? So,[00:01:00] recently I Googled it because I wanted to find, I didn't actually watch the episode, but I found, they were called the Eternal Flame Foundation, and it was started by, as soon as I saw the pictures of the people, I was like, Yeah, that's them. That was on the stage. And they started like the early eighties and basically there were just three people that ran around preaching about cellular regeneration through the will that they, you know, they basically could, will themselves eternal life through positive energy or something like that.

I, you know, I'm obviously paraphrasing it, it wasn't anything that they were taking or, I just remember the confidence of which they were speaking about living eternally. In any case, when I Googled it, two of the three have died. So that makes a tougher sell. but it was just kind of interesting and, I thought about it and I'm like, that needs to be a Stranger Things episode.

We need to talk about immortality. What is it, what is the drive? What is it about us that wants to live forever ever? 

David: Yeah, that's right. I've heard several podcasts, not specifically on the topic, but whoever the guest was, make some reference that, you know, yeah. I, I fully expect to live to a hundred or 120 years old. Isn't there a popular [00:02:00] book called the Immortality Code or something like that? 

JR: Yeah.

that sounds familiar. you and I read that book, Outlive and we'll actually touch on this a little bit later in the episode once we get rolling, but, the book Outlive, that's more about like living, longevity, but not that, it's obviously not talking about eternal life or immortality or anything. 

David: Right. 

JR: Yeah. living healthily into your nineties.

You could hit triple digits and, having a healthy lifestyle into elderly old age.

David: Yeah. We both read that book, and when we talk about this topic, we need to distinguish between living longer and healthier, and this, it seems like a larger desire to live forever or live an extraordinary long time and believe that we are on the brink of it. I was thinking about this earlier.

Say AI and medicine combined and they give you a shot that says, okay,you can live another hundred years at the same health you're at right now. OrI was thinking about what kind of problems maybe that's the pessimist in me.

I always go to the,problems with it instead of going, oh, wouldn't that be great? Think of all the places I could travel, but think about all the [00:03:00] complications and then I'll let you chime in on, what would you do if you had now a hundred years of productive life ahead of you? But I'm thinking like, okay, I'm gonna have to work.

Do I start a new career? You know, like, is my work gonna k

JR: 401k isn't gonna be enough to live a hundred years. 

David: Yeah, that's gonna last me, yeah, a little bit of that. But you think about, you immediately would say, yeah, I could travel, I could do all this stuff, but no, it's like you gotta pay for it all. And now you've gotta the prospect of, well, I don't know, 50, 75 years of working.

So, do you change careers? do you switch around your retirement accounts? I don't know, it just seems like it would cause issues. And then there's the whole issue on the economy, right? Because are they gonna keep handing out retirement at age 67? Well, they're not gonna do that. 

JR: Right. 

David: Even in our lifetime, Social Security, it keeps getting pushed older and older because we're living longer. the government's like, Yeah, look, kind of expected to be paying Social Security for 20, 25 years.

JR: If we're starting to live 30, 35 years [00:04:00] past that, then we're running outta money. So, you're right. Even, even like financially, there's a practical, limit we're stuck with. 

David: Yeah. Raise the image though. Whatwould you do? You know? 'cause again, my first thought is, man, I would travel. Maybe I would go live in another country. But then there's all the normal constraints about why you don't do that stuff right now.

JR: Yeah.

If I could take something that basically ensured that other than being hit by a bus or something, that I would live extra 100 years, what would that change Like right now? Because

Right. now I'm thinking, well, I, ought to be retiring in another 15 years.

And then I got grandkids and you know, you kind of, slowly adjust to the stage of life that you're in. And if somebody comes along and says,yeah, let's tack on a hundred years, man, you're right. What do I do with that? Cause I don't have the financial means to just run all over the world for 30 years, 40 years, 50 years. And,

David: Right.

JR: if I was interested in that type of thing, maybe I do try my hand at a completely different career. I've always wanted to be a pilot. Lemme give that a shot. and if you give me another 50 years, I'll guess I'll golearn to be a pilot and [00:05:00] try to do that for a while. Maybe that's what it is. I guess you just reboot a career. And if you're a career driven person that, maybe,that sounds interesting. But if you are the rest of us, then starting over and doing a new career and starting at the bottom rung again, doesn't really seem like an interesting prospect for the next 30 years.

David: Right. I was just thinking it's one of those things that you go, yeah, that'd be great. And then the more I think about it, gosh, there's all kinds of issues involved in that. You know, there would be a Black Mirror episode or something like that that would show how this whole thing would just fall apart if suddenly someone said, Hey, I have a pill, and you can preserve your current state and live another a hundred years, right?

JR: Yeah. Well, I'm reading a book right now that they're talking about, deep space travel, so they put you in Cryosleep. anyway, I got to thinking that it'd be kind of cool to go in this kind of cryos stasis sleep and to wake up a hundred years from now, but it's more like just a curiosity of what the world would be like. I'm not sure that I'm interested I mean, unless my family also got put in cryos sleep, they're all long gone. Yeah, I don't know. it is one [00:06:00] of those things that I think there's something deep in the human attempt to live forever, to cheat death, to conquer death. But to your point is that if we actually achieve that, or even theoretically while we're thinking through this, it's like, yeah, is this a good thing? Is this something we actually want? I mean, 'cause it's not like it doesn't have its problems. society is built around the fact that we have sort of normal lifespans. so the age that we raise children, the age that we work, the age that we get promotions and really go all out in our career, those are all kind of tied to a normal life cycle. 

And then obviously into retirement and things like that. What happens when you expand that out? you're actually saying, let's change all of society with this 

David: Yeah.

JR: I don't think it's completely thought through. 

David: Yeah. if it ever happened, the transitional generation, there'd be a lot of things to figure out. There'd be aa lot of issues to work through The whole economy would change in some ways and you'd have all these people caught in between, now I have this longer life, but now I gotta pay for it.

[00:07:00] Does even anyone still wanna hire me? 'cause I'm 140 years old and they can hire a new college grad. 

JR: Right, 

David: and all those same issues, just magnified. Yeah. 

JR: There's all these kind ofmodern ideas of what eternal life will look like. But as you and I have discussed before the episode, this is an ancient idea. I mean, it goes all the way, it's biblical.It goes back to the tree of life I mean, it is an ancient quest to unlock immortality. This is nothing new. There were like medieval quests for things like the philosopher stone or the holy grail, right? 

David: Yeah.

JR: all throughout history have been searching for this kind of cheat code of immortality. And I guess maybe what we're gonna wrestle with on this episode is A, why do we do that? B, what does it mean, to unlock that? Like, let's think this all completely out. Not just the fact that I'm gonna live forever, but like we said, how does society change? how psychologically, how do we change?

Because I got a lot of opinions on that too. 

David: And what does the Bible have to say about it? 

JR: Sure. 

David: Is this even a good thing, something that we should strive for? And there again, I think it's one of those things where initially people would say, [00:08:00] well, yeah, Bible talks about eternal life. Why not strive for it? But the Bible also says there's a way to attain that life, right?

