I believe humanity will first achieve ...
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- How much of your coding is done by AI coding agents these days? Posted on June 21st, 2026 | 8807 votes
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- How much of your coding is done by AI coding agents these days? Posted on June 21st, 2026 | 33 comments
Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
And mind uploading... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind uploading would probably lead to all sorts of possibilities for identity theft and extreme violation of privacy.
It would also be a totalitarian's wet dream. To find out someone's opinions or recent actions, just grab them and upload their mind into an analysis device. Then start the search programs while keeping the suspect in a suitable place.
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By the way - if that is truly a concern of yours I hope you are in favor of limiting government power and not expanding it.
Re:And mind uploading... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there is more negatives than positives. Once it can be determined without a doubt what you are thinking you'll no longer only get blamed for your actions we won't be long from thought-crimes. Also there is a huge amount of the (romance?) of history to be lost. We like to think how nobly Reagan stared down the commi threat, or how evil Stalin was etc. But what if we read their thoughts and Stalin really thought he was doing a good thing and Reagan was a meglomaniac that was obssessed with his public image? Sometimes nice to give people credit for their actions without going into their own personal judgments, weaknesses etc.
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"Mind uploading would probably lead to all sorts of possibilities for identity theft and extreme violation of privacy. "
Seems to me that mind uploading would be a requisite for teleportation and teleportation would result in immortality.
To teleport, you'd have to read the full person, body its mind to recreate it at the destination. So for example if you have cancer, you'd just teleport the non cancerous part, all sorts of edits should be possible.
If you die, you could recreate the person from the recording
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Of all of these, World Peace is the most likely--read Stephen Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which details the decline of violence in the world and proposes explanations for it. Pinker's thesis is not a theory in search of data, but a mountain of evidence in search of an explanation. All of the technological innovations listed here will probably require us to divert resources from military spending to scientific research on a grand scale. Even human extinction is unlikely. Our worst scenarios may
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
You Republicans! Always pushing your agenda!
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Re:Of course... (Score:4)
Hmmmm. 1984 was written by George Orwell who was a self proclaimed socialist
But I bet he cashed the checks from sales of his book in the marketplace.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I bet hardly anyone on /. has read 1984...
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Heh, I'm sure it's a popular book around here.
Still, at least one of the replies to the parent that I saw seemed to take the original comment a little too seriously; I figured a gentle "poke" was in order. :-D
Re:Of course... (Score:4, Funny)
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Yeah, I bet hardly anyone on /. has read 1984...
Read, yes; understood, no.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, it was kind of weird reading 1984 in 1984. Made me think it was a really bad idea putting years in literature, movies and games, as Twilight 2000, Cyberpunk 2019/2020, 2000/2001, etc literally date themselves.
Strangely, at the time, I thought the US (part of Oceania) could never become a totalitarian regime like it was in 1984, but now I see us (and other parts of 1984's Oceania like Britain) becoming more of a surveillance oriented, paranoid society courtesy of one late Osama bin Laden. With a political system where only the rich really have a chance and the division between the rich and the poor widening at an astounding rate, I think we're at or rapidly moving into a plutocracy, where only the rich have power. Sure every American can all vote, but it is economically impossible for a poor candidate to compete at a high level. The only relatively poor person I've seen win an election won a city council seat (and that paid $7000/year, so she was still on welfare, and I heard about it because it was a big enough deal to make news).
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Movie? I thought it was just a computer ad...
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Of course it does.
—B.B.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed.
Let's consider the choices:
Human-scale teleportation -> which would be followed by turning it into a weapon. Go humanity! Teleporting bombs into enemy territory, for those without creativity.
Faster-than-light travel -> We haven't visited another celestial body (astronauts) in how long? True, we have new engines in the works, and the various commercial space programs are finally getting there, but we're being repeatedly setback by paranoia and (in the case of radioactive substances powering the engine) energy policies which don't make sense. Space is BYOES (Bring Your Own Energy Source), and radioactive substances are the most compact and powerful ones we have. Also, anything of any great mass at light-speed can be used as a weapon. Mass drivers, yay!
