Is It Really So Hard To Believe That Life Just Ends?

[Restrikted]

I've always questioned this whole "religion" thing. I'm not sure what percentage of Earth's population believes in a higher power, but I know that it's a lot. There are, in my opinion, only two reasons for this.
1) They are correct, plain and simple. But this raises the question, which religion is correct? Surely they can't all be correct, because they are different. But maybe they are correct in the fact that a higher power Does exist.
2) They know they are going to die, so they make up these gods and worship them, so that they can live forever.

Personally, I think #2 is correct, it makes more sense to me.

So really, what is so hard to believe about the fact that "we are not special, we are not beautiful and unique snowflakes," we are just alive, like bugs, or mice, but smarter, and we just die like everything else on this Earth?

That pretty much sums up my question, but if you feel like reading more of my ranting, continue reading.

I was talking to a devout Christian about 1 1/2 weeks ago, and we were debating religion, the meaning of life, Pascals Wager, life on other planets, etc. It seemed like he couldn't answer a lot of my questions, and would just turn to the idea that God wanted it this way. But I really respect him because he said to never stop asking questions, not to follow a religion blindly, and not to just take what is put in front of you.

Here are some of my questions that maybe some of you can answer.

There are, what, roughly 70 sextillion stars (Google'd it) in our universe? What are the odds that there is not even one that is like Earth, or at least has life? Plus, we already discovered that there is a planet that may be like Earth, and it is pretty close to us. I think it is pretty safe to say that there are other planets out there that have life on them, even if it is not "intelligent" life. My question is, if this is true, what makes Earth so special? I think we aren't. Also, if there is life on other planets, do they have religion? If so, do they have Christianity, or do they believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? To prove Christianity correct, the other planets would also have to have Christianity. Also, a great deal of the Bible deals with what happened when Jesus was walking the Earth. Was Jesus also on the other planets?

I like to take into consideration what Erin Pavlina said (I think it was her). She was talking about living your life with love, compassion, and friendship. Would you rather live your life that way, or believe in God, and not necessarily be a good person? If Heaven really does exist, would God rather let in the person that believes in him, or the person that is a truly good person? If he would exclude the good person, I'm not so sure I would want to be in that heaven.

Also, are there different heavens for every religion? This kind of goes back to the question of which religion is correct? If you believe in this god, but that god is really the correct one, would you go to that heaven even though you didn't believe in that one?

Whew...A bunch of my random, and I mean random, questions. Answer what you will.

[Akashic_Librarian]

Dude....

You ask a lot of questions...

I don't knwo where to start. it would be better for everyone if we just went to the basics and discussed reality on a fundamental level and built up...

I really don't want to do that. So suffice it to say...

Religion is wrong in my opinion. But thats my reality.

[Restrikted]

People have been telling me that my whole life actually (about the questions). So you think it would be better to just stop searching for the meaning of life, and accept that there is no meaning?

[Shamou]

I do believe that most people live a life of quiet desperation (to paraphrase Helen Keller) that is so boring and so meaningless that they need to believe in an afterlife in order to stop themselves from jumping out of the window...

Robert Pirsig said,

"The term logos, the root word of “logic,” refers to the sum total of our rational understanding of the world. Mythos is the sum total of the early historic and prehistoric myths which preceded the logos.

The mythos includes not only the Greek myths but the Old Testament, the Vedic Hymns and the early legends of all cultures which have contributed to our present world understanding.

The mythos-over-logos argument states that our rationality is shaped by these legends."

That being said... our present logic, or way of seeing the world, is nothing but an extension of the early legends... so it might be high time to review those beliefs with a fresh and more enlightened eye...

.

[Erin Pavlina]

To me it's all about consciousness. It's not about religion. Religion is just a manifestation of men used to control the masses. But that doesn't mean we can't be spiritual. I believe my consciousness will go with me when I die. I also believe in life on other planets and I'll bet they have a consciousness that transforms with them when they leave the physical realm.

