idontbelieve

I'm a lutheran turned Agnostic. In the beginning when i questioned Christianity, I felt faith was too weak for me, but after studying Buddhism and reading other stuff, a deeper understanding of what it means to live became apparent to me, one which was lacking in my earlier days as an atheist. I used to think that I could not except God’s existence because I could not except faith. To my mom, this is simply doubt. But now, I’ve realized something deeper about life. The life cycle is birth, and then death. The period between these two points is a place where we can leave traces of ourselves and our legacies. No matter how long we live, we always leave an impact on someone. But my question is: if we only live to die, then why don’t we simply skip to heaven? And if so a heaven does exist, what is the reason for living? Is it to pay for Adam and Eve’s sins? Is it to gain the rites of passage into heaven? If life is only suffering, and will only lead to something better, what is the point of being? Apparently, God created us in his image. God dwells in heaven, a paradise in afterlife that can only be attained through faith in God, belief in God. Some devote their lives to him, some do not. But in the end, we all die. And then, supposedly, heaven awaits the faithful for eternity. If this is true, what’s the human life span to eternity? What's a couple decades to forever? Is earth merely a waiting room? Why did God take the time to create such a place if we only leave it in such a short time?

I do not believe in God (meaning I accepted both possiblities for existence and non-existence), but I have a little understanding of why. Right now, my biggest reason is that life is a beautiful thing, but deemed insignificant in the presence of heaven, and therefore compels me to question it. Again, i'll state the question i'm asking: Why is there a life on this earth, if it is so short, and it only leads to a much greater life in a "much, better place"?

I guess you can either try to answer my questions, accept them as rhetorical and agree, or offer some other avenues of thought that i've been missing.

Thanks for your help. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

bgponder

Dear Don't:

Well, that's the Big One, isn't it?

My best answer is that there is no why. Our meaning is what we make it, the best way we can, with the only thing that we know we can know, which is natural fact.

Peace and Cornbread, and Welcome Barry

99Percent

Well idontbelieve, the undeniable fact remains that your existence is unique - no one in the history of this universe is going to repeat this experience. So make the best of it and prove the worthiness of your own existence.

Welcome to the IIF, where the tough questions are challenged!

Theophage

Simple, because life demonstratably exists now. Thus any theology talking about parradise and eternal punishment need to take this into account. Frankly, they simply don't do that very well, and this life ends up being something of a silly test to pick an afterlife.

Life is a brute fact. It's here. To give it any more "meaning" than that is simply to invite silliness and wishful thinking.

Enjoy the time you're here; you won't be getting any more.

Daniel "Theophage" Clark

Koyaanisqatsi

Your questions are precisely how I first woke up and deprogrammed myself from the christian cult.

I used to think, "If heaven is so friggin' great, then why don't we all just kill ourselves and get there already?" But of course, the cult had answers for that just like they had answers for the thousands of other questions that followed. The problem was, of course, that they weren't good answers; just dictatorial decree.

If I may, I think you have everything backwards. There is tremendous meaning to your life, which is how the cult indoctrinated you. Like all of their tenets, they stole the inherent qualities of your life and sold them back to you with a different wrapping. You are your own god and you are the one who applies meaning to your life.

Ironically, if you read the Gnostic Gospels, particularly the first gospel written (The Gospel of Thomas), you can certainly make a very good argument that this was precisely what Jesus was teaching; that we are all god and that god is within us and that no one needs anyone at all (including Jesus) to recognize that what we call "god" is just us at our best.

As for "life after death," that too is just part of their scare tactics to make you think that they have something you don't. It is inherent within all of nature that there is no annihilation of energy, only transferrence; energy cannot be destroyed, only redirected.

There is also abundant evidence all around you of the life cycle you curiously stopped at; of life, death, rebirth, life, death, rebirth, life, death, etc. Just look at a goddamned tree over the course of a year and you'll see what I'm talking about.

The truth is, we haven't a f*cking clue what death is or isn't and evil people use that fact to control you. First they make you wonder about it, then they make you fear it, and one you fear it, they offer the way out.

It's pure snake-oil tactics; the exact same thing that commercials do.

So, "meaning" is what it always has been, you're own personal take on it all. That was first. It was the cult that stole that away from you and made you terrified of your own self so that you would no longer believe in yourself or your own ability to be god.

Why do you think they come done so heavily on humility and blasphemy and "one true god" and "no other gods before me?"

It's all a load of pigshit and you're the shoveler without heavy protective gloves. Only then a miracle happened. You woke up! Now you just have to complete the deprogramming and soon you'll recognize that nothing they told you was true or in any way real, which means that nothing they told you about "meaning" is true either.

Welcome to freedom.

Jayhawker Soule

In my opinion, there is no 'why'.