I think that the very idea of immortalism is against the will of mainstream Christianity. Any Christian who wants to become physically immortal either participates in some fringe element of the religion or is confused and most likely questioning their faith. The belief in an afterlife experienced by an immortal soul is a fundamental tenet of many branches of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and the Bahá'í Faith. If you honestly believe this, why would you want to maintain this existence beyond the means required to attain entrance to heaven?
Christian theology holds that Adam and Eve lost physical immortality for themselves and all their descendants in the Fall of Man, though this initial "imperishability of the bodily frame of man" was "a preternatural condition."
According to the book of Enoch, the righteous and wicked await the resurrection in separate divisions of sheol, a teaching which may have influenced Jesus' parable of Lazarus and Dives. Christians believe that every person that believes in Christ will be resurrected; Bible passages are interpreted as teaching that the resurrected body will, like the present body, be both physical (but a renewed and non-decaying physical body) and spiritual.
Specific imagery of resurrection into immortal form is found in the Pauline letters:
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
- Corinthians 15:51-58
In Romans 2:6-7 Paul declares that God "will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life", but then in Romans 3 warns that no one will ever meet this standard.
After the Last Judgment, those who have been born again will live forever in the presence of God, and those who were never born again will be abandoned to never-ending consciousness of guilt, separation from God, and punishment for sin. Eternal death is depicted in the Bible as a realm of constant physical and spiritual anguish in a lake of fire, and a realm of darkness away from God. Some see the fires of Hell as a theological metaphor, representing the inescapable presence of God endured in absence of love for God; others suggest that Hell represents complete destruction of both the physical body and of spiritual existence.
So, if you truely believe in this traditional and popular interpretation of the bible, why are you so eager to subvert the whole process and go against God's will? I think most Christians view the search for physical immortality as nothing more than pure narcissism.
Note: I pulled most of this from Wikipedia
Edited by Skotkonung, 18 March 2009 - 09:22 PM.