Does life have meaning? I think life has the meaning you ascribe to it. I truly believe in being a good, kind, honest, caring, compassionate, peace-loving person so that's what I strive for. I know not everyone wants that. To each his own.

But I can't imagine we have this life for NO reason. Just to live and then cease to exist? What a cruel joke that would be in my opinion.

[Restrikted]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

But I can't imagine we have this life for NO reason. Just to live and then cease to exist? What a cruel joke that would be in my opinion.

Do you believe other animals are the same way? Do you think they are conscious? And if so, do they take it with them when they die? Even cockroaches?

[unicorn]

This may be hard to follow, it is meant to be :

When Erin sayes life has the meaning you ascribe to it - it is true, but try to turn it on it's head and see what happens: If you try to find meaning, you will ascribe meaning to what you see, hear, sense and think. By ascribing meaning to this don't you actually prevent the meaning being shown to you?

All religions have in them parables that can be interpreted as: the truth can only be found by searching inside of you. It is the mind that complicates this search by it's interpretations and ascribing meaning. And the dogma of religion comes about when the mind tries to make sense of the parables and interprets them in fixed ways.

This presents the paradox that if you consider all your thoughts and sensory experience to be meaningless, and continously discard them as meaningless, the mind will run out of things to do and eventually shut up, and then you can experience something entirely different that may give you an inner knowing of the meaning you search for. Other paradoxes: You can only understand by surrendering your mind's need to understand. You will only find truth by stopping your search for it.

Chew on that and see what happens...

[Erki]

Originally Posted by Shamou

I do believe that most people live a life of quiet desperation (to paraphrase Helen Keller) that is so boring and so meaningless that they need to believe in an afterlife in order to stop themselves from jumping out of the window...

I don't understand how life after death would benefit those. If they didn't know what to do with their lives in this life, why should they do anything if they got another chance? In some ways, for some people, I would think afterlife would be more like a curse then - you're tired of life, you want it to end, it ends, then you see that it really didn't and the carousel starts spinning again....

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Erki

I don't understand how life after death would benefit those. If they didn't know what to do with their lives in this life, why should they do anything if they got another chance? In some ways, for some people, I would think afterlife would be more like a curse then - you're tired of life, you want it to end, it ends, then you see that it really didn't and the carousel starts spinning again....

Erki you are a great philosopher... the early Greeks had nothing on you...

.

[palimpsest]

I personally have no conflict with all of us living our lives both meaningfully and ephemerally.

I don't think we'll find life on other planets, because our definition of life was created by us after examining entities on this planet. There have been many planets before that could be like Earth... they plainly were never like enough. Either we haven't explored far enough to meet our parallels or entangled complementaries, or we're unique. And Jupiter is unique. And Alpha Centauri is unique.

The universe doesn't seem willing to repeat a trick so detailed as the precise form of Saturn and its rings, or the societies we've created (I won't say "let alone the societies..." because all I've mentioned is unique and special in itself and in harmonious context with every other unique form, not in competition that we're so arrogant to put ourselves on top of.) So, no, it probably wouldn't have religion as we define religion from the sample numbers on this planet because it's a different planet. That means no Christ, no Spaghetti Monster... nothing we can conceive of. Why would Jesus need to repeat his performance to prove himself right, anyway Religion is a social construct, with qualities of social value that can't be measured and repeated.

There need not be a negative correlation between love, compassion, friendship as relates to faith in God. However, in the memeplex you refer to belief does indeed come first and foremost as a principle, and yes that does mean people picketing God Hates Fags, and blowing themselves up in public places, and swelling with pride as they point fingers at their fellow man and declare with full confidence that they know where you're going after death... grants access to heaven, while loving compassionate friendly unbelievers get bored in limbo at best. If that system existed.

