The ethics are clear at a surface level. If it is possible to live forever without depriving another person of a similarly long life, then there is little question that longer is better.

What does religion have to say about immortality? There is a wide variation of possible reactions to immortality in different faiths. Religions fall into two main groupings. They are divided roughly according to their understanding of the purpose of this life. Both of these groups posit the existence of a soul that is separate or beyond the physical body. It isn't my purpose to argue for or against the existence of a soul, but to discuss the implications of immortality for those who do believe in a soul and its progression through this world.



For the faiths that believe in reincarnation, the purpose of this life is to learn the necessary wisdom or detachment to move on to the next stage of the soul. As the soul learns the lessons of life it moves toward fulfillment. Both Buddhism and Hinduism fall into this category. The movement of the soul is determined by karma. Karma is created through the kinds of actions we take in this world. The purpose of karma is to determine the nature of your next life. If we become immortal than karma loses its force as a reason for 'good' deeds.

It seems to me that becoming immortal in our present bodies would mean that we would have to learn the lessons needed to achieve the final end of our souls whether that is dissolution in Nirvana or oneness with the Brahman or some other closing act apart from this existence. Immortality offers the opportunity to learn continuously for a very long time, but it also means that one's experience is limited to one body in one life. In electronic immortality that wouldn't hold true since you could be deliberately "reincarnated" as whatever you wanted. It would still mean that we were controlling the nature and identity of the self.

If I attain the purpose of my soul as an immortal being would I then cease to desire to live in this dimension? It would be a fascinating discussion. The final residence of the soul not the only question facing a world of immortals. If all beings are souls on a journey, then it is necessary that human birth continues. If we are able as physical beings to travel beyond our solar system then the need for new humans is not an issue. If we are constrained by the limits of the solar system, or even more so by the limits of our earth, than immortality will only be possible if the birth rate is reduced to zero, or at least to a strict replacement of those who have died for whatever reason.

Life of any kind allows for learning, but at some point it is logical to suggest that it is necessary for a soul to live as a sentient human so that the choices that need to be learned are learned. Of course if we are going to accept immortality, why not accept sentient beings of other species, even artificial sentience. The question would be whether even a sentient dolphin would need to learn the same lessons as a sentient human.

If we are immortal are denying access to completion to souls that are living as other species on our plane of existence? If this is so, than it means that we have an ethical requirement to limit immortality so that all may achieve what they need to achieve to grow to their fullest potential as souls.

For the faiths that believe that we have one life to get all the choices right to attain life in paradise or at least in the company of God, the issues are a bit different. The Abrahamic faiths are the main group of those who believe in a final heaven or hell. The choices made, either ethical or relational, determine one's final destination. Again I am not arguing for or against the existence of a soul, but suggesting some of the questions that arise given the existence of that soul.



Let's begin with the need for children. The first command that human were given, before they were tossed out of the Garden was to be fruitful and multiply. Of course that commandment looks very different for a small group of people than for a planet bursting at the seams with a population of seven billion and growing. If humans were going to master the earth, it was going to take more than just a few of them. It is indicative that by the time Moses came along that being fruitful and multiplying was no longer on the top ten of commandments.

If one can agree that the command grow in population was situational and not permanent, then it is a short leap to accepting that limiting population might be a very good thing. Taking that to its logical conclusion, there would be no problem with stopping the growth of the human species completely as long as the numbers were sufficient to continue to manage the world. Thus immortality would not be a situation that blocks other souls from salvation since the belief is that souls that have already died have already gone where they are going and that there is no waiting list to be born as human.

At the other end of life there is a bit more complexity. It comes down to whether your salvation is dependent on your deeds in life or on a relationship with God. Salvation by deeds would mean that through your very long life you would have to continuously be balancing the scales and ensuring that you stayed on the side of the righteous. It is hard enough for people to follow rules in the short term, an eternity of checking yourself against the rules would be tortuous. The obvious solution would be to choose to program yourself so that choices that fall outside the rules are impossible. Yet if choice is impossible, is it still righteousness?

If one believes that the soul's final destination depends on relationship, then the question is just as complex. Relationship shift and change over time. The Christian mystics talk about a union with God. It can't be sustained in this life, but is a foreshadowing of what is to come. The problem is that if we are immortal, then what is to come is indefinitely delayed. Unless attitudes to suicide change, I can't see Christian mystics committing suicide to be with God, especially since much of the reason for their life is built on the introduction of other people to God and salvation. If they leave this life to be with God then they might be condemning some other soul to life without knowing God.

I don't know of any verses in the Bible that talk about immortality in this world. The assumption is that life is limited. The expression of life span at seventy years is not proscription but description. The reality of people in the period during which the Bible was being written was that death came around the seventy year mark. There are some notable exceptions (aside from the very long lives attributed to those who lived before the flood in Genesis). Abraham lived to 140 years, Moses to 120 and David lived past 80 though he was much reduced by the end of his life. There is nothing to say that humans aren't allowed to live longer.

The question of immortality for those who believe in the afterlife, especially for those who are certain that they are going to heaven or the equivalent, is a question of why one would want to live in this world forever. The assumption of heaven is that this world is flawed and the next will be perfect. Why not live your three score and ten then go your everlasting reward?

The question of immortality and religious belief is a complex and varied as religion itself. Immortality itself is not forbidden, but there are consequences that raise questions that need to be addressed. This isn't to say that religion is the only voice in the discussion of immortality. I would argue that the questions raised by religion around the ethics of immortality are questions that we will need to discuss in some form before we will be able to say that we can be ethical immortals.