(May 23, 2018 at 10:28 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(May 23, 2018 at 6:46 am)pocaracas Wrote: I was writing this yesterday, but then gave up, because time... today, I noticed GC praising this reply by neo, so I figured I'd give it another go.
I wouldn't see things that bleakly.
Hope is always there.... perhaps not hope in any eternal life, but hope that things will get better for everyone else... hope that your family can cope with your death and move on... hope that mankind will do this or that... I don't think I'll die hopeless.
Human life generally has societal meaning, purpose, and value. Can't that be enough?
Let's not confuse hope with enjoyment. Sure you can enjoy life but that in itself isn't meaningful. You can build stuff but it will all fall to ruin eventually. You can hope our ancestors will carry on, but then they will die too, if not now, then eventually when the universe itself dies. If human existence is extinguished by death and all our legacies erased by time then there isn't anything to hope for beyond that boundary.
That seems to be a very distant and pointless barrier to look into any "beyond".
Why should I care about it? Why should I have hope towards such a state that is pretty much meaningless to me as a human on this planet?
I understand that many people would want to have such hope... and it is a fact that many (such as yourself, I suppose) do, regardless of the existence of the god.
But why reach for something like that? Were you sold that concept of everlasting life in some form and are now unable to think of existence without your conscience permeating it forever and ever?
Is that what hope is all about? Hoping that we go on forever and ever?