Of course, there are not only different heavens but different afterlife systems. Which one is real? Well, belief alone does not make it something true... say, a friend of mine stole my mp3 player and he swears blind that he didn't. I believe him. Doesn't make it not happen. By the same rule, disbelief will not make it real or unreal-- the real afterlife system may be something nobody's thought up yet to claim as true. The truth of the mp3-theft matter had a sort of anchor in material causality that eventually ends up in that I'm wrong, but religion has no such anchor at this point therefore religion is-- ha, ha-- in limbo. Or, well, the argument flows better to say "none of the religions are true"!

But wait-- I think I see a loophole. A couple of loopholes. (And you can skip them because unicorn said it better. ) :

See, for whatever reason religion was first created, the people I've met now who are religious are so not because they're afraid of dying -- they haven't even been raised to be afraid of death enough to make it up themselves! It's just because their parents told them it was true and society reinforces it, they haven't discovered God for themselves, the way each and every one of us have discovered (not been told) the world of material causality.

But, material causality need not be the only anchor of common experience. All religions, for example, have the common telling of another layer of reality, it's just there's no agreement of what's in it. To find the "true religion" or faith we, all of us, simply must discover it for ourselves the same way we discovered material causality for ourselves-- not as an immediate acceptance of vague impressions and the words of others, but a truth finally accepted because the returns from continued questioning have peaked, and further questioning is rapidly becoming futile compared to questioning another truth. ("Why is the sky blue?" "Why is the sea green" "Why are bubbles round?" usually eventually dies into "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" because material causality has been accepted as true while an omniscient omnipresent omnipotent and personal God... has not.) To find the true religion we must all experience the other layer of reality ourselves, and yes it may all just be neurological bringing us back to this world with the certainty now that there is nothing beyond material causality and that death is permanent... but see first line of this post.

And, well, it would be neurological for all of us to dream... but it may well be the subtler layer of reality to be able to be in somebody else's dream, which I've done once (or today I think I did once before -- tomorrow I may believe it was just a coincidence or my friend and I just making up what we wanted to. I'm kind of wishy-washy that way.) (And anyway, I'm just saying I did -- do it yourself if you want to believe me )

And then there's the level of personal truth rather than the search for the universal absolute. This needs no continued questioning and proving and common experience-- it's faith. Proof of its truth defeats some quality of faith (even if it proved the faith itself... once something's explained, it can be explained away,) and overshadows the purposes of living as if something were true.

Yes, it may breed needlessly hateful picketers and needless martyrs and annoying or hurtfully rude proud evangelists, but as much as it fuels people with hate it can fuel people with love... as much as it's a reason to die for some people, it's a reason for some people to go on living, and as much pride and exclusivity as it causes there is modesty at the idea of something bigger and unity among families and societies as well as helping an individual to pull him/herself together. It may be untrue, the same way a placebo is that still works. Richard Dawkins said that fearing the wrath of God is no noble reason to choose right from wrong-- but without it there'd be one less reason, for better or worse.

[ZHereford]

Originally Posted by Shamou

I do believe that most people live a life of quiet desperation (to paraphrase Helen Keller) .

That was actually Henry David Thoreau who said that.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

[sourceofmiracles]

perhaps there is not meaning to life that can be fully express in words. Maybe even the "meaning" is not the right pointer.

[stroodle]

i don't think we can answer "what is the meaning of life"...at least not in language. i think as soon as you ask that question, you're headed for a dead-end.

i think the 'so called meaning' can be experienced by an individual, but trying to communicate that experience will not adequetly answer the question.

if i were to give an answer to "what is the meaning of life"........it would be "to mean".

----

and back to to the thread's question:

i think that life is something greater than we can comprehend right now. hopefully when we die we move to the next level of 'being'. who says death has to be a bad thing. maybe we just associate death with bad, because right now we don't know what's coming next. maybe as we evolve we will have a greater understanding of 'what comes next'. and that's probably when we'll ALL realize that religion is just a social construction to keep 'life moving forward'. religion is not the answer, it's just part of the equation to find it.

