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This question is not adressed to those who believe in an afterlife so please, spare me the mumbo jumbo.
Anyway, what's the point in all the trouble of living if one day you just die and it's all invain.

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Rob,

On any level - religious or not - yes, life is hard and painful at times, but it is also beautiful, amazing & exhilarating. Have you experienced the first flush of love - how amazing was it? Good to be alive? My daughter is two and brings me more joy than I could have imagined + more irritation and sleepless nights than I could have imagined smile

Stand on the edge of a vast lake with mountains stretching off into the distance, walk through a forest in spring or crunch your way across freshly fallen snow. Get lost in a painting, drift away with Vaughn William's, ponder the workings of the Universe or simply slump in a chair at the end of a long day and dangle your lips in a cup of coffee. Connect with another human being - feel the warmth of helping someone in need - feel the warmth of someone helping you - sit on the net and communicate with people across the other side of the world, (or even read this post written by a guy who you don't know but has enjoyed debating with you).

I suppose it comes down to what we actually do with life and whether we appreciate what we have. It's easy to become morose and live under a shadow - I do it myself sometimes - but it's just as easy to take a deep breath and pull ourselves up to our full height and think 'it's a privilege to exist' - and what a time to exist.

Regards,

Blacknad.

P.S. I shouldn't be concerned for you should I - asking questions like that?

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Rob-

One man's answer:

We look for some reward of our endeavours and are disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun. The canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we look abroad, even on the face of our small earth, and find them change with every climate, and no country where some action is not honoured for a virtue and none where it is not branded for a vice; and we look in our experience, and find no vital congruity in the wisest rules, but at the best a municipal fitness. It is not strange if we are tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. Our religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, till they are all emasculate and sentimentalised, and only please and weaken. Truth is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face of life, faith can read a bracing gospel. The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the Kosmos, in whose joints we are but moss and fungus, more ancient still.

Of the Kosmos in the last resort, science reports many doubtful things and all of them appalling. There seems no substance to this solid globe on which we stamp: nothing but symbols and ratios. Symbols and ratios carry us and bring us forth and beat us down; gravity that swings the incommensurable suns and worlds through space, is but a figment varying inversely as the squares of distances; and the suns and worlds themselves, imponderable figures of abstraction, NH3, and H2O. Consideration dares not dwell upon this view; that way madness lies; science carries us into zones of speculation, where there is no habitable city for the mind of man.

But take the Kosmos with a grosser faith, as our senses give it us. We behold space sown with rotatory islands, suns and worlds and the shards and wrecks of systems: some, like the sun, still blazing; some rotting, like the earth; others, like the moon, stable in desolation. All of these we take to be made of something we call matter: a thing which no analysis can help us to conceive; to whose incredible properties no familiarity can reconcile our minds. This stuff, when not purified by the lustration of fire, rots uncleanly into something we call life; seized through all its atoms with a pediculous malady; swelling in tumours that become independent, sometimes even (by an abhorrent prodigy) locomotory; one splitting into millions, millions cohering into one, as the malady proceeds through varying stages. This vital putrescence of the dust, used as we are to it, yet strikes us with occasional disgust, and the profusion of worms in a piece of ancient turf, or the air of a marsh darkened with insects, will sometimes check our breathing so that we aspire for cleaner places. But none is clean: the moving sand is infected with lice; the pure spring, where it bursts out of the mountain, is a mere issue of worms; even in the hard rock the crystal is forming.

In two main shapes this eruption covers the countenance of the earth: the animal and the vegetable: one in some degree the inversion of the other: the second rooted to the spot; the first coming detached out of its natal mud, and scurrying abroad with the myriad feet of insects or towering into the heavens on the wings of birds: a thing so inconceivable that, if it be well considered, the heart stops. To what passes with the anchored vermin, we have little clue, doubtless they have their joys and sorrows, their delights and killing agonies: it appears not how. But of the locomotory, to which we ourselves belong, we can tell more. These share with us a thousand miracles: the miracles of sight, of hearing, of the projection of sound, things that bridge space; the miracles of memory and reason, by which the present is conceived, and when it is gone, its image kept living in the brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, with its imperious desires and staggering consequences. And to put the last touch upon this mountain mass of the revolting and the inconceivable, all these prey upon each other, lives tearing other lives in pieces, cramming them inside themselves, and by that summary process, growing fat: the vegetarian, the whale, perhaps the tree, not less than the lion of the desert; for the vegetarian is only the eater of the dumb.