And it's not necessarily a pill or a shot that you take, or something that AI's gonna figure out. So yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about today. So, I don't know, do we start back at the very beginning? Of what? The Bible

JR: yeah. I mean, it's like I said, it starts out in Genesis,

David: in the beginning, right?

JR: Yeah. We had,

David: we had access to the Tree of Life and gave that up for the knowledge of good and evil. 

Yeah. And there's a whole lot you could say about that. in the biblical story in Genesis, Human beings were created, you could say, as eternal beings, 

JR: right? 

David: Similar to angels, but different from angels. 

JR: Right. 

David: But in this garden, you were protected from evil, you were protected from death. And there was this tree of life that symbolized that whole idea.

And you know, the Bible story is that God said, you can have everything you want. Just stay away from this one tree. And of course, we as humans, we go. Man, I wonder what that fruit tastes like. Right. 

JR: I bet [00:09:00] it's awesome. 

David: That's gotta be good. So they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and I don't know, I've heard a lot of people talk about that idea of, we think of God hiding knowledge from them, but when he's talking about knowledge of good and evil, is that something that actually starts to introduce death?

Maybe knowledge isn't such a good thing if it's the knowledge of all the bad things that can happen. Right. I don't know. Something around that idea.

JR: Well, you see a mirror image in the Tower of Babel in that, they were all working toward one goal and apparentlythere was something destructive about that, to the point that God intervened and said, we don't need this to continue. 

What is it about knowledge that creates death? What is it about, the entire world focused on one goal that is actually destructive, that is against what we were created to do? Maybe that's the way to say it, that it was against our created order, because

It's not like, God had these arbitrary rules and we happened to eat the wrong fruit, and now we're in trouble. And it's like, ah,that's way too simplistic. What's the deeper meaning [00:10:00] behind both of those stories?

And there's something about, we weren't created to be what all knowing we weren't created to be completely unified in our, pursuit of something. And so what is it about that, is against the created order? 

David: Well, so the second time around when you said that, my thought was that, ' cause we were created in some sense to be immortal, but this idea of the project of all working together, Babel, like that was the project to become gods. We talked about that before. 

JR: Right. 

David: We were created for immortality, but we weren't created to pursue immortality in that we now think of ourselves as God-like. 

JR: Yes. 

David: We were created to commune with God as a created creature. Not to usurp God. 

JR: Sure. 

David: I think maybe that's the idea of knowledge of good and evil.

It's like, well, I want all knowledge. Okay, now you're trying to be like God, therefore replace God. Same thing with the Tower of Babel, right? We've talked about how the idea of the towers to bring God down to [00:11:00] control God, and now we are the ones in charge. 

JR: Yeah. 

David: And so I don't know. That's probably what I would say is I think those are attempts, to become like, God.

And maybe that's relevant to this whole question of what drives us to say we wanna be immortal. Well, there's a little bit of a God complex there, right?

JR: Sure, and specifically what we're talking about is to be immortal in the mortal realm 

in the, in, in the

David: Yes. Yeah. And we'll get to that. 

JR: If you're a Christian, you know you're gonna be immortal anyway. Lots of religions have immortality avenues and paths, but there's something about wanting to be immortal in the earthly realm, aside from a religion that maybe we're kind of discussing also. 

David: Yeah. That's right. This desire for immortality or eternal life. Look in most religious systems. not every single one of them,but in most religious systems,one of the things that religion holds out is some kind of promise of eternal life.

Some variation of it. And of course you see that in the Bible. We talked about the tree of life. There was a verse that came to mind when we were talking about [00:12:00] this. It's in Ecclesiastes chapter three, where it says, "he's made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart. Yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." But that phrase that he has set eternity in our hearts. 

JR: yeah. 

David: And I thought, yeah, I think that is an acknowledgement that we are mortals here on earth living this limited life, right? But there is something in our hearts, in our spirit that maybe is a hangover from the garden

that wants to live forever, that somehow we're supposed to be eternal beings. The question is just maybe how do we get there?

JR: No, that's cool, when you mentioned Ecclesiastes I thought you were gonna say, you know, the time passages that say

David: Yeah,

JR: to laugh, a time to cry, a time to weep, time to mourn, 

David: yeah. 

JR: Yeah. That he's put eternity in the hearts of men. There is this idea that we were made for something more than to live physically on this earth for 70, 80, even 90, a hundred years. That there's something more to it. 

There's this kind of desire for immortality [00:13:00] and maybe we can't reach it, in this earthly physical bodies that we have. 

The Christian says that there is a way to reach that immortality that each of us fundamentally desire. 

David: Yeah. And of course when Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden, one of the things God says is that basically you will now die. If you eat of the tree, you will die. I actually heard an atheist talking about this. uh, someone, I forget exactly the context, but one of the things they were saying is he was referencing this idea that when God said, you're gonna eat of the fruit of the tree, you're gonna die. And the person he was debating said, yeah. And he goes, but they didn't.

So it's a lie. 

JR: right. 

David: Right. 

JR: Yeah. 

David: He was hung up on that point that he's like, but they didn't die. They were cast outta the garden and, and you know, they had kids and lived their life. And so that whole thing's a lie. And whoever was debating didn't pick up on it. But I'm thinking, no, the Bible's talking about a spiritual death that now you will no longer live eternally.

Right? And so, no, they didn't eat the tree and [00:14:00] just fall over and die. They live their life. But now death was going to be a part of the natural human condition. That was the curse, right? 

JR: Yeah. they gave up their position in the spiritual realm because when we were created, this goes back to the idea that there's a spiritual realm and an earthly realm. our unique position in the universe at creation was that we had access to both of those areas.

We were physical beings that lived in a garden. But we clearly interacted with God and other spiritual beings, which is why Eve was not blown away by a talking serpent Right There were spiritual

David: Yeah.

JR: Yeah. That we were in communication with. So you can think of it as angels and whatever, but we had this one foot in the spiritual world and one foot in the material world. And 

When we ate of the tree, we gave up our position in the spiritual world, to live fully in the material world. And that

David: Yeah. Now, yeah,

JR: of life and death. 

David: Now we are bound by the material world and death is the result of that. Yeah. That's very much the teaching of the Bible. It's [00:15:00] also interesting that, when you see the same idea repeated over and over and over again in different religions, in, mythology, right, in fairytales, that should tell you something, that that idea is part of what it means to be human.

And I say all that because you see this idea of a quest for immortality in a lot of different areas. we talked about different religions, but even ancient myths. Some of the goals of the ancient myths were to somehow attain immortality.

JR: Yeah You think about the story of Gilgamesh. there's the quest for immortality in that component, all through the Greek myth. there's the quest for immortality. And I think it's interesting that in the Greek myth especially that attain immortality lots of times, but there's always a weird, negative byproduct of it.

You know who who is the guy? I'm not gonna think of his name, but there's one guy that wanted immortality and the gods granted it to him, he forgot to ask for youth, and so he justhe lived forever and 

David: That's, yeah, 

JR: and older. Right. who was that? Do you remember the name of that 

David: I don't, but I have [00:16:00] thought of that. We should google it real quick, but yes, there is a story about a guy who wished for immortality. He was granted it, and basically he just becomes this decrepit skeleton that 

JR: right. 

David: He can't die, right?

JR: He's just this withered husk of a body that's unable to do anything, but at least he's immortal. right?

David: There's another, myth around, and I think it's around Persephone. 

JR: Oh 

David: And so what she does is she, visits someone. They, don't know she's a goddess, And they had just had a baby. Soshe's staying with them. And for their hospitality, she wants to grant their new baby immortality.

And so every night when everyone went to bed she starts to put the baby in the fire to make it immortal. And of course, the mom walks in one night and sees this woman holding her child over the fire and freaks out, right? And, you know, offends the goddess and takes the baby away.

And I think the result of that was also something like, okay, this kid's gonna be weird now because he's half immortal, but he's half not [00:17:00] right, because the mom stepped in and interrupted this process of immortality.

JR: what was the result? Or just that was all you could remember? 

David: That's it. I really should have looked some of this stuff up, but 

JR: Well there's something about all the ancient stories, whether it's myth or whether it's come from another, mythological line, you know, whether it be Greek myth or whatever. There's an aspect of these stories that indicate that is something we seek after. But it has strings attached. Like it's not everything it's cracked up to be, I don't think there's any really just good stories of this person became immortal and lived happily ever after for all eternity. Right? It's, it's always this weird twist of something that there's strings attached or they become this grotesque figure of what an immortal person is supposed to be.

And I think what these stories are trying to tell us is that there's an aspect of the desire for immortality. that I guessstems from maybe feeling like we have unfinished business in previous stages of our or, [00:18:00] you know that we're missing something in our lives. And so we want to be immortal.

Carl Jung talks about the archetypal stages of life, and he kind of describes, I forget 'em all exactly, but I think it's something like the hero becomes the king, becomes the sage, and then, gracefully goes into death. And then there's this rebirth aspect to it. And he even says that most neuroses stem from not living in the stage of life that you're in. Think of Uncle Rico and Napoleon Dynamite, he felt like he had un unfinished business on the football field, and so he is not able to move on to the next stage of being a functional adult, 

 And anyway, if you buy into this, idea of the archetypal life then the question becomes what does it look like psychologically to be immortal but to be disconnected from the natural stages of life.

Maybe that's a good way to ask the question. Here's what I'm trying to say. That immortality disrupts that natural pattern, right? If you can't die, then you can't renew. You know you're left orbiting one archetype [00:19:00] endlessly. Or even worse, you're wandering through them with no closure, right?

So imagine the hero who never becomes the king or the king who never moves on to being the wise sage. And that's why immortality in these mythic stories is always tied to something strange or something grotesque. 

David: Yeah. the more I thought about it, even in Greek mythology, I wonder if the key is. Whether or notthe Gods grant you immortality or whether or notyou pursue it. Right. Because there are some of the demigods who are basically granted immortality. In the Greek myths, a lot of times you would be put among the stars.

That would mean you're immortal. Right. And that's where we get some of these constellations. But there were people who spent the rest of their life on Mount Olympus, where they never had to die. They lived immortally. Herecles dies. But then it said he lives with the gods on Mount Olympus.

And I think Asclepius is another one who lives, he's a mortal person, but he was granted immortality by the gods because of his work with medicine. And so he lives [00:20:00] eternally with the gods on Mount Olympus. But you're right, there are a lot of myths that warn against, pursuing immortality on your own and not it being a gift from the gods.

Right. That's an interesting idea, even in mythology.

JR: Yeah. Well, it's almost like if you pursue it as an end, but don't prepare yourself for being immortal, you know? And

David: Yeah.

JR: talking about a little bit. 

David: Yeah. And that's gets to what brought up is this whole psychological aspect. Would you even be psychologically prepared to live. Immortal like we started out with. What are your thoughts on that?

JR: I'm trying to think of a way to say it, but there's something about the normal cycle of life that when you disrupt, thatyou turn into a monster or something like. I mean, think about, okay, so think about this. It's the classic vampire, right? Look at the pattern ofthe archetypal vampire. Vampires don't age, which means they never progress through the natural cycle of child, adult, or an elder, right? They're locked in this eternal adolescents, really. And it's interesting that, that most vampires, they're kind of [00:21:00] beautiful. They're oddly sexual or sensual, and self-absorbed, 

David: Yeah.

JR: are always seducing and consuming, You don't, hear stories of vampires moving toward. orsomething like that. it's sort of this fixation. They're frozen in thisarchetype. 

David: Well, you don't see many well adjusted vampires with a lot of good friends and a fulfilling career, even though they,they are living forever. Right? I think that's your point, they're always a little dark.

They're always, disconnected from the rest of the world. They're always sinister, 

JR: Yeah. 

David: And so maybe even in that, it's that idea of here's someone who pursued immortality, Apart from the gods or apart from God, right? Or in some kind of selfish way that says, I'm going to create this so I can live forever.

And you see that in the vampire. Look, you also see that another trope is zombies, right? 

Zombies somehow are able to cheat death and live in this state of being undead. But everyone knows [00:22:00] that a zombie is not a well adjusted human being. 

JR: Yeah. Nobody's

David: They're always kind of this freak. 

JR: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

JR: And I think what these stories are trying to grasp on to is that you can be immortal, but not be a fully integrated person. And so you have the image of the vampire, right? They literally drain life. That's what they're called to do.

They're creatures of the night hiding from the sun. They're completely cut off from the full spectrum of life and family and The warmth of the natural order. I think that's an intentional image of the immortal person that itcomes with these strings attached.

And so maybe it's kind of a warning that that's not something that we're meant to pursue. Certainly not on this earthly existence. 

David: I think that's exactly right. And when you said what they drain life, right? That's actually how they stay immortal is they are draining life from other people. There's some symbolism there. We wanna unpack that, that's really interesting.

JR: Well, they just become pathological. They refuse. This is what happens when you refuse the cycle [00:23:00] than giving back to the next generation. 

David: Yeah. So it is interesting that our culture, even our pop culture, right, even Hollywood, when we think of these ideas of toying around, of what it looks like to be an immortal, we come up with these ideas of vampires or zombies It's almost warning us of the downside of trying to do that.

Even I was thinking there was a popular show, what is it called, Highlander, 

JR: Oh 

David: where you had the Immortals who traveled around, and you might even think, well, that'd be cool. And they're not a vampire or a zombie, right? But they're always a bit disconnected in the world, They never really fit in because they've belonged to all these different eras.

And I guess one of the issues that's raised is, if you could be immortal, but all your friends live normal lives, how disconnected would you be? 

JR: Right. 

David: a scenario where everyone all of a sudden lives forever. 

JR: Yeah, 

David: now that would be a little different, but the more I think about it, there are these images in our culture that play around with this idea 

Maybe even asking the question, Hey, is this a good idea? have you read, Brahm [00:24:00] Stoker's Dracula? Have you read that book? 

JR: Yeah this is what you wanna sign up for?

David: Yeah, So it's obviously dramatizing, some of the issues, but it is raising those issues. Like what would your life look like if all your friends, you talked about your kids and your grandkids.

Well, they're gone now. So, who do you have in your life? Do you have a career that gives you meaning, Or do you just wander the earth, draining life from other people? Basically like a vampire.

JR: It's something like immortality without death disconnects you from humanity, You live but you never belong. when you said that about the Highlander, I thought, yeah, they're living an eternal life, but they don't belong to anything because they've, 

David: right?

JR: they've been disconnected from death, which actually, in a weird way, disconnects you from humanity.

You can never be like anybody else. 

David: Yeah. that's right. They never quite fit in. They never have a place or a time they call home. They never have this surrounded by family. You know, all the things that give us meaning, But even in that scenario, I'm trying to think if there's ever a show [00:25:00] that shows an immortal, in a good light to say, wouldn't this be great?

Right. This would solve all of our problems. And I can't think of one right off the top of my head.

JR: No, I think you're right that there is a difference between saying that we can all live forever, because of this new medical breakthrough perhaps, or all live to be 200 or 250. That's kind of what you hear on the, the pop science podcasts and things like that.

ButYeah, there is something about the natural order life and death that connect us all as humans. And if you're disconnected from that in any way, you sever yourself from humanity. I think that's the warning of these stories.

David: Yeah, I think so. I think they at least make us pause and say, are you sure about what you're pursuing? Which brings us to all of these modern pursuits, Because you do hear it all over the podcast scene nowadays. You hear it from Silicon Valley, you hear it in AI. 

I saw this guy on a podcast He believes that modern medicine combined with ai.AI will provide you with constant feedback of what you should [00:26:00] and shouldn't do, and you combine it with modern medicine that says, we've detected this gene, we're gonna eradicate it in you. And he says, I expect to be able to live 150 or 200 years.

And he believes that we are on the verge of this. Now, I don't know if I believe that, but that's what his shtick is, right?

JR: I do think that modern technology that we have, in looking at AI and, we talked about this last week, the idea that AI is gonna solve all of our problems. That's a little bit of a pipe dream maybe, but it does feel like maybe we're on the verge of something, which is interesting.

Why we kind of put these two episodes together, even though they seem like they shouldn't go together, is one is about eternal life and the other one is about the end of the world. There's something about what's going on that gives you that idea that, man, maybe we are on the verge of something, and that something could be a disaster.

It could be the end of the world, or it could be something that ushers in immortality. Now maybe you don't have to have those two extremes but there is something about the technology and the world we're living in today that does make you feel [00:27:00] like, man, you know, the flying cars that never quite worked out.

But I do kind of feel like maybe medicine and AI are gonna go hand in hand. Maybe this uploading of the consciousness is gonna put us in some kind of digital form that we can live on forever. There is something a little creepythe situation that we're in, that makes us feel like maybe we're on the verge of something like that. 

I'm always fascinated by those conversations, the futurists that project out what life is gonna be like in 20 years.

I don't know. the other guy that I had seen that the recent podcast I heard was the guy Brian Johnson. He's obviously a multimillionaire cause he's spending something like $2 million a year on extending his life.

And so he's using the medicine we have at handand exercise and he's constantly having all these special genetictests done on him. And, even talked about how his liver or something like that is that of an 18 year olds and his blood, he's had blood transfusions from his son and that they, they reflect the blood of a [00:28:00] 20-year-old, you know, and even though he, I think he's in his thirties or forties 

David: What you described is the image of the vampire 

life from other people. Isn't that creepy? 

JR: true. That is weird. It's funny.

David: Sorry, I just had to stop you and and mention that.

JR: No I'm glad you said something. I think that's what the vampire kind of represents. Not completely, but there's an aspect of it that that's whatit's trying to get at. 

David: Yeah. Yeah.

JR: of pursuing immortality and that immortality comes at a cost, if you think about it. Just don't be so quick to take that pill or to upload your consciousness or whatever, right? 

David: Anyway, I, I just hadto point that out 'cause as soon as you said that I thought, oh wow. That's creepy. But alright. So how old is this guy then? 

is he old or is he like thirties, forties. 

JR: hang 

You said he has a son. 

No, the guy's 46 years old, 

apparently it says that he takes like 111 pills every day. He wears a baseball cap that shoots red light into his scalp, 

and you know what I mean. It's like this technology and all these medical breakthroughs that he's spending all this crazy money on. I guess he's wanting to be the guinea [00:29:00] pig for immortality, or at least extreme longevity, you know? And so he's pouring all this in to, a team of doctors that he deals with every day to, I guess try to, it's probably a money making scheme, you know, he's probably selling supplements on the side or something like that. 

David: Yeah.

JR: It all ties back to money, yeah he's he's he's trying todo this extreme longevity project that he's got going.

David: Yeah. When you said that, you said he spends a million dollars a year or something like that, I thought, yeah, I bet his personal trainer's going, dude, I got this sweet gig. This guy thinks he's gonna live forever paying me a million dollars.

JR: Man, I can make a whole career out of this. 

David: That guy's interesting. I haven't really heard of him, but it is interesting because I think he encapsulates almost, our obsession with. Health and the belief that if we can find the right combination of diet and exercise, we can stave off death and aging.

I'm at the age where I start to realize that I'm not immortal. I'm under no illusion that that's gonna happen, 

anyway.

JR: I sneezed the other [00:30:00] day and I pulled something in my neck. It hurt me all day longIt was like a knife in my neck. It's Acra. YeahSo anyway. 

David: No. So about a week ago I was on YouTube chasing down some answers. I'm like, alright, what's the real answer on things like intermittent fasting, right? Things like cholesterol. And of course you start YouTubing this stuff and there's some good information, but you can also find doctors that will tell you the exact opposite things.

And so after a couple of days of just going down the rabbit hole, like I reached a couple conclusions, and that's, one is that man, some of this stuff that we speak with such certainty on, we don't know, right? Because you can find two highly educated individuals who will say the exact opposite thing.

And the second thing I found myself is trying to pay attention more to what I eat. I remember this one particular day almost like anxious and in a paralysis going, alright, it's time to eat lunch. But if I eat this bread that has carbs, but if I eat this, then I'm not getting [00:31:00] this and I need enough fiber, so I need to do,and it's almost like I found myself in this state of paralysis going, oh my gosh, food is going to kill me.

JR: Right? 

David: Instead of saying food is what will give me nutrition and help me live. But it's almost like you can go so far down the rabbit hole where food will kill me, right?

JR: Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to focus more on my health too. But not to the point where I can't eat a pepperoni pizza, you know? And if I eat a dozen Krispy Kremes every day, well, we all know where that's gonna lead, but at the same time, I still want to have space for the Krispy Kremes in my life. Let's just, just not do it every week. 

David: right. Yeah.