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by ZHereford

That was actually Henry David Thoreau who said that.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

You are quite correct... it was nature boy who said that...

I no longer drink and drive... now I'll have to stop drinking and posting...

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

But I can't imagine we have this life for NO reason. Just to live and then cease to exist? What a cruel joke that would be in my opinion.

For it to be a joke requires that there be a joker. If the universe is completely impersonal, then it is no joke, just a fact of existence...

[Love]

Yes, it is hard.

This is why I think that is so:

If you would prefer a religious person to believe in just existence, the burden would rest upon you to prove there was no God. This would be very hard to do with a religious person. However, if a religious person wanted an aspiritual person to believe in God, all he or she would have to do is get the person to believe that just one event in their life was influenced by a divine presence. This, I think, is much easier to do than the former. That's one reason why I think it's hard for people to believe the world just ends.

I guess the reasoning behind that is that many people grew up with their faith. They were surrounding by loving and emphatic people who believed what they were saying. God became interweaved into their world view. And to rearrange that, I imagine, would be the equivalent of changing the view of a flat world to a view of the world as round.

I myself keep my belief in God, and other of my spiritual beliefs (like a spirit world), because they work for me. They make me a better person, and they help give me strength. And in the end, if I'm plumb wrong, what does it matter? I was a good person and felt I had extra strength? Horror! But I think the fact that it works is important. If I took that away, I might actually have to work harder. So maybe I'm just lazy?

[Restrikted]

So the meaning of life is whatever meaning we ascribe to it...This kind of goes on the idea that there are no good or bad events, just events, and we think of them what we will (as being good or bad).

[Michael Chui]

*cracks knuckles* This looks like a fun way to wind down from a night of coding. Here we go.

(NOTE: I had way too much fun writing this. Um, it's long. Sorry? Enjoy... )

Originally Posted by Restrikted

So really, what is so hard to believe about the fact that "we are not special, we are not beautiful and unique snowflakes," we are just alive, like bugs, or mice, but smarter, and we just die like everything else on this Earth?

But we are special. You are unique, just like everyone else. The human species is unique, just like every other species. Certainly, there is a binding similarity that draws us together--we could call it life, we could call it molecular bonds, we could call it string resonance--but the differences are also appreciable.

The human species has a number of attributes that no other species possesses, near as we can tell, chief among these an incredible range of language and a notion of the abstract. This alone is reason to regard ourselves as different, and forms the basis for the principle that we are subject to different consequences. If a shark eats another shark, you do not chastise it for murder; if a human being slashes another human being, you convict him for assault.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

My question is, if this is true, what makes Earth so special?

Simple: we don't know otherwise. It is possible that Earth is not special, but there is no actual evidence suggesting that it isn't. But China called itself the Center Nation for an incredibly long time. We have the old proverb that all roads lead to Rome (which is awfully difficult when you to across the sea). Now, however, we do not believe either of these, because globalization has culminated into the 21st century, and we have a People's Republic and a modern set of Italian ruins.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

Also, if there is life on other planets, do they have religion?

This is likely, much, I'm sure, to Akashic's chagrin.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

To prove Christianity correct, the other planets would also have to have Christianity.

This is not true. Religion is not ex vivo, and they know that quite well. It would be arguable that, on a planet with religion and no Christianity, that Christianity has merely yet to appear OR that it is the manifest destiny of Earthborn Christians to evangelize to these people. You know, by spreading smallpox in blankets or stealing all their gold or something appropriately 1600.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

Also, a great deal of the Bible deals with what happened when Jesus was walking the Earth. Was Jesus also on the other planets?

