Computers Enable People to Live Forever?

Ray Kurzweil is a very smart man, and has written extensively about his confidence that computers and medical technology (e.g., nanobots that will repair human tissue) will effectively allow humans to live forever. See this blog post for a good jumping off point on that theme.

A few thoughts on this idea:

1. This is a sad idea. Given the frustrations of life, and the grinding nature of sin in human relationships -- irrespective of the perfection of the human body and our thinking capacity -- I suspect such "eternal" life would be a Faustian bargain. There is no way these technologies address our fundamental problems of being.

2. This is an arrogant idea. There is a Creator, and He is sovereign over all our steps. One car accident, one tornado, one slippery kitchen floor... there are damages to the human body that cannot be overcome by technological repairs.

3. May our Lord save us from situations where we are tempted to sin because we have technological options that far outstrip our wisdom.

4. I can hear Thomas a Kempis speaking: "What good is it to live long if we do not live well?" (from The Imitation of the Christ)

5. We have not learned the lessons from the Tower of Babel. I'm certainly in favor of medical advances to help people. But we have a strong tendency to pursue these things because we want to become gods.