Furious Grandmothers wrote:I came to a sudden realization over dinner. What are the religions that do not place humans on a high pedestal over other animals, plants and organisms? Alternatively, religions whereby humans may be reincarnated into other organism? This is because many simple organisms, especially unicellular ones that reproduce by mitosis, do not actually age and therefore, cannot die of aging. So once you are reincarnated as that form, you are stuck there, forever.
However, I linked this to a rather popular scientific hypothesis that death evolved as a way to prevent some harmful mutations that can occur with too many cell divisions. To put it simply, complex enough organisms that do not die would have their cells divide to the extent that enough mutations occur to lead to the organisms being less fit to survive as compared to organisms which die but accumulate less harmful mutations over their lifetimes to be fit enough to outcompete the "immortal" but unfit organisms. "Immortal" in the sense that one cannot die of aging.
Therefore, I was thinking that IF humans happened to mutate and regress to being immortal, since natural deaths cannot occur, would it be that the concept of afterlife becomes irrelevant? What becomes of the various beliefs of world religions, then?
Also, I was thinking of another point more important than what I mentioned in the third paragraph above. But it was a bit of a mindfuck for me, so I lost the train of thought while typing this verbose post, hopefully I will recall it soon. Obviously, also to do with religion.
Well yes... but then the concept of life would become irrelevant. Any value that life once had would stagnate. The population would either kill itself off due to lack of nutrition, or just stop having children.
Elaborate further, plox. Paint me a picture of your beliefs.
My point is just that, when you take away death, what becomes of religion? Because it seems to me that the afterlife is a rather important concept in many religions. So it is very true that religion can continue on as a moral compass in a world moving at a blindingly fast pace where one can easily lose oneself.
I'd go further than that though. I hold that putting yourself even on a par with others is immoral. The only moral action is to do something that benefits you only when it benefits other people more than it disadvantages them. (Yes, this has lots and lots of implications. No, I don't hold myself to be moral, nowhere near). 
