The Meaning of Life
We all know what it means to be born and live since we are doing that now, but what’s the meaning and importance for us having lives? Religions, philosophers, and scientists try to answer this question for everyone. If we all thought and felt the same as each other then I could believe there is a simple answer which could be applicable to everyone. However, each living organism and human being I’ve encountered has shown so many differences in their approach to existence. I tend to believe any of the philosophical viewpoints which say there isn’t an objective meaning for life (nihilism) and each person determines their own meaning (existentialism) through secular humanism.The universe is our environment for life and doesn’t provide us specific reasons to live when we scientifically examine our environment. Some religions say we have no meaning without a creator. That’s because the writers of those religions also saw no meaning for us provided by the universe. Each person creates the essence or meaning of their own lives through their freedom to decide and act as they choose. We choose to continue higher acts of self-preservation to ensure our lives don’t end. These actions go above and beyond our basic physical self-preservation we all have such as not being able to asphyxiate ourselves by simply holding our breath.
Think: What makes us desire to live instead of just survive?
Life carries more meaning when we have desires for a happier existence combined with an overall well-being. Gaining happiness and well-being is very much a personal quest. Discovering the meaning of life is really an individual quest for the meaning of our own lives. Every person’s different desires and definitions for happiness and well-being should develop many different meanings of life. My own meaning of life has changed over time as I’ve grown into adulthood, got married, and had children of my own. There isn’t one set of ideas to define a lifelong happiness and well-being for my existence. There isn’t one achievable goal to make the rest of my life a constant state of perfect bliss. The only constant I have ever experienced in life is the ever present existence of change.
For me, change and the achievement of new and different experiences are the keys to a meaningful life. The quest and the journey are everything with no specific destination except for various waypoints to rest and enjoy for at least a moment. Some people are content to not physically travel but I think we should all quest for change and journey through our minds at the very least. I don’t believe the meaning of life can be found in a well-worn rut without any change.
An Eternal Soul
The essence of self in our minds and psyche appears when the neurons of our brain formulate and process our first thought. These thoughts are recorded as memories which continue to feed our growing identities. What happens to our essence of self when our brains no longer function? I’ve known people who have died and everything I’ve seen has shown me they cease to exist. My own experience is I don’t know of anything before I was born. Everything I know of our physical universe tells me I don’t exist without my brain so I don’t expect to know of anything after I die.Religions teach us there’s an eternal soul. The fear of death and the desire to live forever makes the idea of the soul a very appealing fiction. I have memories of loved ones who have passed away. It’s through human imagination and these memories I can project their persona into the present and imagine what they may think if they were still alive. Our imaginations have a powerful ability to trick and confuse the reality in our minds. Combining imagination with the vision of someone who actually existed can make their soul and essence of their existence appear to be real and eternal. Early humans and their ancestor worship led to the development of the eternal soul concept in later religions along with a heaven to hold our souls.
Think: Do you have any sense of your personality or thoughts existing before you were born?
I have no sense of my thoughts existing before I was born. The growth of our persona over the course of our lives leads me to believe there isn’t an eternal aspect to our essence of self. There should be some signs of our mental abilities and growth starting well before our physical human lives if we did have souls. Each person starts as a blank slate and a sponge which learns from everything around them. They don’t bring with them an eternal knowledge or wisdom that a soul should possess.
If there really was an eternal soul then our human lives exist in such a small blip of time that these lives are meaningless compared to eternity. This very moment you read this and contemplate this thought would literally have no meaning or value compared to the eternal time we aren’t human beings. An eternal soul devalues human life and makes it insignificant and unimportant compared to the importance of an eternal soul. This is a dangerous viewpoint because unknowable beliefs about these imagined souls could be argued to be more important than the human lives we know.
The importance of agnosticism is the acknowledgement we don’t really know about these supernatural or spiritual concepts. We shouldn’t put our faith in what we don’t know regardless of how much we might want to imagine or believe such things could be true. What we do know about our very real human lives should always be the most important concept guiding us.
I know I’m definitely a human being and not an immortal soul momentarily possessing this body. Every fiber of my being tells me I really do need this body to exist and my death will be the end of me. It doesn’t make sense to make the giant leap of faith to believe in my soul since it conflicts with the feeling of life inside my physical body and mind.