Maybe we don't need to know. Why does it matter? If God is omnipresent, why couldn't he enter the womb of thousands of females, birthing saviors across the universe? Joshua, son of Joseph, was hardly the first Messiah born to the human race, or not even in the Bible. There was also Noah, and then Moses, and then David. With a direct genealogical tree from Adam, I might add. It's a family tradition, saving from utter destruction by God or, post-rainbow covenant, his proxies the Israelites or, post-Jewish rejection of him, everyone else. It seems to take a couple thousand years for the blood to stir again, though, and unless you believe the DaVinci Code, Jesus didn't leave any kids. If he did, perhaps the next one will come into his own in, oh... five years? 2012?. It'd be cool if the 21st century messiah was female. And cute.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

I like to take into consideration what Erin Pavlina said (I think it was her). She was talking about living your life with love, compassion, and friendship. Would you rather live your life that way, or believe in God, and not necessarily be a good person? If Heaven really does exist, would God rather let in the person that believes in him, or the person that is a truly good person? If he would exclude the good person, I'm not so sure I would want to be in that heaven.

Such is free will.

What you've done is conflated the notion of "going to Heaven" with "love, compassion, and friendship", and then set it against the attribute of being "obedient to God". According to the Bible, obedience to God goes above all else, even love, compassion, and friendship (LCF). If you disagree with God, that is definitionally sinful, which does not actually translate to "bad", and likewise, neither does Hell. Hell is, theologically, the absence of God, and if you so strongly disagree with what God represents, be it something other than LCF, then you would be making the deliberate decision of going to Hell. A Christian would not expect you to enjoy it there, of course, but that's their opinion.

Originally Posted by Restrikted

Also, are there different heavens for every religion?

Why not? Is there some restriction on how many heavens there can be I haven't heard of?

Originally Posted by Restrikted

This kind of goes back to the question of which religion is correct?

How many have you actually explored? How many of these questions can you even vaguely guess an answer to?:

What is the central thesis of Buddhism, for instance? What do the aboriginals of New Zealand believe? How does it compare with the Anansi culture or the Iroquois nation? What differences are there between those and the imported voodoo of the African-Americans? Are there relationships between that and the Arabian notion of the djinn? How are the stories of the djinn and the Jewish King Solomon intertwined? Where is the Ark of the Covenant, gone when God's temple was transgressed by the Romans? Who were the Roman gods, before the Christian rennaissance, and what were they based on? Were they actually related to the Greek gods, as many Catholic saints were, or did they find their source from mystery cults or pagan Europe? What did the Germanic nations believe? Were they Scandinavian or Russian in origin? Why are the concepts of dragons so starkly contrasted between European and Oriental imaginings? And to come back to Christianity once more, who actually were the legendary magi of the nativity story, and did they actually found Zoroastrianism?

That would be a tiny nibble. And no, I can't answer any of those questions either. Each of them would probably merit a bloody master's thesis by some poor student of religion.

It gets really hard to ask the question, "Which religion is correct?" when you stop and think about it. And all the sudden, you realize that this isn't the right question; the right question is, "What actually constitutes a religion?" And there has yet to be an answer.

For instance, is Christianity a religion, or is it a collection of religions? The Anglicans, the Baptists, the Calvinists, Catholics, the Evangelicals, the Lutherans... Then again, despite Paul's denial, perhaps Christianity is merely a Jewish sect, one that happens to have additional scripture, believes that the Messiah is the same person as the Suffering Servant and already dropped by for thirty six years, and firmly believes in using fire and brimstone imagery to describe the future. Though certainly, modern-day Christianity is absolutely nothing like it was in Paul's day, what with the perpetual checking the sky for glowing men vomiting swords; today people don't fear persecution, martyrdom is disagreeable and not fit for dinner conversation, and all that feel-good equality stuff seems to have become entirely secular (R.I.P. MLK Jr.).

People forget history very easily. It's a bad habit, because you forget past mistakes and do them over again which, clearly, is less than ideal. But it's hard to respect history when you're young, and it's too late when you're old. But in forgetting, we lose the greatest religious argument of all: this, too, will pass.