What's the point?

Without belief in the afterlife what is the point in doing anything?

Whether you are Mother Teresa or a Serial Killer, Donald Trump or a homeless wretch, everything ends up exactly the same. Your heart stops working or your brain stops working or some other organ stops working and you die. Then every memory, every thought, every emotion, every accomplishment is all gone-forever. When someone you love dies you never get them back. Furthermore the absolutely random and cruel aspect of life is even more painful when you think about people born with severe birth defects, or people with awful diseases or people living in squalor and filth or people terrorized by war or crime. Meanwhile the rich and the beautiful prance about getting the best of everything; homes, cars, clothes, food, alcohol, entertainment and sex. There is no future existence to even this all out, so that someone with Lou Gehrig's disease won't get to be a gymnast in the next life.

And to top it all off this all occurs in a Universe without seeming purpose. We have no idea why there even is a Universe or if our Consciousness is unique or what the ultimate fate of the Universe will be.

If I were God and I wanted to really fuck with people and make them as miserable as possible, I'd make the Universe and the Earth exactly like it is today.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4"]Music and Life - Alan Watts - YouTube

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aboZctrHfK8"]the answer to life, universe and everything - YouTube

 

One thing I've never understood about that attitude is why people who think that aren't happy about young kids dying

If an 8 year old gets hit by a car or a baby is born sick and only lives a few months then they skip the whole punishment of life and go straight to heaven. None of the suffering that we are condemned to as humans, just a really short time and then paradise

Surely aborted babies and miscarriages are the purest souls of all since they don't even live outside the womb. According to the Christian idea, if that happens it should be a cause for celebration rather than sadness?

I suspect that the reason that this isn't the case is that deep down Christians know that it's a load of bollocks

 

don't you mean; what is the point of believing in (rather then "doing") anything? there are lots of reasons to do all sorts of things, that don't have much to do with belief in any sense.

also, like anything else, if there is "an" afterlife (or one after another endless of them) there is, and if there isn't there isn't, whatever is believed or not believed, "in" or otherwise.

 

What kind of an afterlife would an aborted fetus have? Would they speak? Waht language would they speak? What about someone who is mentally retarded and never spoke on earth. How would they speak?

What memories would they have? Because an aborted fetus isn't going to have any. So are they spirits without memories? What about people who live a full life. Do they go to Heaven with all their memories? Including the pain, the suffering, the disappointment? What if they only remembered the good times; wouldn't those memories grow old and stale?

The whole concept of an afterlife is completely absurd. We are asked to believe there is another dimension outside time and space where everything is perfect. The problem is is that the sources that inform us of this good news contradict other sources which promise something different and at the same time science has disproven the vast majority of the claims purported to be true in these texts.

Afterlife is a hideous concept, which when instilled in children is the ultimate form of child abuse.

 

Actually, we made the earth how it is today. God didn't made rich and poor people, God also didn't create this amount of people with cancer or diabetes. Our lifestyles did. By the way, in previous times it was often custom to kill imperfect babies instead of letting them grow old. Sounds better? Just curious!

 

life sucks sometimes, get over it.

 

Life is what you make it. We did create the world that we live in, so why would an afterlife be any different? We can kill someone and end up in prison. Or we can do good things and live contently. Wouldn't the same things happen in an afterlife?

Is the option of no survival after death really that terrible? If everything about your existence turns to oblivion when you die, then you won't be around to notice or care so live life for the day, not the prospect of afterlife. If you die and it turns out there is an afterlife, bonus.

 

Infinity is hell

I mean, really, imagine it

Imagine the actual reality of spending infinity with your friends and family. Not just as long as you like, not the idea of having a bit more time, having unendable time. That is pure hell whatever you choose to do with it

You would end up killing and fucking and eating everyone you knew and then you'd see them the next day. forever

It would be cool for a few years but you'd end up longing to die


Perfection is also hell

Everything is meaningless. You remember on video games how you got frustrated and turned on the cheat mode so that you couldn't die and you had all of the weapons and couldn't be shot and it all lost it's meaning

Imagine experiencing that as a reality. There would be no point in wanting or dreaming about anything because it was just easy.