Souls from the Universe
The true essence of what could be considered our soul is rooted in our physical mind. But what if there is a true origin for our soul in this universe which is not yet dreamt of in our philosophies or religions? The root of agnosticism for me is this acknowledgement that outside of our verifiable knowledge is the realm of the unknown and a possibly unknowable reality. The universe gives us our atoms and the building blocks of our physical bodies. I can imagine some of the essence of our thoughts and our personas could also come from some misunderstood aspect of the universe instead of existing exclusively in our physical minds.Our thoughts could be built from and connected back to the universe just as our bodies are built from the materials of the universe. Our bodies and minds are clearly independent of the universe, but there could be more of an impact and connection to our minds just as the physical universe impacts our physical bodies in many ways we don’t always understand or see. A physical example of this is radiation. Maybe there could be a mental equivalent of radiation. This is not to say such things actually exist and leaps of faith can be justified by imagined possibilities. This is just to point out the limits of our knowledge. Since science can discover and prove radiation, perhaps science may be able to discover a mental essence of our being in addition to our physical existence. I could imagine our mental essence is built from our parents just as their DNA builds our physical bodies.
Many people believe in specific ideas of an intelligent creator who built thinking beings like themselves. I think it’s more likely this belief is based on projecting our own personas back on the universe from which we are built. If we have a subconscious sense of our bodies being built from the universe then perhaps we have a sense our conscious also comes from the universe. This doesn’t mean there has to be a deliberate or intelligent cause for this to happen. This is beyond our knowledge our understanding. I’m simply suggesting there may be something to a feeling that there’s something out there more than this physical existence. It isn’t a jealous god who demands our love but it may be something from the universe inside us we may not be able to know or understand.
We know the matter of the universe has spawned our physical bodies and minds in this little corner of it all. We don’t know, but it’s plausible, that we assemble our conscious thoughts and sense of self as momentary collections of something unknown in the universe. We may do this just as our bodies are momentary collections of atoms we somewhat understand.
We return our bodies to the universe to be used for other things which are unintelligent and unrelated to our lives. Perhaps our thoughts and the essence of our being could also be something tangible we don’t understand. Whatever it is could also be dispersed back into the universe when the atoms of our brains cease to be organized as a living organ capable of processing thoughts. There could be an eternal soul and it’s simply some other material in the universe which organizes into our sense of being for a brief moment in eternity and disperses back into the cosmos when we die.
The concept of a soul is another point where I believe knowledge trumps belief and agnosticism is more informative and descriptive than atheism. Disbelief in theism doesn’t convey this idea of what is known and the possibility of something existing beyond what we currently consider to be the natural universe. The atheist response to the soul is that we don’t believe because it is unbelievable. This is valid but it isn’t my primary message to people asking me what I believe. The agnostic view of the soul is we don’t know and it might be unknowable. The complete picture is agnostic atheism: I don’t know and don’t believe because I don’t know.
The Importance of Life
One thing we should be able to agree upon is that there is a most basic instinct built into us driving us to continue living. The fundamental desire to continue our physical existence gives us an importance for this limited human life. Religious beliefs for an eternal soul conflict with our most basic instincts and actually diminish the importance of our physical lives. If we live forever then why would it matter if we have this little blip of life?Our intelligence is our greatest asset but our basic animal traits confuse a more noble intellect. Parts of our mythologies and religions were born out of a fear of death. We’re obviously capable of observing death and fearing it as we think we understand it. An appeal of religion is when it eases those fears. A false sense of safety for our self-preservation is probably one of the big reasons it’s hard for people to let go of religious beliefs.
In the end, I don’t really know what will happen with my persona after I die. I can only assume with the passing of my physical body that the most logical outcome is I cease to exist. However, if my consciousness did continue on after my physical death then I can say with all certainty I wouldn’t be a surprised atheist by the event. I’m an agnostic holding firm to the fact that I don’t really know until I get there. There’s no sense in worrying too much about it because I know I’ll get to that physical end soon enough. I’m very certain the religions of the world are wrong concerning our immortality. Religious methods of discovery for their claimed knowledge can’t be any more capable of knowing the real truth any more than anything I’m doing or unbiased scientists are doing.
The most devoutly religious people are probably the ones who are most fearful of an inevitable death. The nonreligious and even the casually religious are the ones who don’t fear death as much since they just see it for what it really appears to be. The ironic part of that is human evolution should favor the non-religious over time because the true believers are more likely to not mind an early death and engage in more risky and self-destructive behaviors such as suicide bombings. This is a reason why religions have to make suicide a sin, because if they made suicide an unqualified virtue then devout desires for heaven might lead to more suicides as people seek their more perfect immortality.
