If Life is Meaningless Anyway, then What's Wrong with Religion?

[LadyForCamus]

You are appealing to subjective experience as a way to conclude that time alone makes one lose an appreciation for life. This is not something to be determined by such means, however. 

What one feels on the matter is not conclusive by itself, but rather why one feels as one does.

I'd say the reducing elasticity of "chemical bounce" by the body is a prime suspect.

And the over accumulation of irritants, physical and otherwise is another. You know what cleans both those out? A good fast.

I find a week long fast to be physically, mentally, and emotionally rejuvenating.

Please don't tell strangers on the Internet not to eat, Ark. You realize this could be deadly advice for a diabetic, yes? I love you man, but please do stick to arbor...ism.

[LadyForCamus]

Also my point was that you don't know anyone PERPETUALLY in their prime

Exactly, so how could we possibly make any reasonable assumptions about such a hypothetical?

[Mister Agenda]

No, if you could eliminate the solvable problem of old-age related breakdown, yes, people wouldn't "tire" of living. They might still want to end their lives, but it would be for other reasons than so-called "tiredness". Do you hear many young healthy folks saying they're done with life, they've lived enough and it's time for them to go now? Why is it that you don't, do you think? Take whatever reason you might come up with to explain that and ask yourself if you think it's unlikely or even impossible that we won't overcome it in the future.

You don't, but neither do you know that you will. If we are to allow for the simple fact that we just don't know what the future might bring or what that particular situation might look like, yet, then both positions expressed here so far are just as invalid. Namely, we don't know either way. We can make assumptions, though. That's what I've been doing, same as all the rest of you who disagree with me at the moment.

I'm not trying to argue with you, EP.  I am actually seriously considering your assumption.  Did I not make that obvious?  I think it's very likely that if we could "solve" the problem of old age and disease a great many more people would be happy to live on forever.  I would put myself in that category in fact.  The idea of ceasing to exist someday horrifies and terrorizes me on a regular basis.  But, I'm not operating on any assumptions, to be clear.  All I'm saying is that generalizations about feelings and motives like, 'no one ever feels' or 'no one ever wants', are meaningless unless you have some amazing ability to live the entire life of every human who has ever, or will ever be born.  

I admit that my feelings about 'being dead' have changed considerably since I was deeply sedated on an operating table for nine hours. It seemed like no time at all had passed, I closed my eyes and opened them somewhere else. There was nothing in between. I was truly unconscious. I knew in an intellectual way that death is nothingness, like a light going out; but 'experiencing' nothingness robbed me of all fear of it. I've got things I want to do first, and I wouldn't want to die painfully (or expensively), but my caring about anything stops the instant I do. The only thing I can leave behind are my footprints, and when the universe is an ever-expanding realm of photons flying ever farther apart, there won't be a detectable trace that I ever existed. But I did, and it meant something while it lasted.

[Excited Penguin]

I'm not trying to argue with you, EP.  I am actually seriously considering your assumption.  Did I not make that obvious?  I think it's very likely that if we could "solve" the problem of old age and disease a great many more people would be happy to live on forever.  I would put myself in that category in fact.  The idea of ceasing to exist someday horrifies and terrorizes me on a regular basis.  But, I'm not operating on any assumptions, to be clear.  All I'm saying is that generalizations about feelings and motives like, 'no one ever feels' or 'no one ever wants', are meaningless unless you have some amazing ability to live the entire life of every human who has ever, or will ever be born.  

I admit that my feelings about 'being dead' have changed considerably since I was deeply sedated on an operating table for nine hours. It seemed like no time at all had passed, I closed my eyes and opened them somewhere else. There was nothing in between. I was truly unconscious. I knew in an intellectual way that death is nothingness, like a light going out; but 'experiencing' nothingness robbed me of all fear of it. I've got things I want to do first, and I wouldn't want to die painfully (or expensively), but my caring about anything stops the instant I do. The only thing I can leave behind are my footprints, and when the universe is an ever-expanding realm of photons flying ever farther apart, there won't be a detectable trace that I ever existed. But I did, and it meant something while it lasted.

I don't fear death itself, myself, rather I simply want to live instead.

[Huggy Bear]

Also my point was that you don't know anyone PERPETUALLY in their prime

Exactly, so how could we possibly make any reasonable assumptions about such a hypothetical?

So basically you reword and redirect the point I was making back at me? How does that work?
You should be addressing Mister Agenda and Thump.

