And there is nothing. Nothing. No thought. No feeling. No bright light. Nothing. You have simply ceased to exist. Why?
No, really... why? What, after all, would be the point of life? There would be no answer to the question of why? No explanation. No big reveal. No story end. No story beginning. And a whole lot of meaninglessness in the middle. No why.
The story, such as it is, would be that a freak accident created life on this planet and countless thousands of other worlds. This "life" would be nothing special - merely a thing that occurs, like rain, or erosion, or super nova's. Chemical equations would go together and life would evolve from single celled organisms to more complex structures. These complex structures would come into existence, live for a while, create another generation of themselves, and then die. And so on and so forth, until we reach sentient life forms. But why sentience? What evolutionary niche does it fill to have a species that can think and communicate and write down ideas and feelings? It doesn't. There is no reason. Sentience then is just a byproduct of life creation. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything you think, or feel, or believe is nothing. Pointless. A waste of time.
We are born. We are plugged into a sentient construct called society that teaches us to speak and eat and dress appropriately. We are taught what to believe. We believe it. We grow older and we bring forth life ourselves and teach a new generation. And then we die and return to non-existence.
With all due respect to my athiest brothers and sisters, what is easier to believe that life is completely meaningless or that there is a point to existence that you just haven't yet discovered?
Answering this question is the first step to understanding.
4 comments:
Everything is pointless
What's the purpose of an ameoba's life? Or a dog's life? Or a monkey's life? As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between them and us is that we're more intelligent. It's just a matter of degree, and there's nothing that leads me to believe that we are so special as a species that we must have been put here for a purpose. Maybe we were, but I seriously doubt it. The advantage of being sentient, and then ultimately intelligent, is that it helps you and your species survive.
I'm not religious, but I don't go moping around feeling sad about how pointless and useless life is. Rather than worrying about that, my mind is on whether the Warriors will make it past the Jazz.
Steve -
Go out and rent a movie called Dopamine. It raises much of the same questions that this post did (only in a specific area about Love) and I was blown away by some of the answers.
I think that the big question is, if life is meaningless, then what's to stop you from doing anything you want? Its ultimately pointless, after all.
Will, the reason I don't do everything I want is because I don't have enough money.
If you're question now becomes - why don't I go out and rob a bank and get the money, it's because I don't want to go to jail. Plus, I don't have any real urge to go out and do it.
I keep hearing about Dopamine. I'll try to watch it within the next few weeks.
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