Think: The infinitesimal short time of human life is almost non-existent compared to immortality.
If we really could have immortality in heaven, then this physical existence is an almost infinitely short and insignificant part of our immortal lives. It makes no sense at all to put any real importance in our human existence if we’re immortal. I wish people didn’t believe in their immortality for the sole reason that this line of thinking makes the insanely devout capable of doing such awful things when they see no importance for humanity as it compares to an eternal heaven. Their human self-preservation can become twisted into an immortal self-preservation. They may fear loss of the immortality so much it overrides their fear of human death and impacts their ability to care about the death of others.
It’s scary, but having written this out I think I understand when a religious person says with such seriousness they are praying for and fear for my soul. I don’t want anyone to put more importance in an imagined immortality for me than in my definite human mortality. There’s a possibility these religious people will develop some twisted scheme for protecting my immortality at the cost of my human morality. Human rights should always trump unproven religious rights for this reason.
Death
I was talking to a friend about the tremendous loss to humanity with George Carlin’s death. I believe we lost a great wit and generally funny guy and we’ll collectively miss out on his future insights. My friend remarked that it’s too bad he was atheist. I asked him why and how his belief impacts anything. He kind of stumbled around trying to say Carlin’s belief impacts his death. I think it threw him off when I said anything other than “yeah” as a programmed matching response to typical death talk. Instead I replied that whatever reality there is I seriously doubt it would be impacted by the man’s beliefs.Why are some people so self-centered and self-important to think our beliefs impact what may or may not happen to us once we die? Let’s suppose there are gods and some sort of afterlife, no matter how improbable that may seem to me. Does anyone really believe what they think about such things right here and now will have any bearing on our participation in that afterlife? Does anyone really think all of eternity would be judged on your present ability to trust in what is truth, lies, or fallacies of ancient humanity and the uninformed scribbling of our ancestors?
Religions claim truth just because people wrote it and believe it. What if this book you’re reading now is the real answer? My writings have just as much validity and likelihood to be an inspired text guided by the gods as any other text on old scrolls. It’s not the age or medium which makes the written word divine, is it? What if the real gods are guiding me to tell everyone we all have it wrong and we can’t possibly know or understand any of it until after we die and enter their realm? We just don’t know. All I know is George Carlin is dead and he will be missed by those of us still living here on this little speck of dirt in the universe.
I’ve lived long enough to see a variety of deaths. An in-law of mine I hardly knew died in his early 20s from cancer the day before Valentine’s Day. It was a sad event, but I didn’t feel myself filled with the same kind of dread I had when I was struggling to cope with such realities as a Christian. I no longer have the same kind of grief and fear I see on the faces of believers as they shout “why?!?” to a god who doesn’t answer. I know there are no reasons why for the end of this one life other than the cancer. There was nothing personal about it and there wasn’t an uncaring god who let it happen and just chose not to intervene. I’ve never met a believer who was truly happy when someone moved on to a “better place” and that death existing as just the passage to another phase of eternal life. Everyone always seems to acknowledge deep inside that the person is gone from them forever. The death of others is almost always met with grief instead of joy.
Since I have realized how much I don’t know about the universe and now see death as the natural end of a story, I think I can be more objective about what death really means. Our lives unfold as unique stories just like a book. Some stories are long and interesting. Sadly, some stories are much shorter with the hints of what could have come if the final page wasn’t already written. As sad as “The End” is to see and experience, it’s an unchangeable characteristic of these books of life just as the opening chapter always begins with our birth. I don’t think I’m cold and uncaring to have the thought of it being best for the book, the life and its story, to exist exactly as it did. I may hope a book coming to a close will continue, but once the end is written then I can accept it for what it is. It’s just how books and our lives work.
I feel grief and fear for those who are dying instead of those that have passed away. I’d rather dwell on what was instead of what is no more after you’re gone. If I don’t cry when your story ends, it’s just because I used it all up in your final chapter as I could feel the book thinning and the final pages passing on their way to the inevitable end. The funeral is too late for tears. It’s the time to reflect on a story well-told and on a completed book I can flip through from the bookcase of my memory.
Suicide
I've known several people who have commited suicide. It’s a tragic ending to any life and even more tragic being people I actually knew. I can only imagine the impact it had on their families. It’s not something I could ever really understand why it was done and what it really means to take your own life.I only know of this life and can’t imagine anything is after it. Because of this belief, I don’t see how suicide could ever be considered a solution to any problem. It throws away any chance we may have to continue the story of our life for the better or worse we can achieve. It forces the final sentence of a life to be written and forever closes the book.