JR: it every three, four months maybe if you have the opportunity. ButI've always said that, if I'm on such a diet, that it disconnects me from my community.

In other words, if you say, Hey dude, let's go grab a pizza. And I'm like, ahsorry man. I'm on a diet, that's a problem. unless I'm in a medical situation where I literally have to drastically change my diet and have zero salt or something zero sugar or whatever.But otherwise, I don't want to [00:32:00] focus on my health at the exclusion of my community. And it does seem like you can get there where you can't go to lunch with your buddies or grab Starbucks because of the sugar it just, you can kind of take it too far.

And usually when you take it too far, it goes back to that vampire idea. It disconnects you from community. You're severed from normal life. 

David: Yeah, I think that image is definitely embedded in this idea of a vampire. And it also gets to, alright, so should we talk about some of the psychologicaleffects then? Because it does epitomize a lot of our culture that seems to be grasping for the right combination of these benefits that will help me beat the odds and live to be a hundred, live to be 120.

But when you're talking about living, well, not even immortal, but say 150 or 200, there are some really bizarre psychological conundrums I guess, that come with that.

JR: Yes, where we started, what do I do after 65 and I retired? Do I start over? And that's just the obvious stuff I'm not even getting into broader society of [00:33:00] overpopulation or you know, what's the generation that's gonna take care of the elderly people that are all in their one fifties, there's a weird balance to society and I don't wanna get off on this rabbit trail but you're seeing a lot of news articles and people warning about, the population collapse of places like China and some of these other countries that they're notthey don't have a younger generation that can support the older generation.

And so you can see my point is that broader society is held in a very fine balance. If you get that imbalance wrong, you know you have population collapse, who's gonna take care of the people, who's gonna do, the manual labor jobs when everybody's older. you see how we're all tied together and the pursuit of longevity does kind of interfere with that normal pattern or rhythm of life, that causes collapse. I guess.

David: So here's another thought I had talking about the psychological aspect. One of the things that you think of like places like North Korea or Russia, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: And you can say, well, I'm not a fan of Putin all you want. And the the reality is that one day he's gonna [00:34:00] die, like all of us. Right?

JR: Right.

David: But I thought about, okay, so if everyone suddenly lives to be 200 years, do places become more dictatorial and oppressive?

JR: Yeah, that's a good question.

David: 'Cause now,

JR: now you're stuck with this dictator. I hope Russians aren't hacking into this, but, you know, there's an expiration date right? To any dictator.

Yeah.

David: And then it's always the question of what happens to the regime beyond that. But if everyone starts to live, say, 200 years, what does that do to these certain places in the world where the dictator's like, yeah, I'm it for the next 150 years.

JR: Yeah.

David: Do those places become worse?

JR: Sure. I mean, it's easy to think in your scenario what do I do at 65? Well, if I'm the leader of a country, it's not a matter of what I do at 65, it's, I'm I'm gonna keep this train running.

David: Yeah.

JR: 150 And

and yes, exactly to your point. I hadn't thought about that, but, it's almost like we're extending the life of the people that you don't want to be around for much longer. Right. You know, that's all part of the package.

David: Well, a better way to say [00:35:00] that may be, more theological is you're extending the life of good people, but you're also extending the life of evil. 

JR: The wicked as well as the good.

David: Yeah.

JR: and yeah, we're inextricablytied to these people. So, you're right. You can't have one without the other.

David: That's right.

JR: No, that's actually a cool thought. I wish I had thought about that before so I could have something better to say about it. 'cause you're exactly right. You know

David: Well, and then you run down the rabbit trail. '

JR: Does that increase the probability of war? Because now if you want this dictator out, you've gotta go invade 'em. They're not gonna die.

emSure. 

David: I don't know.

JR: Well, to go back to North Korea I don't even know if he has a kid, but it doesn't matter. Geopolitics are probably based on a certain timeline of this guy isn't gonna be in power for much longer. 

David: A long term view. 

JR: Yeah. You know, it's like, if he's gonna be in power for another 15 years, here's how we can manage that.

But if he's gonna be in power for another a hundred years, that changes the trajectory. That changes the way we approach these things. Yeah, that's true. But I think it goes back to the idea of we tend to think of these things in a vacuum. We tend to think of it, how cool would it be [00:36:00] for me if I could live to be 200 years old, let's say, or 400 years old? 

You don't think of it in terms of, well you gotta take the bad with the good because that's the society we live in. What does that look like for the evil people of this world? 

David: Yeah, maybe if you're that Brian Johnson guy, maybe you can afford to buy a private island and just insulate yourself from it all. But there again, we come back to the vampire then. 

He has no connection. He has no, community. Because you could say, well, you could protect yourself from all that, but then you're just living this isolated life.

JR: No I like the idea that, the cost of immortality at the separation of community. mean, I don't see how it can't.

David: Yeah. Yeah.

JR: The vampire connection is interesting. I wish I had thought about that before the episode. I'm sure I could like create an outline of better framework for what we're trying to say. I actually think we captured it pretty good. '

David: Yeah. No, it never occurred to me, but when you brought it up, I'm like, yeah, I wonder if that is our cultural attempt to imagine what it would like to live immortal. And of course then coming up with all the downsides, it's like what we [00:37:00] just did. It's like, well, what are the downsides? Well, then you just wrap up that in a story and you come up with the character of a vampire.

JR: Yeah. 

Yeah

David: you know, that's really,

JR: this beautiful yet grotesque figure, which is also an interesting, you know, are not monsters in the sense that they're disgusting like a cyclops or a two-headed monster or something, you know what I mean? They'rethey're sensual and beautiful.

They actually draw you in. and so maybe that's kind of to go along with the vampire idea of immortality. There's something about immortality that draws us in at the same time we don't recognize the obvious freakishness of, what we're buying into. You know what I mean?

David: And obviously, it's one of those things like if we could, does that mean we should? Obviously there's always gonna be some pioneer who's going to test that theory, but I do think it's interesting that fiction, always maybe asked the question before science asks the question, right?

JR: We just don't see it.

David: Yeah. We don't know how to say that's what exactly the question they're raising in this book. And that's a really interesting idea too.

JR: Well, you [00:38:00] and I, that's why we talk about ancient stories, because ancient stories exist for as long as they dobecause they capture some idea. They capturea reality of the world. in any case, all these things we're talking about, certainly these modern pursuits and even the ancient pursuits, there's something about, 'cause I think we talked at the beginning about how we're all gonna be immortal somewhere if you have the Christian belief or the biblical view of the soul. What we're talking about is trying to achieve immortality of the body while ignoring the immortality of the soul. That's where the problem starts, trying to achieve immortality of the body without recognizing the immortality of the soul.

David: Yeah, that's right. And you can go all the way back to Plato and Socrates who talk about the immortality of the soul. They had some different beliefs, but it was basically this idea that, yeah, we're all gonna die, but your soul is gonna live on, and that's kind of a squishy thing where you go, well, okay, maybe.

JR: Right?

David: In some sense,

that's a giant gamble there, right?