Mind uploading ->An interface that links man and machine? Yes, and hopefully of the several that will be developed, hopefully it will be a good one. Uploading a human mind to another machine? Doubtful. It's like trying to move an already installed OS from one machine to another; difficult at best. Also, advertisements would reach a new level of annoying here (subconscious programs being slipped into your mind-stream, to buy more Hanes underwear or something).
Immortality -> Death is always changing his game. The one day we are sure we have a sure cure for mortality is the day that the human race becomes extinct. Why? Because everyone will buy-in to the cure for death, become complacent, then a flaw will be revealed (you're sterile, and getting hit with a nuke will still kill you); because we became complacent, we won't be looking for it, until it's upon us. And it would nail everyone at once.
World peace -> Depends how you define peace. Eliminating free will might be considered peaceful, but I think the majority of us would rather have constant warfare and free will, than peace and slavery. World peace will be achieved when human beings quit pissing each other off. Even a modest increase of genuine sincerity (good luck with that) would probably lesson the various clashes, and it can be done without touching free will.
Extinction -> This is the most likely result. As the saying goes, you can always bet on death and taxes, and come out ahead.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Teleporting bombs into enemy territory
You don't get it. If we have teleportation, then it doesn't make sense to have border at all. It would simply destroy this old concept, as people (and things) could freely move in and out without any sorts of control.
but I think the majority of us would rather have constant warfare and free will, than peace and slavery
Well, currently, we have a bit of warfare (but frankly, not much) and a total slavery (open your eyes), and very few are complaining.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get it. If we have teleportation, then it doesn't make sense to have border at all. It would simply destroy this old concept, as people (and things) could freely move in and out without any sorts of control.
I'm not sure that you get it either. Teleportation doesn't imply the ability to teleport to anywhere. There might be a requirement for a receiver, for one thing.
Also, your argument isn't valid for other reasons. Like it being equally true for the invention of planes. So why didn't we get a diaspora and eradication of borders in the years leading up to WWII?
Part of the answer is that new technology is never "freely" usable. Only people of means will have access for a long, long time. Poor people still can't fly anywhere they want.
Another part is that most people like it just fine where they are, or would rather deal with the devil they know than the devil they don't.
Then there's the whole politics and power thing. How long do you think it would take before the people in power would impose laws making unauthorized teleportation an act of terrorism, and the unwashed masses would thank their masters for "protecting" them?
I would think that many of the common religions would be the strongest opponents - it would jeopardize put the whole "soul" superstition. Especially if you don't have to destroy the original, or can create multiple copies, but even a straight one-to-one teleportation might be problematic - does it involve a suicide and resurrection?
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling western society "total slavery" is the kind of myopia possible only in a society without actual slavery in it it. Or from a person with the social/emotional development of an adolescent.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Interesting)
Toughest poll in a long time, I admit.
Human-scale teleportation has a Heisenberg problem.
Faster-than-light travel has an Einstein problem.
Mind uploading has a problem even defining "mind", much less describing how it works.
Immortality is my pick. We have the telomeres half figured out already. However, this is a limited immortality, accidents and homicide will still get you.
World peace; "Depends how you define peace." Exactly. See Miranda, as in the movie Serenity. In theory, we've known how to do world peace for thousands of years, but we haven't done it. Obviously we don't actually want peace.
Extinction; we could off ourselves as a species, but we are pretty versatile. The ability to modify our local environment means some portion of the species will survive somewhere on the planet.
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I'm with you on all counts.
Only one thing - telomeres will achieve immortality, what you describe as "limited immortality" is just plain old immortality. Surviving getting hit by busses would be invincibility -- totally different things.