This brings up the question of what religions say about suicide and their belief in an afterlife and heaven. Do suicides go to heaven? Apparently religions don’t claim a consistent answer since I found many different answers to this very important question. I’m told gods are always very clear about what we should be doing, and yet I’m not surprised by the lack of one specific answer.
Apparently suicide can be argued either way by religion even though the purely human viewpoint is it’s just bad. I can definitely see why some religions would want you to think you spend the rest of eternity in hell for committing suicide. The alternative is you get to leave this short moment of your existence early and spend the rest of eternity in heaven.
Why wouldn’t people want to be where everything is blissful and you’re reunited with loved ones who have died? Plus, the loved ones you leave behind will catch up with you eventually. It sounds like a great plan to me. Why would you want to mess around any longer here on Earth if you can reach the prize of heaven much sooner? You could live on like in the movie What Dreams May Come. It’s an interesting movie with a pleasant and almost godless view of an afterlife.
Suicide is a catch-22 making the idea of heaven and hell that much more ridiculous for me. I believe death is the end because it’s all I know to be a fact. Religion sells us on the notion that death isn’t the end and entices us with an unproven everlasting life in a utopian heaven. Apparently all believers go to heaven when they die so dying shouldn’t be a big deal, right?
Some people make rules for getting into heaven and some only make a simple rule like accepting Jesus as your savior. However, if you follow the later rule and commit suicide then apparently you have your free pass to heaven as long as you still accepted Jesus. In which case, what would be the problem with accepting Jesus and then dying as quickly as possible to get your reward of everlasting peace in heaven? Even the sin of suicide would be forgiven, right? It’s a terrible gamble to make which isn’t based on real knowledge concerning our existence.
The most compelling answer to a question of committing suicide is you can’t afford to throw away the only life you have. No longer existing isn’t a good answer to any problem. Every situation and moment, no matter how good or bad, could be made better or made worse. Why not stick around and try to make things better for yourself?
Near Death and Reincarnation
What do we actually know about Near Death Experiences (NDEs)? The first thing I imagine is a Near Anything Experience isn’t an achievement of that state. Could I feel almost like a vapor or a vampire? I wouldn’t be a full vapor able to pull myself back into a human form like Dracula or become the actual bloodsucking undead just because I almost feel like those things.What about an out of body experience? I’ve woken up feeling like I fell back into myself but the feeling in my body doesn’t prove anything happened outside of it. We often take something we don’t understand and project something we know over it. My brain can throw the sensation of falling over some odd feeling in my body or my mind I was having as I slept and dreamed. I do know dreams aren’t physical realities and NDEs could be something from a dream state.
The state of nearly being dead is the same state as still being alive with at least a partially functioning brain. Complete brain death is when our synapses are no longer firing. Electricity and chemicals in the brain no longer flow and the storm of consciousness and thoughts ceases to function.
If the laws of thermodynamics are correct then the energy of our consciousness is returned to the universe. It doesn’t make sense to me for the energy to retain any sort of cohesion when we die. The energy currently exists in the physical structure of the brain and appears to require that structure to work. I honestly don’t know because I haven’t died yet.
I imagine being near death is the slipping away of cohesion while still having a hold on consciousness. A NDE could be the sense of self on the edge of losing cohesion, which should give us some interesting feelings about it once we snap back to a fully alive state. Could the energy of our consciousness go somewhere else and return during a NDE? Maybe someday we could measure it happening or not.
NDEs, out of body experiences, and anything else contributing to understanding the relationship of our consciousness with our physical bodies are good areas for scientific study. These things could really expose the truth of our existence and relationship to the natural universe so they shouldn’t just be dismissed as unbelievable. They could help prove or disprove what some people think exists in the realm of the supernatural but just may be parts of the natural universe we don’t understand.
We don’t truly know what happens after we die and return our materials and energy back to the universe. That leads me to believe reincarnation is unknown since it’s based on knowing we retain something of ourselves when we die. I can’t say it’s disproven even if I personally consider it unlikely.
If we die and the energy of our consciousness can maintain some cohesion of self, then what remains of that consciousness could be reused in another form. It’s a weak house of cards to build a belief on. There’s a lot there which is well beyond human understanding and it isn’t something we can turn into a verifiable truth. It’s not worth stating a definite belief for it even though we should remain open-minded about the possibilities in that area.
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