You wouldn't miss anyone because they were always there, you wouldn't want anything because you already had it.


Imagination would be pointless, thinking would be pointless, every endeavour or idea that you had would be fulfilled and joyful so they would become indistinguishable from another.

oooh heaven is a place on earth. it is, it's called crack. you smoke crack that is what happens, everything is great and interesting, if you have enough money to die from crack then you are already in heaven. that's my advice to people who live for an afterlife based on your ridiculous ill thought out ideas

 

Go skating. Maybe surfing. Get some sex. Help someone less fortunate than yourself. Don't obsess over not knowing the true nature of our existance. Whatever it is--we're all in it together and we'll all end up the same. Some of us need a state of belief and some of us don't. All and all-it's all the same. Call me if there's any change.

 

why assume you'd have to hang around with anyone, instead of having infinite time to learn and explore an infinitely diverse infinity?

also why assume, if there is more then this life, there can only be one continuous form of existence after it?

i don't. i mean the heavin and hell thing, that's christianity, islam and judaism. why assume their claims have anything to do with it?

 

The only fair thing in life is that we all DIE.
The fucking billionaires can't buy their way out of disease, pain and death.
The sexy people loose their looks, most of them by the time they are 30.
The pain of the fall almost pays for the climb.
But not quite.
Because life is a ride, not a destination.
And you can change your ride.
And you can change other peoples rides.
And you can even create new rides.
Your choices can ripple down for generations of rides to come.

In the end, your only regrets will be the things you never did.
NOW GO SHAKE UP SOME FUCKING RIDES!

 

Some of you guys are really cynical.

Reasons for me to get up in the morning even though I don't neccessarily believe in God and an afterlife:

1)a tree. a flower. a blade of grass. Beautiful, perfect parts of existence and humans are lucky enough to possess the sensory tools needed to perceive them.
2)love. for friends, family, lovers. Humans can be bastards to each other, but most people still possess love for the people closest to them.
3) The unknown. Maybe today will be boring as hell. Maybe someone I know will die and I'll be tormented with nihilistic thoughts of existence. Or maybe, just maybe, life will take some unknown turn and I'll find myself on an adventure.

 

We hold these LIES to be SELF RESENTMENT!

 

if i never had to eat or sleep, and there was an infinite forest stretching in all directions, with mountains and meadows, why would i not want to spend forever exploring it?

 

These are my thoughts exactly. Whether there's an afterlife or not, I want to experience life and enjoy it loving my fellow humans.

 

without an afterlife there may be little point in the pretensions of dominant religious beliefs, but the point of trying to make this world a place everyone living in it can find gratification in doing so while the can, is invariably the same regardless. to put it succinctly, that each of us, still have to live in it, as long as we do.

 

If you need a crutch to walk and I don't, what does that make you?

 

The point is life's a miracle. The experience of living is enough for me. Every day is a new set of encounters with life, God and other people. Some are pleasant, some not, and I've faced some real pain and tragedy but I never get bored. I regard other people as reflections of God, so even the Wal Mart checkout line can be stimulating for me. I have no particular belief in an afterlife. I tend to live in the moment and take life as it comes. To me, it's a continuous orgasm. Who could ask for anything more?

The OP's initial post sounds like a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. "For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten." "all go unto one place; all are of dust, and all turn to dust again." As for an afterlife, who knows this? And the Bible's solution: "there is nothing better for people than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live." Find pleasure at the daily happenings of life, even in the mundane, but accept whatever moment in which one finds oneself, even the painful or fatal ones. What else can we do? We can cry, curse, wet our pants, or try to run away with no place to hide. Or a person can "rejoice, and to do good in his life". I don't beleive that we go to heaven or hell when we die. Those are conditions we experience now on earth as a result of our choices and attitudes. Hell is a bad attitude.