SENS {The 7 deadly Sins}
Wow, where to begin after such a Title for an Intro?
SENS is the official site of Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist - a title, which for most, will be as elusive in meaning as the Title of this blog.
Dictionary definition of gerontologist is: the scientific study of old age, the process of aging, and the particular problems of old people
In short Aubrey de Grey views aging as a disease, and therefore is researching in how to prevent and to cure the disease of aging.
It would be no big surprise that many in todays milieu would immediately scoff at the idea and say that it was absolutely ludicrous.
For the religious it would perhaps be seen as blasphemy, and ‘playing God’ - for the secular, it may be a reaction of disbelief and assigning the idea to the category of fairy tales and mythology. Yet to others, both religious and secular, it may be seen as…potential…something that is neither good nor bad, but something that is worth pursuing.
Words are indeed tricky.
We understand what is said based on our experiences with life.
This indeed is the issue with translating words from one language to another. Not only can you sometimes get a total opposite meaning after a literal ‘word for word’ translation {meleg vagy…meleg = hot / vagy = you are — you are hot. —wrong! Your homosexual is the correct meaning and is not understood at all for ‘are you hot’} even more so think of all the times we misunderstand each other in our own native tounges…those even closest to us!
Having said that, lets look at the idea of curing aging as if it were a disease.
Is this so far fetched for the secularist? Is this so humanistic of an idea to the religious?
Let us consider what aging means for most of us. It means simply poor health, chronic diseases, and basically going down hill at a certain point in life until you are rotting and wish you were dead.
For the religious I could easily suggest that God did not intend for us to live such a life in which the quality declines to the point where we are no more than a vegetable waiting to fully wither up under the sun and die.
As for the secularist, I think they would agree that they would not want to meet such a fate if not necessary.
So forget the initial reaction to the fact that someone wants to cure aging.
“What, we are to be immortal?”
Cure the diseases related to aging, and find that it naturally extends your life. Is it by 10 - 50 or even 1000 years?
Does it matter? The point would seem to be about the nature and quality of life that we live while we are here…not debating how many years we are to be here.
It seems a bit unfortunate, but it appears that Aubrey has to spend most of his time trying to defend, and apply apologetics of sorts, as to why people should not be afraid of such efforts. And again this seems to be a large front, as fear has many faces. {again, ‘we are playing god’ or ‘we will overpopulate’ or ‘the tyrants will rule us all’}
Time and again, fear is usually that which is responsible for the suffering that happens in the world. As innocent as it sounds when it first comes out of the seemingly innocent and well meaning person…it eventually leads to suffering, wars, and a lack of benevolence from mankind to his fellow brother. A lot more could be said here, but I will say that fear is not something that is beneficial for a religious person or secularist. For the religious/Christian, we know that God said ‘fear not’…and for both Christian and secularist, science has shown the negative ‘benefits’ of fear.
Moving on…
SENS outlines, what is seen as, 7 main factors related to the aging process - or the ‘disease of aging.’
There is a foundation set up, with the intent of trying to research into how to prevent and reverse the negative effects of the aging process.
Give both sites a look.
A warning, the SENS site may feel a bit overwhelming at first due to layout…In short the 7 deadly sins are not called such in the menu. They are actually listed into 4 categories under SENS Science.
Also, a quick look at wiki may give you a better overview of what the 7 deadly sins are. {again, not ’sin’ as in a religious teaching}
So, enjoy, and may your life be a vibrant and joyous one!
Peace
Dalen
SENS is the official site of Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist - a title, which for most, will be as elusive in meaning as the Title of this blog.
Dictionary definition of gerontologist is: the scientific study of old age, the process of aging, and the particular problems of old people
In short Aubrey de Grey views aging as a disease, and therefore is researching in how to prevent and to cure the disease of aging.
It would be no big surprise that many in todays milieu would immediately scoff at the idea and say that it was absolutely ludicrous.
For the religious it would perhaps be seen as blasphemy, and ‘playing God’ - for the secular, it may be a reaction of disbelief and assigning the idea to the category of fairy tales and mythology. Yet to others, both religious and secular, it may be seen as…potential…something that is neither good nor bad, but something that is worth pursuing.
Words are indeed tricky.
We understand what is said based on our experiences with life.
This indeed is the issue with translating words from one language to another. Not only can you sometimes get a total opposite meaning after a literal ‘word for word’ translation {meleg vagy…meleg = hot / vagy = you are — you are hot. —wrong! Your homosexual is the correct meaning and is not understood at all for ‘are you hot’} even more so think of all the times we misunderstand each other in our own native tounges…those even closest to us!
Having said that, lets look at the idea of curing aging as if it were a disease.
Is this so far fetched for the secularist? Is this so humanistic of an idea to the religious?
Let us consider what aging means for most of us. It means simply poor health, chronic diseases, and basically going down hill at a certain point in life until you are rotting and wish you were dead.
For the religious I could easily suggest that God did not intend for us to live such a life in which the quality declines to the point where we are no more than a vegetable waiting to fully wither up under the sun and die.
As for the secularist, I think they would agree that they would not want to meet such a fate if not necessary.
So forget the initial reaction to the fact that someone wants to cure aging.
“What, we are to be immortal?”
Cure the diseases related to aging, and find that it naturally extends your life. Is it by 10 - 50 or even 1000 years?
Does it matter? The point would seem to be about the nature and quality of life that we live while we are here…not debating how many years we are to be here.
It seems a bit unfortunate, but it appears that Aubrey has to spend most of his time trying to defend, and apply apologetics of sorts, as to why people should not be afraid of such efforts. And again this seems to be a large front, as fear has many faces. {again, ‘we are playing god’ or ‘we will overpopulate’ or ‘the tyrants will rule us all’}
Time and again, fear is usually that which is responsible for the suffering that happens in the world. As innocent as it sounds when it first comes out of the seemingly innocent and well meaning person…it eventually leads to suffering, wars, and a lack of benevolence from mankind to his fellow brother. A lot more could be said here, but I will say that fear is not something that is beneficial for a religious person or secularist. For the religious/Christian, we know that God said ‘fear not’…and for both Christian and secularist, science has shown the negative ‘benefits’ of fear.
Moving on…
SENS outlines, what is seen as, 7 main factors related to the aging process - or the ‘disease of aging.’
There is a foundation set up, with the intent of trying to research into how to prevent and reverse the negative effects of the aging process.
Give both sites a look.
A warning, the SENS site may feel a bit overwhelming at first due to layout…In short the 7 deadly sins are not called such in the menu. They are actually listed into 4 categories under SENS Science.
Also, a quick look at wiki may give you a better overview of what the 7 deadly sins are. {again, not ’sin’ as in a religious teaching}
So, enjoy, and may your life be a vibrant and joyous one!
Peace
Dalen
posted by dalen at
1:47 PM
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