In Natural Causes, her newest book, author Barbara Ehrenreich writes, somewhat sarcastically, about the Western obsession with living as long as one possibly can.  Over and over, she emphasizes that as much as we might want to live hundreds of years, truth be told, we will not.  Yet, she goes on to say, very wealthy people are spending millions and millions of dollars to do exactly that:  live, if not forever, virtually indefinitely.

     A cellular biologist, Ehrenreich notes that mortality is built into the human system.  Fragility and breakdown are inevitable.  Not so, say the dissenters, most of whom live in the so-called "Silicon Valley," bastion of the international computer industry.  These dissenters, to quote Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, want to "cure death."
      And what if we do?  Then what?  We'd still be wrestling with a far bigger question:  who are we?
     Good thing there is a God.