I'm a little bit spiritual about it, but not the way one would think. I view our lives as something akin to fireworks. When it is set off, sometimes it's a flash in the pan, a brief sputter of light before it dies, and sometimes it lights up the sky, sometimes it touches all those who see it rise and fall. But when it burns out, it's essence is gone, it is a shell, and the only thing that remains is those few who saw it at it's full glory.
Humanity seeks so much fullfillment from each of our individual lives. Most theists use religion as a way of cheating the end. Some can't imagine what the world will be like when they are gone, the thought of nonexistence is unimaginable. When you talk to someone religious about death it tends to go in one direction, this life is short and full of misery, but afterwards, we're forever, something in you will be here for all eternity...ad nauseum. Let's just call it selfish and delusional self preservation. My death cannot be the end of ME is hardly a reason to believe in some part of your consciousness existing forever. The universe was fine before you arrived, and it shall move on after you are gone. However it is up to you to give this world something to remember you by. You can either be a bottle rocket, fast and furious, but burns out quickly and is soon forgotten. Or you can be the epic finale that lights up the entire sky and leaves everyone feeling moved and in awe.
If you take solace in a you after you are gone, then it should not be attributed to anything more than very rational fears about something very scary to most of us. However if this obsession consumes the life that you do have, and everything that you do you only do to ensure your ticket paradise with jesus and moses singing around a celestial campfire for all eternity, then your life, this brief interlude for your return to nothingness that you grace this universe with your existence is purely and utterly wasted.
That's my two cents anyway.
Humanity seeks so much fullfillment from each of our individual lives. Most theists use religion as a way of cheating the end. Some can't imagine what the world will be like when they are gone, the thought of nonexistence is unimaginable. When you talk to someone religious about death it tends to go in one direction, this life is short and full of misery, but afterwards, we're forever, something in you will be here for all eternity...ad nauseum. Let's just call it selfish and delusional self preservation. My death cannot be the end of ME is hardly a reason to believe in some part of your consciousness existing forever. The universe was fine before you arrived, and it shall move on after you are gone. However it is up to you to give this world something to remember you by. You can either be a bottle rocket, fast and furious, but burns out quickly and is soon forgotten. Or you can be the epic finale that lights up the entire sky and leaves everyone feeling moved and in awe.
If you take solace in a you after you are gone, then it should not be attributed to anything more than very rational fears about something very scary to most of us. However if this obsession consumes the life that you do have, and everything that you do you only do to ensure your ticket paradise with jesus and moses singing around a celestial campfire for all eternity, then your life, this brief interlude for your return to nothingness that you grace this universe with your existence is purely and utterly wasted.
That's my two cents anyway.
"In our youth, we lacked the maturity, the decency to create gods better than ourselves so that we might have something to aspire to. Instead we are left with a host of deities who were violent, narcissistic, vengeful bullies who reflected our own values. Our gods could have been anything we could imagine, and all we were capable of manifesting were gods who shared the worst of our natures."-Me
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon
