crocodile deathroll

I was far more afraid of death being a thiestME!


Than a not-theist

Virgil Tibbs

Okay, I have a better idea of what you are trying to say. However, I don't see any reason to consider my life only from the narrow viewpoint of myself alone. If anything the fact that my existence will be finite and rather short is all the more reason to consider the effect of my actions on the people who will be around when I am gone.

There is also I should mention a bit of a problem with this POV: I will not be in a position to judge anything relevant or irrelevant when I do not exist. And also, while I do exist I do care about how all the people who come after me will do, even if I don't get to see myself.

Tibbs

crocodile deathroll

Tibbs
There will ultimately be a time when the whole human race will become extinct either by a nuclear armageddin and a cosmic impact, disease etc, and since the is no one around to read any of the historical data, then we may as well of never existed.

CDR

Virgil Tibbs

It is far from certain that mankind will annihilate itself or die off before it colonizes other planets in the solar system. And although star trek-like FTL travel may never materialize, there is always the possibility of multi-generational colony ships to nearby stars. After a few thousand or million years, who knows how far our descendents could go?

More importantly, I still disagree with your underlying premise that a finite existence is meaningless, even after it runs out. If/when humanity dies out, be it tomorrow or in a trillion trillion trillion years, we won't be around to assign meaning to it all. Meaning is something that is only relevant while you do exist. Generally, most people can find some meaning in their lives, and that's certainly different from never having existed, regardless of how everything turns out at the very end.

I don't see how one point in time is more important just because it comes later; just because someday there might not be human beings or there were none at some point in the past does not change the fact that there are human beings right now. The journey need not be ignored just because the destination might be bleak.

In fact, I don't see how an infinite existence would even be preferable: eventually an infinite being or beings will have exhausted the ability to appreciate or even find new things, and that would be a living death worse than non-existence by far. At best the infinite beings could erase their own memories to avoid this, but then you still have the same issue of things being forgotten that the finite being has.

If the moment right now is not relevant, then why would the moment tomorrow or in a year from now or in a billion years from now be important? If every single moment is meaningless because it is transient, how would have an infinite number of meaningless, transient moments be better?

Tibbs

Kenneth

This atheist fear death for another reason: justice. It may not happen in the United States very often. But it happens elsewhere in the world quite often. Victims of abuse and torture die a cruel death, and their abusers go on to live comfortable life.

This life offers no justice to them. To the theist, there is hope the justice will be served on the afterlife. The punishment will be doubly severed, because "blood debt will be paid in blood, the longer it takes, the higher the interest." But to the atheist, if you could not get your justice in this life, then your tormentor gets away with murder, literally.

Unreasonable? To some...

excreationist

I disagree about the fear of death being ingrained (i.e. instinctive). I think it is learnt. I think that naturally, like other animals, we don't realize that one day we will die. Animals can learn through experience that sometimes other animals die, but they probably don't come to the conclusion that some day, they will also die. Apparently when toddlers learn about death, they soon wonder whether their parents will die and whether they themselves will die.

Our instincts to avoid pains caused by injuries, hunger, etc, can ensure our survival.

crocodile deathroll

Tibbs
This may sound a little pessimistic, but I feel the civilization as you observe is highly unstable and will probably exhaust its resources on earth long before any dreams of colonizing any new planets. Those prospective planets are most likely to be hundreds, thousands or even millions of light years away. This sought of logic may of been the dream of the Spanish Conquistadors when they set out to colonize new lands, but I feel the best we can hope for is a sustainable civilization on earth with no reliance on finite recourses.
Is subscribe to the Weak Anthropic Principle
Which implies life is without intrinsic meaning, and if the population of the earth were to go through as much as an equally dramatic decline this century as the explosion in the last one then you would of been born at a very typical time in history.


If feel meaning is something that is intrapersonal and not something that we can objective observe in the external world.

I believe all points of time are just like points of reference like mile posts on a road, none of them have the advantage of reality over the other

In the sense that reality of our total non existence already exists in the universe. It is just that we are not there to observe it and as a consequence we default back to an existence where we can observe.

I just saying no single moment does not have that advantage of reality over another other then one personal observer's perception of it.

CDR

Secular Elation

I disagree. I don't think losing a good thing far outweighs losing a bad thing. Losing a good thing in itself is perhaps bad, but losing a bad thing is in itself good. Maybe I just feel that there is more pain than pleasure in life.

Secular Elation

In regards to the fear of death and non-existence. I think it is both rational and irrational.

It is rational because it is a motivation for people to remain alive. People fear death, and so they generally protect themselves from dangerous situations.

It is irrational because once death occurs, the person will not know or experience death in any way. They may experience dying, but after death, there is nothing more to worry about. It won't be like laying in the coffin forever saying over again, "Damn, this sucks." You simply don't exist. Even the part of you that fears death will cease at death.

Virgil Tibbs

The link you gave didn't have anything to say about meaning, intrinsic or otherwise. I certainly never said meaning was intrinsic to life, but that does not imply meaning cannot be made by life.

...and yet you state that a finite life is "irrelevant" as if it were an objective fact. Meaning in life is something each person must decide on his or her own. If you feel a finite life is irrelevant, that is your choice, but empiricism did not lead you there as there is no evidence that says life is irrelevant.

Meaning is in the emotions we attach to our observations, not in the observations themselves. Clearly most people do find their lives meaningful, so to say life must be irrelevant is to ignore the evidence to the contrary.

Tibbs