Meanwhile our rotatory island loaded with predatory life, and more drenched with blood, both animal and vegetable, than ever mutinied ship, scuds through space with unimaginable speed, and turns alternate cheeks to the reverberation of a blazing world, ninety million miles away.

What a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease of the agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown upon with hair like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his face; a thing to set children screaming; - and yet looked at nearlier, known as his fellows know him, how surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, here for so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so incommensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives: who should have blamed him had he been of a piece with his destiny and a being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead filled with imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary life, to debate of right and wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to do battle for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate with cordial affection; bringing forth in pain, rearing with long-suffering solicitude, his young. To touch the heart of his mystery, we find, in him one thought, strange to the point of lunacy: the thought of duty; the thought of something owing to himself, to his neighbour, to his God: an ideal of decency, to which he would rise if it were possible; a limit of shame, below which, if it be possible, he will not stoop. The design in most men is one of conformity; here and there, in picked natures, it transcends itself and soars on the other side, arming martyrs with independence; but in all, in their degrees, it is a bosom thought: - Not in man alone, for we trace it in dogs and cats whom we know fairly well, and doubtless some similar point of honour sways the elephant, the oyster, and the louse, of whom we know so little: - But in man, at least, it sways with so complete an empire that merely selfish things come second, even with the selfish: that appetites are starved, fears are conquered, pains supported; that almost the dullest shrinks from the reproof of a glance, although it were a child?s; and all but the most cowardly stand amid the risks of war; and the more noble, having strongly conceived an act as due to their ideal, affront and embrace death. Strange enough if, with their singular origin and perverted practice, they think they are to be rewarded in some future life: stranger still, if they are persuaded of the contrary, and think this blow, which they solicit, will strike them senseless for eternity. I shall be reminded what a tragedy of misconception and misconduct man at large presents: of organised injustice, cowardly violence and treacherous crime; and of the damning imperfections of the best. They cannot be too darkly drawn. Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. But where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more remarkable that all should continue to strive; and surely we should find it both touching and inspiriting, that in a field from which success is banished, our race should not cease to labour.

If the first view of this creature, stalking in his rotatory isle, be a thing to shake the courage of the stoutest, on this nearer sight, he startles us with an admiring wonder. It matters not where we look, under what climate we observe him, in what stage of society, in what depth of ignorance, burthened with what erroneous morality; by camp-fires in Assiniboia, the snow powdering his shoulders, the wind plucking his blanket, as he sits, passing the ceremonial calumet and uttering his grave opinions like a Roman senator; in ships at sea, a man inured to hardship and vile pleasures, his brightest hope a fiddle in a tavern and a bedizened trull who sells herself to rob him, and he for all that simple, innocent, cheerful, kindly like a child, constant to toil, brave to drown, for others; in the slums of cities, moving among indifferent millions to mechanical employments, without hope of change in the future, with scarce a pleasure in the present, and yet true to his virtues, honest up to his lights, kind to his neighbours, tempted perhaps in vain by the bright gin-palace, perhaps long-suffering with the drunken wife that ruins him; in India (a woman this time) kneeling with broken cries and streaming tears, as she drowns her child in the sacred river; in the brothel, the discard of society, living mainly on strong drink, fed with affronts, a fool, a thief, the comrade of thieves, and even here keeping the point of honour and the touch of pity, often repaying the world?s scorn with service, often standing firm upon a scruple, and at a certain cost, rejecting riches: - everywhere some virtue cherished or affected, everywhere some decency of thought and carriage, everywhere the ensign of man?s ineffectual goodness: - ah! if I could show you this! if I could show you these men and women, all the world over, in every stage of history, under every abuse of error, under every circumstance of failure, without hope, without help, without thanks, still obscurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still clinging, in the brothel or on the scaffold, to some rag of honour, the poor jewel of their souls! They may seek to escape, and yet they cannot; it is not alone their privilege and glory, but their doom; they are condemned to some nobility; all their lives long, the desire of good is at their heels, the implacable hunter.