JR: Yeah,

David: And you can do that as a way, and Christians can do this too, as a way to almost [00:39:00]dismiss the meaning of this life. Well, it doesn't matter. We're all gonna go to heaven.

That's the wrong perspective too. That's not what the Bible talks about.

JR: Yeah. We've been put here on this earth for a purpose, and if you believe that, then you have to believe that I need to pursue what that purpose is in this body and on this physical world.

David: Right. So I guess a good place to transition to say, what does the Bible then teach about this?

JR: Yeah, so, know, all this leads up to what should the Christian response to trying to be immortal. Everything we've been talking up until this point, what should the Christian response be? What does the Bible have to say about immortality other than the fact that we're all going to heaven, you know let's get past the middle school idea, that we'll all be in heaven and streets of gold and have our ownmansion, right?

We've talked about all those ideas before.How should we think about immortality?

David: Yeah. Well for one, It's interesting, and I think we talked about this once, but it's interesting that the Old Testament doesn't really have this idea of heaven. Which is kind of interesting 'cause you go back and read some of the [00:40:00] Psalms and he talks about a hope for something resembling eternal life, but also recognizing that when we die, we'll probably end up in Sheol.

Or the underworld.

JR: Right. 

David: So then you get to the New Testament, of course Jesus changes all that. And of course, Jesus talks about he offers eternal life. Well, what does that mean? And I think the Apostle Paul is one who in a couple of places, he really starts to talk about what this means. Actually should we just let people listen to 1 Corinthians 15:42 through 44 real quick?

JR: Yeah, yeah These are great

David: This is an important one. So take a listen to this and we'll come back and talk about it. 

[00:41:00]

JR:

David: Yeah, what are some of the things you take from those verses? 

JR: Okay. So you see this constant going back and forth. The body is sewn perishable, but it's raised imperishable. It's sewn in dishonor talking about the flesh. It's raised in glory, talking about perfection. It's sewn in weakness. It's raised in power. Paul's clearly pointing out this juxtaposition of being in a flesh and bone body. But 

our soul being renewed as pure spirit, For something better. [00:42:00] Something other than this physical world. These are interesting verses 'cause it's actually describing what we've been talking about. Do you really want to live forever?

Because that has this whole set of problems. And Paul, in these verses are saying, no, that's not what you're supposed to want. Because we are spirit ultimately. And that should be where we need to connect with the spiritual world.

David: Right, so he gets at this idea. Yeah. I like what you said that, Paul's actually asking that question, like, do you really wanna live forever because your body's perishable. Your body's going to fall apart. Trust me, it's gonna happen. But there's something else that, God has given to the people who follow him.

And that's this idea of the soul. When you read other parts of what Paul talks about, he talks about, the spiritual body. One thing that's important is he's not talking about this platonic idea of the disembodied soul. That's not our final state, It's the soul reunited with what Paul says is a spiritual body.

JR: Right.

David: There's substance to it, right? [00:43:00] There is a body there, but what Paul's saying is you have to let go of this current body that is subject to the fall and the curse, because there is a better body waiting for you, right? 

JR: Well, it says in verse 49, webear the image of the earthly man So we are gonna bear the image of the heavenly man. And

David: Right?

JR: Yeah, he's clearly saying that we will have some sort of body, but it's not gonna be the flesh and blood that you and I are looking at in the mirror every morning.

Right?

David: Well, one verse later, "I declare to you brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Well that's interesting.

JR: Yeah.

David: So this idea of well, what if I can achieve immortality in this life? And Paul seems to go, well, you're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God, you know?

JR: No, it's interesting to read these verses through the topic that we're talking about. It's likenormally I would read these verses and say, yeahPaul's saying that we're gonna die one day and go to heaven. But thinking about it through the lens of immortality man.

It really kind of, captures exactly the conversation [00:44:00] that we're having. You know just understand that you're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God. if you insist on immortality.

David: Maybe Paul had a series called Stranger Things and he's like, I'm gonna tackle immortality. These are my notes.

JR: you

David: 'cause because first,

JR: you guys have asked for it, more times than I can count. So finally, let's talk about immortality. Here we go.

David: Now he writes another letter to the church in Thessalonica and he addresses a lot of these same issues. 'cause the church in Thessalonika was talking about. Well, what about the people who have died? Paul says, look, we'll be raised 

We will be with God when God's kingdom fully comes. And so he actually talks about it in a lot ofdifferent ways, but we just don't put this spin on it of immortality. What does the Bible teach about it? 

JR: Right? Well, Philippians 1:21: "To live as Christ and to die is gain." Paul embraces in all of his letters the idea that death is actually a good thing. It's part of the process, and we have to die to be renewed into the spiritual world. So, when you lay it out like that, [00:45:00] then I guess the question becomes why are we so anxious to continue on living in these mortal bodies? All we're doing is putting off opportunities of the spiritual heavenly body.

David: Right. And the image that the Bible talks about, and I think this is Jesus's image about this whole process, is the idea of a seed has to be planted in the ground and die before it can actually become new life. And a fruit bearing tree. And of course the seed is the image of our physical bodies dying, yielding up to something better.

JR: Yeah. that's a great image. I mean that's just naturally what we see in the seasons of life, that's what we're getting at is that there's something unnatural about wanting live forever. Yeah, it sounds interesting.

It's cool science fiction, but it's something unnatural about it.

David: Yeah, and I'm, I think when you look at what Jesus says, what Paul says, you take all these things together, I think they would say no. Immortality is not something you should be pursuing.

I'm not sure that's a wise use of your life is I think what they would say. But [00:46:00] that ties back to the whole beginning what is our motivation? Is it to become like God? Because the Christian God has said, look, I'm holding it out as a gift for you, but you're going to have to be planted in the ground to actually experience this.

But somehow I think we can circle this whole pursuit of immortality in our life, in this physical world as kind of a pursuit of becoming like God.

JR: Yeah, I want it on my terms. I don't want to go through the death to achieve immortality. 

David: That's right. 

JR: Yeah, it takes you back to the Garden of Eden. I want this fruit of knowledge that's gonna make me immortal and, it is interesting all the imagery that we're going through with this lens of immortality.

It's like, yeah, we're not supposed to do this. We're not supposed to pursue this. There's nothing wrong with, trying to cure cancer or, 

David: Yeah.

JR: Limit human suffering, through disease and old age and things like that. Butthe mistake we make is treating death like it's just another disease to be cured. And that's not the case. Death is part of the entire renewal process. [00:47:00] Again there's nothing wrong with trying to limit human suffering and trying to, you know, even extend your life a little bit. That's all fine. when you look at death and say, no, we can overcome that, there is something God-like, that I'm pursuing. if I put all my resources into to that reality.

David: I think that's right and it captures a tension. We always talk about tension too, because it captures this tension of, the other thing the Bible talks about is we should not live our life in fear of death. And I wonder how many modern people, we fear getting older, let's be honest, especially western culture.