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"Limited immortality" is not just plain old immortality. Immortality means the lack of mortal existence - you cannot be killed or destroyed. Anything can be done to you and you keep going on. A key here - if you are hit by a bus, you can sustain a mortal wound. Hence, immortality would have to at least be an extension of mind uploading (so that your "mind" could forever be preserved). One may argue that if teleportation is actually creating a copy, then immortality would be an extension of two of the t
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Re:Of course... (Score:4, Interesting)
Mind Uploading :
The "upload" that will very likely work (as in there is no theoretical reason why it would not, and it will be technically achievable at some point assuming continued development) is the following process.
Patient is put to sleep, and all the arteries in their neck are connected to a set of artificial pump equipment. Their skull is removed with bone saws. A high pressure (relative to normal blood pressures, obviously just below the threshold to blow an artery) flow of superchilled fluid, full of synthetic molecules that cap ice crystals before they grow, calcium channel blockers, vasodilators, and several other drugs is flushed through the brain. The brain is also sprayed with chilled gas from the outside, and the whole assembly is inside a large oscillating magnet to further discourage ice crystal formation. The temperature in the brain will drop to -20 or -30 degress celcius, at which point all the liquid water will free instantly in an amorphous state.
Now, the brain is cooled further until it eventually is at liquid helium temperatures. A machine that uses arrays of trillions of nanoscale manipulators tears off a layer of the brain and analyzes the molecular composition. Layer by layer, the brain is destructively scanned, until at the end of the process an atomic bonding map of the entire brain has been generated.
This map is then loaded into a hardware emulator that uses more conventional circuitry to represent each synapse's current state.
This new entity would be I guess equivalent to a new artificial intelligence, created from an imperfect scan of an original person. The entity would probably need many years of therapy and retraining to function again (I don't expect the hardware emulators to ever be quite right) but at the end of the process the entity would be capable of performing the highest functions of human thought, able to design and create new things, and so on. The key reason to do this is that this entity would be limited only by the switching speed of the circuitry it runs on, and so would likely think one to a hundred million times faster than the original brain it was derived from.
And of course the hardware, and the mapping configuration would all be editable, so once there are several of these entities they could tweak each other to make each other smarter and more efficient, and so on.
Re:Of course... (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, I'll sign right up for that. : /
Re:Of course... (Score:4, Informative)
> the only change I have to make is tell it "eth0 doesn't exist anymore" so I can have the interfaces named from eth0
You can fix that bogosity forever. Create empty stub scripts in /etc/udev/rules.d for 75-persistent-net-generator.rules and while you are there also create 75-cd-aliases-generator.rules to stop it doing the same thing to cd drives. After that you can move an installed linux image pretty much at will and everything automagically adjusts itself.
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Haha I was thinking the same thing, "are rsync scripts really that hard?"
Even Windows isn't that big of a deal though.
Define immortality (Score:4, Insightful)
If you read Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and Void Trilogy, you'll see his take on immortality.
Essentially it boils down to a combination of mind upload, cloning and mind download into the new clone.
The body isn't immortal, and there is always the risk of body-loss, but with proper care, it will always be possible to restore the mind from an earlier backup.
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I enjoy Hamilton's works immensely, too. But keep in mind it's lumped under space opera for a reason: it's the 21st century equivalent of ray guns, evil villains capturing princesses, phallic rocketships, and bubble helmets. In 75 years, should we survive, we'll look back on it with the same amusement.
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Like most science fiction writing you mean?
I've always found this definition of 'space opera' a bit of a misnomer, as if true science fiction always follows the laws of physics or has a deep underlying message about the future of technology. If you look back at the works of Asimov, Heinlein, Lem and Clarke you know that this isn't always the case.
The reason Hamilton's works are lumped under space opera is because of the extensive
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Make sure you have permissions from your parents as they own the copyright on you. Unless they sold them to a publisher.