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I'm not trying to argue with you, EP.  I am actually seriously considering your assumption.  Did I not make that obvious?  I think it's very likely that if we could "solve" the problem of old age and disease a great many more people would be happy to live on forever.  I would put myself in that category in fact.  The idea of ceasing to exist someday horrifies and terrorizes me on a regular basis.  But, I'm not operating on any assumptions, to be clear.  All I'm saying is that generalizations about feelings and motives like, 'no one ever feels' or 'no one ever wants', are meaningless unless you have some amazing ability to live the entire life of every human who has ever, or will ever be born.  

I admit that my feelings about 'being dead' have changed considerably since I was deeply sedated on an operating table for nine hours. It seemed like no time at all had passed, I closed my eyes and opened them somewhere else. There was nothing in between. I was truly unconscious. I knew in an intellectual way that death is nothingness, like a light going out; but 'experiencing' nothingness robbed me of all fear of it. I've got things I want to do first, and I wouldn't want to die painfully (or expensively), but my caring about anything stops the instant I do. The only thing I can leave behind are my footprints, and when the universe is an ever-expanding realm of photons flying ever farther apart, there won't be a detectable trace that I ever existed. But I did, and it meant something while it lasted.

Total speculation, the fact of the matter is you weren't dead.

What you describe, happens to people on a daily basis, it's called sleep...

The only way to know what happens when you die... is to die, period. The funny thing is that many people that experience actual clinical death don't experience nothingness.

[Excited Penguin]

I admit that my feelings about 'being dead' have changed considerably since I was deeply sedated on an operating table for nine hours. It seemed like no time at all had passed, I closed my eyes and opened them somewhere else. There was nothing in between. I was truly unconscious. I knew in an intellectual way that death is nothingness, like a light going out; but 'experiencing' nothingness robbed me of all fear of it. I've got things I want to do first, and I wouldn't want to die painfully (or expensively), but my caring about anything stops the instant I do. The only thing I can leave behind are my footprints, and when the universe is an ever-expanding realm of photons flying ever farther apart, there won't be a detectable trace that I ever existed. But I did, and it meant something while it lasted.

Total speculation, the fact of the matter is you weren't dead.

What you describe, happens to people on a daily basis, it's called sleep...

The only way to know what happens when you die... is to die, period. The funny thing is that many people that experience actual clinical death don't experience nothingness.

Depends on what you mean by knowing. If that's to say no one will ever know except for ourselves - that is, it will forever remain unprovable, then I agree. But we can speculate that nothing at all will happen given what we currently know about biology. That is the most reasonable assumption to make, by far. You can imagine anything you want, of course, especially if you're brainwashed, but that is beside the point.

[Huggy Bear]

Total speculation, the fact of the matter is you weren't dead.

What you describe, happens to people on a daily basis, it's called sleep...

The only way to know what happens when you die... is to die, period. The funny thing is that many people that experience actual clinical death don't experience nothingness.

Depends on what you mean by knowing. If that's to say no one will ever know except for ourselves - that is, it will forever remain unprovable, then I agree. But we can speculate that nothing at all will happen given what we currently know about biology. That is the most reasonable assumption to make, by far. You can imagine anything you want, of course, especially if you're brainwashed, but that is beside the point.

Speculation works both ways buddy.

[Mister Agenda]

So we can be completely unconscious when we're heavily sedated, but the idea that we're not conscious when we're dead is mere speculation?

And I've been both heavily sedated (sufficient to have my chest sawed open without me noticing) and asleep, so I'm in a position to know that sleep is far from the same thing. Neither is clinical death, for that matter.

[Excited Penguin]

Depends on what you mean by knowing. If that's to say no one will ever know except for ourselves - that is, it will forever remain unprovable, then I agree. But we can speculate that nothing at all will happen given what we currently know about biology. That is the most reasonable assumption to make, by far. You can imagine anything you want, of course, especially if you're brainwashed, but that is beside the point.

Speculation works both ways buddy.

Mine is based on scientific knowledge, yours on fiction.

[Huggy Bear]

So we can be completely unconscious when we're heavily sedated, but the idea that we're not conscious when we're dead is mere speculation?

yes.

And I've been both heavily sedated (sufficient to have my chest sawed open without me noticing) and asleep, so I'm in a position to know that sleep is far from the same thing. Neither is clinical death, for that matter.

as far as closing your eyes and experiencing 'nothingness', sleep and "sedation" are not far from the same thing.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sedation

sedation
NOUN

1[MASS NOUN] The action of administering a sedative drug to produce a state of calm or sleep.

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Speculation works both ways buddy.

Mine is based on scientific knowledge, yours on fiction.

Point me to this scientific knowledge that explains what happens after death.