If life has no meaning without afterlife, why don't you cut corners, commit suicide today and go straight to the real thing, heaven!

I get pleasure out of making change in the world and as that change occurs the more pleasure I have and my quality of life improves. We're alive now. We don't know what's around after death. Might as well make the best out of our situations.

"If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters.... then all that matters is what we do."

 Joss Whedon, *Angel*

If this life is just a waiting room for the afterlife, why don't you jump the queue and kill yourself?

"Life" is a temporary chemical process that has been gaining in complexity over time. However, it will eventually die out.

I've always felt this underlies the very idea of the question.

There is absolutely no 'point' in living.
Just relax & enjoy it while it's here !

I do three things. I work hard, help people, and have fun. In no particular order.

Now, I get it that cult leaders, like the one from whom the original quote came, don't like that very much. I neither help prop up their Ponzi schemes nor give them any sort of opening to exploit. No money, no resources, no impressionable little minds.

But that is not my jungle, and those are not my primates

But wait...one day you are going to die with or without a silly belief in a gawd!

I prefer knowing that I am just the result of random events rather than the intended creation of some needy god who, despite its perfection, created tiny imperfect beings to worship it--or else!

I don't mind so much the god of deism, that doesn't know or care about what it creates; but I have no reason to think that even that kind of god, or any other kind of god, exists.

Although I absolutely think there is other life in the universe, life in the universe is rare. And, I would say life that can contemplate its own existence and create meaning for itself is even more rare. This in itself is a reason to appreciate the simple fact that we are here, that we exist, if even for only a wisp of a moment when compared to infinity.

Well, that was one hell of a deep thought. Got to give it to us in smaller bytes though. And by the way ... Achoo! God Bless you.

The opening is religious bullshit. A person needs to realize that they are not alive "looking for their god" and if they could not find him or have him being alive meant nothing. This sounds like a kid throwing a fit for an ice cream cone. A person makes their own purpose in life by doing and following what they want to do.

Didn't read because way too long, but the opening sounds like religious bullshit to me as it reeks of stupidity coupled with egocentrism and a total lack of scientific knowledge.

"Good God! And exactly to which God do you refer?" (Slaps the imbecile about the face with a wet fish.)

Very good food for thought and, while agree with what you said, I cannot totally agree with your reason for living. I personally have not fulfilled my "obligation" to perpetuate the species. If that is true, it unfairly leaves out all those who are not physically, or psychologically, able to do that. I don't think in the history of mankind anyone has really come up with a better reason, but it's not good enough for me. It presupposes that it is of some consequence that our species remain on Earth. Perhaps a better reason would be, for the sake of playing "devil's advocate", that we are here to change the face of the planet for however many millions of years until, when we have succeeded in destroying it for ourselves, if not for other species, Earth will be free to begin a new cleansing and regeneration. Do we really have to have a reason?

Nature (the physical laws) has given us a wonderful gift of life. So, do we throw it away because it isn't gift wrapped?

Too too many are so hung up on spirituality and the nothingness of the end of their lives that the reality we live in takes second stage to realization that we are just animals that think, talk, over build, and then destroy everything in our way!!!

We have no meaning, just like all life on this planet always comes to and end!!!

mostly 42 imo

the purpose of life is living the purpose of a species to procreating continuing of the species there is no divine purpose! It is simple the continuing of the species.

Always with HGTG... lol

the individual reason for living may have nothing to do with reproduction even though that is the species' raison d'être . however, just because it is hard or even impossible to answer a question (the one about an individual reason for living) that doesn't mean someone's ridiculous answer must do. "i don't know, so, you know, god!" doesn't work, right? it is natural to wonder. it is also natural to make up a nice, comforting answer, regardless of reality. but 42 is indeed as close to an answer as we will ever come, and meanwhile, the existence of any gods (be they abrahamic, olympian, aztec or unimaginable to mere mortals) is sufficiently unlikely that i feel i can safely aver that not a single one exists without fearing a huge surprise from some lurking deity.

g

p.s. i sure wouldn't want to go to any afterlife -- heaven, for example -- unless i was in charge of the music and the menu.

I likewise don't agree with the god mumbo-jumbo, but I don't believe it necessitates nihilism. I believe we are awareness and not simply part of this body. I have a great many reasons for believing this way but I'm not here to argue that.

Unless someone is using their view to push you I see no reason to not let them be so to speak. It just makes my time a big conflict in the real world and if my time is indeed short I don't need that. I'd rather live it out in a passive manner. But I haven't always been this way. I was once mad and lashing out at them too. I think it fades for many when they find their path.

Very good great overview. I would however say that the line. "Fear of the end was not eliminated, but it was alleviated to some extent." Is perhaps less than half the story. Since you could also add. "Fear of the end was also exacerbated to a large extent." Those who pretend to control the god/supernatural, use both the stick and the carrot, the stick perhaps more so. They love to say that religion is about moderating the fear of death, because that makes them sound benign, and ignore the fact that the small natural fear of death has been vastly exacerbated by thousands of years by them, pedaling scare stories that have seeped into the fabric of our cultures.

Who are you talking to?