More seriously, I can see "continuity of experience" as being a form of immortality. As long as the "copy" experiences continuity (whether or not it actually is continuity) then the illusion of immortality is preserved, isn't it? It the "copy" was placed in storage and then "booted" back into a body 100 years later, no time
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As long as the "copy" experiences continuity (whether or not it actually is continuity) then the illusion of immortality is preserved, isn't it?
Well, it probably wouldn't be preserved for me. Kind of defeats the purpose of immortality...
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This is in fact a very thorny issue to tackle. What if you have a teleportation device that makes a perfect copy of you while instantly destroying the original? We say now that the original is the original because we aren't very good at copying more than pieces of paper (and now 3D print a very few things). But what if the technology would be so good that nobody, not even you would be able to tell that you've been copied and the original destroyed? How could you tell you're still "the original"? You could g
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Easy! You check if you have dots under your bottom eyelid [imdb.com]!
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Which is why I'd favor wormholes. None of the moral dilemmas, and arguably more useful.
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I've thought of myself as a kind of series discrete moments of conciousness. Every instant I'm alive, I'm sitting on the top of a whole history of these long since finished moments. Moreover - this moment now, will be gone in an instant, and they'll be another moment of conciousness which claims it as part of it's history.
Here today, I think I'd consider myself to be still alive at any point in the future where someone exists who claims to be sitting on the top of my entire history of moments of conciousnes
Awkward (Score:2)
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It depends how you interpreted immortality in the question really ("true" immortality, clinical immortality), but I wouldn't put so much stock in biotech: a lot of the advances right now are more to do with quantity, collaboration and number-crunching then any real ingenious breakthroughs in our toolset. The most depressing thing is when someone talks about some amazing proteomics work, and it turns out its amazing in scope because the tools for doing it are actually just awful and labor intensive. A lot of
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Define immortality (Score:2)
It boils down to the race to immortality v. extinction in my mind.
If you define immortality in terms of the individual, it is not competeing with extinction. It is actualy leading to it, becuase individual immortality is one of the best ways to achive species stagnation and to deplete any resource you depend on.
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The universe has a finite lifetime. There us NO possibility of immortality.
Uploading, sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
But what good is an upload if you can't restore?
Nobody ever thinks about the restore.
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Why would you want to restore if you can build any kind of body material science would allow, or travel by radio wave?
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World peace (Score:2)
World peace is simple. Once we start colonizing other planets, war will almost inevitably shift from "people on this tract of land killing people on that tract of land" to "people on this ball of dirt killing people on a different ball of dirt".
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Any while currently unlikely, it is entirely possible there at one point at least for a few minutes no two nations are at active war with each other.
Still immortality will arrive sooner, the question is only at what price.
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true immortality is impossible, barring exclusive access to a real backwards traveling time machine and a whole planet devoted to your immortality.
barring that there is the next closest thing existing until energy food and water resources are rendered impossible to sustain quality life.
even then the limits of data retention and the finite number of possible amusements immortality is pointless, it's better for the old to die hopefully after the young have learned how to maintain a society worth living in.
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You can take man out of nature, but you can't remove nature from man.
Sure you can; you just need an icepick, a hammer, and a steady hand.
Achievable vs Enticing (Score:2)
It makes me wonder what would be most inte
Easy poll! Immortality. (Score:5, Funny)
Through salvation in Christ, we *already have* immortality. Depending on when the Second Coming is, you may have to go through that messy death thing first, but the destination is worth the trip!
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Only one problem, according to the Christian religion, you have to die to get "immortality".
And then you don't get to interact with people who are still alive.
Which sort of defeats the purpose.
Re:Easy poll! Immortality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Through salvation in Christ...
Okay, and if I say Allah will save us, will I get a +3 insightful mod, or will I be marked -1 troll? And I ask this question on a website dedicated to science and technology, where religion should only be discussed in the context of how religion conflicts or compliments either of those.