We fear getting older. We don't want to get older. We'll do anything. We'll pay a lot of money to make myself look younger, to stay healthy. So again, we're not talking about fighting disease or anything like that. We're talking about doing so out of a fear of death. So I think in the Bible you see this healthy tension between saying, look, don't live your life in fear of death, but also you've been given a life and go live it.

Don't just hold up somewhere and go, well, God's [00:48:00] gonna come one day and I'm gonna go to heaven. That's never a picture of how we're supposed to live this life.

JR: I think it's part of the process. I really do like that idea of hero, king, Sage, that that's kind of the process that we should embrace the stage that you're in and you hear things about, well, let's try to age gracefully. I think, that's what it's trying to say.

It's likeembrace the fact that you're 70, 80 years old and you've lived a full life, and you have the opportunity partake wisdom to the generation below you, and to pass on your legacy to future generations.

That's what the sage does. That's what Gandalf does in the Lord of the Rings. He's trying to pass wisdom down because he's at the end of his journey. And so embrace the stage that you're in and quit trying to fight off this final doorway that we all have to go through. instead embrace where you're at

But I think you're right. I think it's not just fear of death. It's fear that I have unfinished business. Fear that I could do more in this life if I just had another 50 years There's probably lots of neurosis behind wanting to live forever. But I think they're probably [00:49:00] all unhealthy, you know I mean I I think that's what it is and it's like something about not embracing the normal cycle of life that we were all destined to be a part of.

David: Okay. Well, you mentioned Lord of the Rings, and when you said that, I thought, okay, there's another image of immortality, if you look at the elves. 

JR: Arag.

David: So you remember, this is kind of captured in Galadriel being in love with Aragorn.

And so there was this whole tension of, well, she's immortal, right? And so she's gonna have to live with her true love,

JR: Right.

David: Growing old and dying, right? And then she's gonna go on.

But it's also interesting because, think of the elves for a minute. It's like they live in this almost secluded community while everyone else is out there in the adventure of life. You could think of it that way.

JR: That's a good image too, because isn't there a scene where she says, I choose death?

David: Yeah.

JR: so she could be with Vigo.

David: yeah.

JR: wanted to end up withAnd I think there's another scene where there's the older elf, the father Elf, and he's sort of saying. I'm tired of this life. He's the one that was on the boat at the end that crossed [00:50:00] over.

David: Yeah.

JR: He willingly jumped in the boat 'cause he wastired of living for all eternity. No, that's a neat image also.

David: And you also see it, the more I think about it, because it's the hobbits, right? It's the humans. It's the age of men, and they're all out there engaged in this battle. Right? But what's the one reason why the elves don't? Well, we live forever. It's not our battle right? Now, some of them do help, like you said, some of them make this choice to say, I'm tired of this kind of boring life.

I'm living. Let's go live this adventure that these other people are with all the dangers involved, right? Because there are some elves that die

JR: But no, it's an interesting picture because, well, we raised the question earlier of is there actually a good picture of living forever and even in the elves, you see a lot of downside in the way they live, even though you initially go, man, that would be cool to be one of those guys, right?

for a hundred years, practice archery. 

David: Yeah.

JR: Just a complete savage.

David: Yeah, if I could shoot like Legolas, that'd be cool. 

JR: Yeah, but it goes back to that idea that immortality disconnects you from humanity. And that's why they didn't want to engage in the fight [00:51:00] of the mortals, because why would I risk it?

I mean, I just have to wait two or 300 years and this stupid reign will pass 

David: yeah,

JR: back to living the good life, right? Yeah, it just changes your perspective about everything.

David: Yeah, yeah.

JR: How the more we think about these myths, I mean we could probably go on and on and talk about mythical ideas orthe narratives that I think are pulling on this thread a little bit that we've been talking about.

David: Yeah. And they're thereand that's what people are wrestling with. Is this a good idea?

JR: Yeah.

David: Do you really want to be an elf? Right?

JR: Yeah, the first time you see Lord of the Rings, I'm like, dude, I wanna be Legolas. I wanna be that sniper. But maybe as you watch it, you're supposed to change your opinion. It's like, no, I wanna be the hero. I even wanna be the hobbit that goes on

David: That goes on the adventure.

JR: It risks his life. And if there's nothing to risk, then how can you be a hero? Maybe it's something like that.

David: Yeah. And the thing about Legolas is he actually does choose to leave the Elvin community, and go live this adventure. So even in Legolas, he's still drawn to say, no, I wanna go out there and live [00:52:00] this dangerous. So it may be, yeah, right.

JR: Yeah. That's cool. I'm glad you brought that up because that really is cool. I hadn't thought about the elves either. Yeah The elves are eternal. Of course. how did we miss a Lord of the Rings reference. 

David: I don't, the, the more we do this, I'm like,

I don't know how we miss the whole, what mythic character symbolize this. It never even crossed my mind until we started on this podcast, but maybe that's some of the cool thing about discovery along the way. 

JR: But it goes back to that hero cycle or that life cycle and it's interesting that Lord of the Rings kind of captures all of these, so you got the hero in Aragorn, you got the king. He becomes the king, but there's, I forget the king's name, but you know, you've got the sage in, 

David: Gandalf.

JR: Yeah. but then, you've got the elves who are outside of that even as an interesting, nod to the cycle, the elves are outside of it and it explores all those ideas in those three movies.

Tolkien was a genius, man.

David: He was.

JR: He captured modern mythology like nobody else. 

David: Alright, well we could probably wrap this up. When we talk about what the Bible [00:53:00]says, I was also interested, 'cause I've read a lot of books about, some orthodox theology, but actually the early fathers have a lot to say about what death means, right? From our modern perspective, I think,death is the enemy, right?

Death is scary. And the desert fathers and early fathers said, no, actually death is playing a role. Right? I just wanna bring up a couple of ideas and get your thoughts too. So one of them is that death is a gift because it places limits on the corruption of sin.

Now this is a really interesting one, but Saint Athanasius. Okay. he explains that once humanity turns from God, it was spiraling towards corruption and endless sin. And then he basically says, if people lived forever in that fallen state, evil would have no end. So a modern way to say that is if you lived forever, what kind of trouble could you get yourself in?

in?

JR: Yeah I get into enough trouble in the 50 years I've been around. That is an interesting way to think about it. It places limits on the corruption of sin. 

David: Yeah, exactly. And [00:54:00] even in extreme cases, you can think of addictions, you can think of motivation to kick an addiction, right? It's like, if I'm gonna live forever, it's like, well, I'll stop doing crack in a hundred years or something. You know what I mean?

JR: Yeah.

David: What's the motivation to stop now and get my life together?

JR: That's an interesting thought. There's always more time to get your life together and for some reason, if you have the next stage like, Hey, I'm gonna become a father. I don't want to be smoking cigarettes and, and have two and 3-year-old kids, you know, so let's, let's kick this.

David: Yeah. 

JR: I don't wanna be drinking during the day, you know, when I've got a 4-year-old running around. And so there is something about the next stage that immortality or the quest for extreme longevity, delays. And so it delays the fact that I have to get my life together because I don't, why do I have to get my life together?

