James Halperin - The First Immortal

“I tried my damnedest to convince her to have the mastectomy, but by the time I reached her, it was impossible to change her mind.

“She died less than eight months later at the age of thirty-one. Both husband and physician were devastated.

“And each bears part of the blame. Please remember that hope is a two-sided coin, with the face of St. Christopher on the obverse and a jackal on the reverse. As it can heal, so can it kill. We doctors must be sensitive to our patients’ need for hope, the right kind of hope, or many of them will seek it elsewhere.”

An hour later, at the nearby Pier 52 restaurant, the two former shipmates once again found themselves discussing philosophy. “You used to have a friend, an Evangelical Lutheran who became a doctor,” Epstein said. “What was his name again?”

“Toby Fiske,” Ben said. “Best cardiologist in Boston. But he’s not an Evangelical Lutheran anymore.”

“Really? Well good for him! What happened?” To this, Ben found himself sorely tempted to answer something like: Oh, he joined the Hare Krishnas.

“Divorced his first wife,” Ben said, “and accepted the blame for it, so the Church excommunicated him. Not sure he’s religious at all now. He’s still my best friend, so I guess I should know, but he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Ironic he’d be excommunicated over a divorce,” Epstein said. “I asked because a few years ago a lawyer I know told me about one of its ministers who was accused of having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl. Now that, it would seem to me, is a somewhat more serious offense then refusing to remain prisoner of a bad marriage. The Church had to pay her a boatload of money to keep it quiet. My friend handled the family’s side of the negotiations.”

“What happened to the minister?”

“Took absolution; agreed to counseling. They moved him to another state. He’s now shepherding the good Evangelical Lutherans in Pennsylvania. Just shows how the Church doesn’t like to eat its own cooking. Reminds me of those TV ministers who say they can cure anything through prayer and the laying on of hands—the lame shall walk and the blind shall see and all that—but if one of those fellows ever feels a lump in his own armpit, he’s on his private jet to the Mayo Clinic in ten minutes flat.”

Ben laughed. “You think all religions are scams, don’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” Epstein said. “But the religions are mostly scamming themselves. That they scam others is usually a side effect. Such is the nature of that brand of duplicity. Take that minister, for example. Evangelical Lutherans supposedly believe that heaven is superior to any pleasure we can experience on earth, and hell is worse then any misery we can ever imagine.”

“Most Christian religions support that theory,” Ben said.

“True. And heaven and hell are both eternal. Eternal. What if this minister had somehow died in flagrante delicto before he could receive absolution for his sin? Or worse, suppose even after absolution, the Heavenly Father were to deem that particular sin as beyond all forgiveness, a genuine possibility according to their dogma. Do you really think that for a piece of ass this minister was willing to risk inescapable, permanent damnation? Can you accept for one minute that such a man could possibly have believed the Church’s doctrine with the same conviction he used to express that doctrine to his flock?”

“Interesting point,” Ben allowed.

“Personally, I think most organized religion is no different from medical quackery.”

“How so?”

“Its practitioners are either liars or self-deceivers who concoct a worldview that gets them where they want to go. And mostly they play to our innate fear of death.” He glanced at Ben mischievously. “You still want to live forever, Ben?”

“Been a long time since I’ve thought about that,” he answered, then realized it was a lie. In fact he thought about it daily. “The idea seems more far-fetched for you and me today than it did twenty-eight years ago. Not as much time left to figure out how to do it. But yes, I would if I could. Just to see what happens in this amazing world.”

“What do you suppose becomes of you when you die?” Epstein prodded, obviously steering the conversation toward a predetermined destination.

“I don’t imagine anyone knows.”

“I think I know.”

“You do? Well, tell me, then.”

“ Nothing becomes of you! The billions of years after you die will seem exactly like the billions of years that happened before you were born. Religion and God, heaven and hell, are all inventions of man—”

“Which doesn’t explain why so many of us believe in one God,” Ben interrupted, “and why so many religions believe in essentially the same monotheistic deity.”

“No, but evolution and human nature can explain that part.”

“Evolution?”

“Sure,” Epstein said. “Belief in eternal reward, for acts of heroism in war and morality in peace, would tend to preserve societies and therefore the people who comprise them.”

“Interesting.”

“Human nature makes its contribution to religion, too. With so much misery and unfairness around us, we refuse to believe that death is the end of it, that it isn’t part of some greater plan where good citizens are eventually rewarded and evil is punished. But we, as scientists, should resist our natural impulse to believe that which we merely wish to be true. Life and awareness are matter and energy directed by molecules in our brain cells, and when those cells die, our identity is permanently lost.”

“No such thing as a soul?” Ben said, even as he doubted his own words. “I refuse to think of myself as mere atoms. How can you ?”

“If you mean by a soul the essence of an individual’s identity, then yes, there is most definitely such a thing as a soul. But take away the matter housing that soul and it will disappear forever. The concept of a soul sans matter, a unique magic in our corpuscles, is called vitalism . It’s an idea which nearly all biologists now reject. We discover tangible and chemical reasons for every cellular reaction and capability we study: motion, reproduction, growth, excretion, consciousness itself. The whole field of biotechnology is taking root as a result of these discoveries. The soul is a tempting concept, Ben, but wrong beyond earthly terms. Life on this planet is all there is. Once you die, you are dust.”

Their debates on religion notwithstanding, both were scientists; neither accepted the theory popular among intellectuals that truth was somehow subjective or unknowable, that the human mind manufactured its own reality. If that were the case, Ben understood, all knowledge would be of equal value and therefore worthless. But today he realized that some knowledge was unattainable, like the theological knowledge Epstein—who intentionally pronounced the world as the illogical —claimed to possess.

“I hope not,” Ben said, biting his tongue.

“I also think that those of us who love being alive should strive with every fiber of our being never to die.”

“Now that I can agree with. But it’ll never be possible for us to live forever. Maybe within a few generations, but you and I won’t see it. Medical science isn’t advancing fast enough for us to participate.”

“I admit it’s unlikely,” Epstein said, “but certainly not impossible. I just read a very interesting book called The Prospect of Immortality . Ever hear of it?”

“No.”

“It’s about freezing people. After their hearts stop beating, but before their cells decompose. The technology is called cryonics .”