I have these random I guess you can call “episodes” where i have this almost out of body experience where i start saying to myself, you’re just you, you’re literally just you, and start thinking about how minuscule i am and then it eventually leads to how i am so fearful of dying one day. I understand I wasn’t around for the Korean War, or world war 2, or the Roman Empire, and that makes sense, since I simply wasnt existing, but now that I exist, the thought of me not existing, and quite frankly never being able to exist again terrifies me. I went to a religious school for a few years and went to church etc, but science tells me that my body make up is unique, and just being born is winning the lottery in its own right. As nice as it is to think my body protrudes this soul is going to rise up and say what up Jesus am I in? or my very unique dna that can profile me as a murderer is going to somehow leak out of my dead composing body, and makes its way into some other woman’s vagina to again try to fight off another 1 million other contestants (assuming dad didn’t jerk off that day) just really gets to me that I have this one chance and this limited, aka very limited time to live a good life. I have a good life mind you. Great wife, supportive family, 2 kids now, great house, but this whole death thing just makes me say sometimes like, wtf man, I want to experience this love and life forever, why does it gotta be so short. Just would like to hear your guys’ thoughts on the manner. Thanks. [Reply]
In response to OP: Of course most people want to live as long as they can, to a point. However, many old people (80s, 90s, 100s) reach the point where they are "tired of living", for lack of a better term. It seems that if you live long enough, you will eventually be ready to die. [Reply]
As I hit the halfway point in my life I think about it more and more. Is it eternal darkness or heaven and hell? The idea of just blinking out of existence at any given moment is kind of terrifying to me. [Reply]
Originally Posted by bdj23:
As I hit the halfway point in my life I think about it more and more. Is it eternal darkness or heaven and hell? The idea of just blinking out of existence at any given moment is kind of terrifying to me.
I'd choose blinking out of existence over an eternity of anything. Even Heaven would become intolerable eventually. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mephistopheles Janx:
Just gonna drop the full quote off here...
"Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless, and like Laplace, ‘I have no need of that hypothesis.'”
Now for some context...
Who was Laplace? He was a physicist who, when asked by Napoleon Bonaparte...
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Now, this post isn't to made to refute your belief system, dissuade you from it, or even get into a theological discussion in the Lounge. I have thoughts about other parts of your post but this isn't the forum for them thus they were not quoted. The only reason this post is being made is to highlight the importance of a full quote and context.
Russell wasn't advocating the idea of intelligent creation by God in that statement nor was he acknowledging a deity at all. It wasn't an admission that life is meaningless without God. He was replying to a letter in a sharp and sarcastic manner in the same way that Laplace did to Napoleon. The fact he quoted Laplace makes that evident.
Thanks for an intelligent and respectful response. I always understood Russell's response of 'I have no need of that hypothesis' to refer to the argument that God exists. Certainly Russell did not believe that he did. He was an avowed atheist and his arguments about the meaning of life without belief of God are consistent with some of his other writings. It's been a few decades since I read it, but his book 'Why I Am Not A Christian' was the publication of a series of lectures he made to either Cambridge or Oxford in the early 1920s. One of my takeaways from that book was his argument, contra mine, that there did not need to be a meaning to life and if we are merely high functioning animals, if we are merely the product of time plus matter plus chance, there is no real meaning to life. Maybe I'm conflating the statement that you've made with arguments he made in those lectures and my memories over the decades have just melded them together.
Sartre had a similar opinion, arguing that there is no inherent meaning to life but that we can give meaning when we make moral choices. For Sartre, there was no objective morality or moral standards but rather that we make our own independent choices. Of course, Sartre was not consistent, denouncing French colonialism and actions of the French government later in his life when those were moral choices, albeit choices he apparently disagree with.
Anyway, as I said, I appreciate the intelligent and respectful response. I expect we will not see eye to eye but being able to elucidate differing opinions well and politely is rapidly becoming a lost art. Thank you. [Reply]
For those that despair at the prospect of death, would you feel better if you believed in an afterlife? Dr. Stephen Meyer has countless videos making a case about the infinitessimal odds of "something coming from nothing", i.e., what are the chances DNA forming on its own (DNA stores 1.5 gb of data per 1 genome...100 billion cells in a body) from a primordial soup, and resulting in intelligent life. Take a little time and rabbit-hole this topic, it's worth it and may change your outlook on man's existence. Belief in an afterlife and Creator can be a matter of faith, or it can be a hard-won, science-based revelation, but no matter the reason, belief in the divine and an afteerlife will likely change and improve every minute of the rest of your life.
Man, I would have absolutely zero interest in keeping the wheels on this bus indefinitely. Sooner or later I'm gonna be just fine pulling into the garage.
Ain't there yet. Not particularly close, in fact. But man, immortality sounds just awful. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaFace:
As for the question, I take solace in the fact that we're all just animated stardust. We were a bunch of scattered atoms before, so returning to that is just entropy in action. And once I'm gone, I won't be around to care one way or another, so there's not really much to worry about.
I worry far more about living too long in a shitty state. That shit can be horrific, especially for the people who have to deal with it.