Re:Easy poll! Immortality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, it's pretty simple to understand the Abrahamic faiths. Let me summarize the messages from the three major collections of written texts which form the pillars of the three significant faiths:
Old Testament (essentialy Judaism): There is a God ...and he loves you ...but not all that much
New Testament (adds with OT to give Christianity):
Quaran (adds with much of the above to give Islam):
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Not sure I want that kind of immortality thanks, considering I'd probably go to hell. I'm pro choice, pro gay rights/marriage, anti state sponsored religion, never pray, I had sex outside of marriage and (like most people in the western world) enjoy various other sins on a daily basis.
Immortality how? (Score:2)
Stopping ageing might be possible, but that doesn't mean you can't get killed.
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You could have a system wherein if you're ever killed, you get downloaded into a new body, or something similar.
The only actual choices (Score:2, Interesting)
The only actual choices are world peace and extinction, and your choice among them depends only on whether you're an optimistic or pessimistic person..
Copying (Score:2)
Pop science (Score:3)
Now you can see with the ideas of Ray Kurzweil are popular, so people are voting for mind uploading, but I don't think they understand how difficult that is. If you look at the list of things Aubrey de Grey lists for immortality, it is much more manageable and those are really hard. Not only would you have to model all the neurons in a human brain, of which there are between 100trillion and 10 quadrillion connections (10^14 - 10^16), you would also need to find out what state they are in currently. And figure out their spiking levels, etc. It's a gigantic task, with many hurdles to be overcome first.
Personally I voted for world peace, because we're already trending that way (fewer wars every decade), and even if it's unlikely it's more likely than all the others (extinction? You really don't think there will be any survivors of your preferred cataclysm?)
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Though possibly those who voted for "mind uploading" have simpler minds than those who didn't, which would therefore present less of a technical challenge
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A typical human brain manages that complexity. There's six billion instances of those on earth. Therefore, obviously, there's no physical barrier to creating a receptacle for human co
World peace at great cost (Score:2)
Re:World peace at great cost (Score:5, Insightful)
A police state is not at peace.
It is just a war in which one side -- the ones who label themselves "the state" -- is unilaterally winning.
States are just made of people, so if a state is turning against its people, then there is a war between "the people" and some other people -- "the state". Just because the latter is winning hands down, doesn't make it any less of a war.
Extinction (Score:2)
Extinction is the obvious, rational choice. We could (and may) achieve it today. Technologically, we have already achieved it. All we have to do is push the button. No rational person could choose a pie in the technology that will probably never be developed as being more likely than something we could do today. That said, I certainly hope the order of events turns out differently.
Immorality (Score:5, Funny)
It's a no-brainer, really.
The US Air Force is on teleportation. (Score:2)
I don't know if anything ever came of it, but as recently as August 2004, the Air Force was working on finding ways to accomplish human teleportation (and remote viewing, etc.).
http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/teleport.pdf [fas.org] ...and before you say it, no this isn't just another wacky conspiracy theory (though I thought it was at first). There's an actual money-and-paper trail, and those involved with the projec
(PDF report from one of the people involved; it's unclassified, so this is easy enough to find/verify.)
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Interesting that they did it, but all it really means now is that some guy at the Air Force paid some other guy to look into teleportation. Didn't look like there was much in the way of practical-sounding theories on how to go about actually teleporting something.
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You're right. At least so far as it's been reported, they didn't get anywhere with it. (Of course, if I were them and I DID get somewhere with it, I'd keep it good and quiet for surprising military actions later...)
Anyway, even though they don't appear to have had any success, the fact that somebody with funding and interest has been looking into it improves its odds (slightly), in my mind. Maybe someone will get it right before we all die, upload, or become immortal.
I voted for extinction (Score:5, Insightful)
I voted for extinction because it's the only one where we have the slightest clue of having a way to actually do it. Everything else is pure pie-in-the-sky handwavium now.
We know how to do one of these... (Score:2)
...extinction.
The rest are still head-scratchers.