Of all earth?s meteors, here at least is the most strange and consoling: that this ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of the dust, this inheritor of a few years and sorrows, should yet deny himself his rare delights, and add to his frequent pains, and live for an ideal, however misconceived. Nor can we stop with man. A new doctrine, received with screams a little while ago by canting moralists, and still not properly worked into the body of our thoughts, lights us a step farther into the heart of this rough but noble universe. For nowadays the pride of man denies in vain his kinship with the original dust. He stands no longer like a thing apart. Close at his heels we see the dog, prince of another genus: and in him too, we see dumbly testified the same cultus of an unattainable ideal, the same constancy in failure. Does it stop with the dog? We look at our feet where the ground is blackened with the swarming ant: a creature so small, so far from us in the hierarchy of brutes, that we can scarce trace and scarce comprehend his doings; and here also, in his ordered politics and rigorous justice, we see confessed the law of duty and the fact of individual sin. Does it stop, then, with the ant? Rather this desire of well-doing and this doom of frailty run through all the grades of life: rather is this earth, from the frosty top of Everest to the next margin of the internal fire, one stage of ineffectual virtues and one temple of pious tears and perseverance. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together. It is the common and the god-like law of life. The browsers, the biters, the barkers, the hairy coats of field and forest, the squirrel in the oak, the thousand-footed creeper in the dust, as they share with us the gift of life, share with us the love of an ideal: strive like us - like us are tempted to grow weary of the struggle - to do well; like us receive at times unmerited refreshment, visitings of support, returns of courage; and are condemned like us to be crucified between that double law of the members and the will. Are they like us, I wonder, in the timid hope of some reward, some sugar with the drug? do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and the prosperity of such as, in our blindness, we call wicked? It may be, and yet God knows what they should look for. Even while they look, even while they repent, the foot of man treads them by thousands in the dust, the yelping hounds burst upon their trail, the bullet speeds, the knives are heating in the den of the vivisectionist; or the dew falls, and the generation of a day is blotted out. For these are creatures, compared with whom our weakness is strength, our ignorance wisdom, our brief span eternity.

And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror and under the imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the erected, the reasoner, the wise in his own eyes - God forbid it should be man that wearies in well-doing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy: Surely not all in vain.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Across the Plains, Chapter 11 - Pulvis Et Umbra. (Scribner's Magazine, vol. 3, issue 4, April, 1888)

VB


Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ch? la diritta via era smarrita. salimmo s?, el primo e io secondo tanto ch'i' vidi de le cose belle che porta 'l ciel, per un pertugio tondo. E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
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Blacknad,
"Life is hard and painful at times" You seem to think that I posted this thread because I was depressed or something. No, this is just another ordinary question. I am not depressed or even sad.
Like the imagery in your reply. However, you WILL STILL die one day and all that fun you had will practically not have happened (try to see it from my point of view, not as someone who believes in life after death). Do not try to reassure me or comfort me in any way please, I did not post this thread out of desperation to put some meaning to existence. It's just an interesting thought.

BELLATOR,
Sorry, I didn?t read your post. Man, it was too long!! I?ll have to print it out and sit down to read it. Get back to you soon.

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When you will die remember the words you said.
And you will know why no likes to die.

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Rob asks:

?This question is not addressed to those who believe in an afterlife so please, spare me the mumbo jumbo. Anyway, what's the point in all the trouble of living if one day you just die and it's all in vain??

We seem to have something in common in that we both appear to like numbers. Getting to the issue I am surprised to find that so many members that do not have religious beliefs to answer their questions fall short of enlarging their scientific concepts to provide the answers normally provided by religion. It is a simple matter of creating a new belief basis.

1. Science tells us that the Universe originated without any form of divine intervention. Life is a natural progression of the development of the Universe. Life has no purpose and death a natural result.

2. Religion recites that all was created by a God or supernatural being that was in turn responsible for the life forms we see. This God also provide for a reason for life and a proposed life of sorts after death.

3. The major difference is that science offers no meaning for life and that life?s termination is final and the entire experience worthless.

4. The answer, to provide comfort to those of science that require it, is to simply enlarge on the basic conclusions of science origins. If the Universe can originate of its own then why not originate a secondary kind of Universe to follow the first. A place where all the unfaithful can go and continue to debate the issues they enjoy and live the good life. There is no stretch of logic here because if you can believe this all started on its own there is no limit to where that can take you.