Well, because I wanna move on to the next stage. I wanna be, a family man. I wanna be a good husband. I want to be a respectable leader at my workplace, or something like that. And yeah, if you don't have that timeline that [00:55:00] you have to deal with, well, why not? Hold on to whatever your preferred vice is, right?

David: Yeah, there is something about the stages of life that prompt you to mature and grow up. You think of it especially as guys, right? It's like

JR: Yeah.

David: if you lived forever, what would ever prompt you to stop playing video games in your parents' basement? And it's like,well, call me in a hundred years.

Call me in 200 years. I might think about getting a job, but until then, there's this cool video game that came out right?

JR: Yeah. Well, there's nothing wrong with a 20-year-old playing video games and staying up till three in the morning and sleeping until noon, but there's something pathetic about a 40-year-old doing it. And that's all based on the stages of life. And you're right, when you erase those, why get rid of any vice?

Just keep at it.

David: Yeah. I'll tackle it later. That's tomorrow's problems. 

But yeah so death is a gift in that sense that we get to get rid of this. But even, to take that orthodox statement, even every stage of life, there's a certain death and rebirth. And so even the death of the previous [00:56:00] stage, that's a gift. 

 So every stage, when you get married, you're mourning the loss of your single hood, but you're also celebrating a better life of marriage.

JR: Right.

David: You know when you're an empty nester, you expect kids, you're gonna mourn something, but you're also celebrating something.

JR: Yeah. 

David: I like that. It's that if you can see life as a series of mourning the stage that is ending, but celebrating what is to come that should continue all the way through our life. I think if we understand death properly.

JR: And when you see it that way, you can start to see the absurdity of wanting to be immortal in any fashion.

David: Yeah, I think that's right.

I'm convinced. based on our conversation. 

JR: Based on this podcast, I'm not interested

You might've sold me before, talked it outbut yeah. Now I'm starting to rethink this.

David: All right. A couple more I wanna get to, Gregory of Nysa, basically says, death introduces a way for resurrection and then transformation, which is very similar to what I think the Apostle Paul actually says. You know, do you want resurrection? Well, you're gonna have to die first.

JR: Right.

David: Sign me up for the resurrection.

Oh, [00:57:00] wait a minute, I have to die first. Uh, I don't know. And Paul's like, you've gotta take one with the other.

JR: Death is the ultimate letting go, right? It's not just biological death, It's the act of release. It's children leaving the home. It's retiring. It's accepting limits. It's that ego yielding to the next stage. And when you learn to let go, when you learn to surrender, then you can embrace renewal.

That's the transcendence, 

David: Yeah.

JR: That's the mythological idea of, Persephone has to go to the underworld for spring to come, you have to

David: Death and a renewal, right?

JR: Yes 

David: You have to die to renew. And,

JR: I hate that we waited this far in the episode to pull on this thread, but yeah, if you recognize that life is full of these cycles of death, renewal and, regeneration, then why would you try to put an end to the ultimate end of that cycle.

David: Yeah.

Yeah. Well, there's a,there's something that is either a quote or something one of us wrote down. it plays into what you just said. from this perspective, death is a part of life and transformation.

We should not be trying to conquer death because [00:58:00] Christ has already done that. And I thought, wow, that's true. This quest for immortality is an attempt to conquer death. And the God of the Bible says Christ has already done that.

JR: Yeah When you said that it popped in my head. Uh Hebrews I was just reading this Hebrews two is verses 14 and 15 talking about Jesussince the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, And free those all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. That's another great verse that I mean it just really has a different ring to itwhen you're talking about it through this lens of the weirdness of immortality. You're exactly right. Christ has conquered death so that we would no longer fear it. Yet here we are, talking about all these tech bros that are trying to conquer death, right?Because they fear it. 

David: Right, and I think it takes us full circle idea of the Bible offers eternal life as a gift versus [00:59:00] the attempt at immortality by trying to usurp God. And I think that verse in Hebrews that you just read, trying to counteract that because they fear death. And I wonder how many of these attempts, moderate attempts of immortality, is the fear of death and thinking that I can usurp God, like I can usurp the process, the spiritual truth that God has put in place. 

JR: Our attempt to conquer death is actually an attempt to undo what Christ has already done.

David: Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

JR: Like yeah, that has some heretical tone to it, right?

David: It does. 

JR: You

David: does.

JR: like 

David: Well, I don't know the Bible actually does teach that there's going to be a generation that doesn't experience physical death.

JR: In the end times.

David: At some point when Christ returns. that's the whole thing that Paul was addressing in Thessalonians, right? It's like,

talking about death and all these people are gonna be raised, what about me? What if Christ returns tomorrow? What happens to me? And. Paul's like, no, don't worry, God's got you covered.

We don't know exactly how that works, but I justthought that was another interesting aspect we [01:00:00] talk about all this and it's true for 99% of the time, but then Christ could return one day and there may be a generation that doesn't undergo physical death.

I don't know what that looks like. 

JR: Yeah but it's also not described in the best of terms either It's an it's another story that you're like oh wow that's cool. There's some people that aren't gonna die. And it's like yeah those are the people that are gonna go through the tribulation. You know you're gonna want to die You you know cause I think

David: Whatever. Yeah, whatever. All that. Yeah, whatever all that looks like. Yeah.

JR: Death will be robbed from it. There are people that are gonna try to die that are incapable of dying they're gonna want to but they can't. It's a good way to wrap it up. It's another final story about beating death so to speak and it not being described of in the best light. 

David: Yeah, that's right. 

JR: Here's another vampire story, right?

David: It's another vampire story. 

Well I think to wrap this up, we can say that, Scripture actually calls us to keep a tension, and pay attention too, but like a tension in that

we are to live this life as full as we can. This life is not a throwaway. We've said this before, [01:01:00]but at the same time,all these mini cycles lead to a great cycle of the seed being planted.

The Bible also says, don't fear death. Live the most out of life. I think that's kind of the summary and maybe the summary is don't be a vampire.

JR: No that's that's the best thing I got We got out of that. 

David: Yeah, That's right.

JR: Yeah life, like you have a purpose here on earth, but understand that you are an eternal soul destined, for someplace else.

David: Yeah, That's right. Well, that's our Stranger Things. And so we're gonnafinish the year off with I think a three part series. And we've been talking about maybe a coalescence of all these ideas of how to read the Bible.

JR: Oh,

David: Right. So

JR: was

David: is there way to just talk about

JR: interesting. That's gonna be

David: Yeah. 

Yeah. So how to read the Bible. That's how we're gonna finish this season.

JR: Okay. There you go, man.

David:

Step back into the world of the New Testament with my book, A Journey through Ephesus. In it, I not only explore the historical and cultural setting of this ancient city, but also share my personal experience of walking its streets and [01:02:00] standing where Paul once taught. It's part of my series that also includes a journey through Philippi and a journey through Colossi.

You can find a journey through Ephesus in print or ebook on Amazon and anywhere else where you purchase eBooks.