I voted World peace, (Score:2)
Because that only takes another 15000 years to achieve. Extinction is not an option. Humans are too much like rats to go extinct.
Cowboy Neal ? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dependency (Score:5, Insightful)
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If the last person goes nuts and starts hurting himself/commits suicide, that blows the whole "peace" theory...
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You've never been around a pregnant woman, have you?
On a more serious note, if the last person alive is a pregnant woman, I'd figure that the odds of extinction with no prenatal care and no birth assistance would actually increase.
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Re:Dependency (Score:5, Informative)
You're talking about Lillith. In some of the myths, Yahweh made the first woman from the Earth, like Adam, and Adam and Lillith were thus equals. Lillith refuses to be subordinate to Adam, and eventually flees, possibility reproducing with an angel and creating a race of demons.
That later stuff (about the demons) was mostly concocted by Christians in Spain, rather than ancient Jews, and it fits their MO.
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There is another problem (apart from taking things literally, where I strongly disagree with you): Versions.
There is no THE Bible. There are collections of testaments and stories. What we call the New Testament went through a few mayor edits by early and not so early Christians. Large parts were modified, left out or added. Even if you just stick to the old Testament and take it for granted there remains the problem of translating, interpreting an
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not a religious person, but I do know that early Genesis accounts have it that Adam's first wife was not in fact, Eve, but a woman named Lillith. She was created from the earth as Adam was, while Eve was created from one of Adam's ribs after Lillith left him for the archangel Samael hence begat by him, Gilgamesh (ha-Cohen, c.1200~).
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Gilgamesh is not a Jewish nor is it in genesis but it dose tell a similar tale that yes involves Lillith. although if i remember correctly she is mentioned in the book of Job but not as adams wife but as a demon or witch
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she's mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls but not in the King James.
Wonder why?
Re:Dependency (Score:4, Insightful)
She's mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls, however not in a book that would become canonical (or, for that matter, that was known before the discovery of the DSS.) It was not included in the King James version because it wasn't even known at the time the King James was translated. It was simply an obscure, first century Jewish manuscript lost when Palestine was destroyed by the Romans, long before Christianity had any power to speak of.
As for Lilith in the KJV, there is significant debate about the meaning of the Hebrew word used in Isaiah 34:14 (the only canonical reference to Lilith.) I am not a Hebrew scholar (my doctorate's in New Testament) so I can only defer to those who are, who tell me that the meaning is dubious.
No need for conspiracy theories.
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Although you might find a few Catholics who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, such an interpretation is not based on the teachings of the Church.
Re:Dependency (Score:5, Funny)
Oedipus likes this post
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nothing would be something. Peace can only be attained by a total absence of everything, including nothing.
I do not know where that just came from. But it sounds deep if you read it aloud and under the influence of something mind-altering.
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Immortality here (possible mad scientist). I just like the idea of having someone hitting me with a sledgehammer, a car, and a tank, and still being able to walk away from that. Preferably not crippled or in pain. If we can work in some minor invincibility / youth in there, things might be more interesting. They say that youth is wasted on the young, right? Let's find out it if that's true.
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I read this and the first thing I thought was, "Can you really grow cotton in Arizona?" I think something might be wrong with my brain.
If you accumulate enough ormus in your body, you'll be able to biolocate from one place to another, even between different planets, instantaneously.
Wasn't Ormus a character in Diablo 2? Kinky.
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Holy crap, that dude's a LOON. Too funny, I love reading about these nutjobs.
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we get to spend forever with God
Who's 'we'? And why do you think you'll be included?
Sounds like the sin of pride. Thank's for playing, but you've just been disqualified.
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*sigh*
Look, even though I agree with you, your post looks like trolling. You're an easy target, and you're removing credibility from Christianity, not adding to it.
Slashdot just isn't the place to spout blind faith. There is a whole Internet out there worth of forums for that. Slashdot (theoretically) is for intelligent, semi-informed discussion.