Cheers
jjw

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Some individuals probably were trying to be more-scientific-than-thou.Otherwise I see good reasons for existence.
Its about holding or doing what you like to do for the longest period of time.In short to increase the Age of what you stand for.It can be democracy or yourself.
Holding is better term as doing comes out of it.

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I don't know about you, but my life has been so interesting to me. That's worth something.
And I agree that we are "implacable hunters", but I think we are hunting for happiness instead of "good". Though doing good does tend to lead to happiness; an entirely selfish act.

And I'm looking forward to death, hopefully, following a long life. Whether or not there is life afterwards.

Does God exist? Or not? Is there life after death? Is there death after death? Is there life after death after life after death? Will these questions plague me throughout eternity? Does my existance mean anything to God or to anyone other than myself and people who I infulence? Is my soul evolving through all my trials and tribulations? Do I have a soul or am I just a mind and body? Why am asking you? None of you know. The Human experience. How tragic. How interesting. How beautiful, ugly and everything in between.


~Justine~
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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannh?user Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.
Time to die.

VB


Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ch? la diritta via era smarrita. salimmo s?, el primo e io secondo tanto ch'i' vidi de le cose belle che porta 'l ciel, per un pertugio tondo. E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
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BladeRunner fans. What can you do with them?

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Lost in time like tears in rain ~VB

Like cries in wind. Have you ever screamed into a loud ocean wind? Same thing....lost.


~Justine~
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheFallibleFiend:
BladeRunner fans. What can you do with them?
Nuttin.


Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ch? la diritta via era smarrita. salimmo s?, el primo e io secondo tanto ch'i' vidi de le cose belle che porta 'l ciel, per un pertugio tondo. E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
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My favorite shorter poem title:

"Study the walls of yesterday for they hide tomorrows far away"
jw

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Does God exist? Or not? Is there life after death? Is there death after death? Is there life after death after life after death? Will these questions plague me throughout eternity?
DKV: No these questions will not plague you for eternity.
========================================
Does my existance mean anything to God or to anyone other than myself and people who I infulence?
DKV: Yes everything which exists has a meaning.
A purpose which makes you more evolved.
===========================================
Is my soul evolving through all my trials and tribulations? Do I have a soul or am I just a mind and body?
DKV: Yes it is evolving.And if you are sking the right questions then probably it is evolving in the right direction.There are some questions which are unique to Humans.
========================================
The Human experience. How tragic. How interesting. How beautiful, ugly and everything in between.
DKV: Indeed it is beautiful with all its apparent tragedies which in the end become so beautiful that you ask no questions ... You become the Answer.

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Evolution. Of the soul or of the souless homosapien either way doesn't matter.

The whole idea of evolution totally comforts me because when I look around at politics and the destruction of our environment and the careless way we treat humanity. I think well, we're not the finished product here. No wonder everything's such a mess.


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DKV,

What are the right questions?


~Justine~
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"The whole idea of evolution totally comforts me"

If evolution comforts you you are either really ignorant or a masochist. Evolution kills the weak bodied and the weak minded. Ignorance = weak mind. Masocist = weak mind and (maybe) body (if you are a devout masocist).

To counter your counter-attack before it is made. You cannot think of ignorance as a product of enviroment. With the internet and wikipedia NO-ONE in the 21st century has ANY excuse for being ignorant.

And you moderators! When you delete a stupid post, make sure you delete the reply aswell.

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"The whole idea of evolution totally comforts me"

Evolution is a cold thoughtless mechanical process with no ultimate aim - it just happens and cares for no one and no thing. It is not in the least comforting. We may have some belief that the mechanism of evolution will cause life to adapt to the future states of this planet, but that will not necessarily include humanity.

I believe in evolution - I do not have faith in evolution.

Blacknad.

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Yeah...you guys totally don't get me...at all. And I think it's futile for me to try to explain how I see the world. You don't really seem interested. It's ok.

So Goodbye smile


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If I wasn't interested I'd have not wasted a single keystroke on you.

But I've yet to meet you: Only your parrot. When you find your own voice please return.


DA Morgan
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