What is the point of anything?

[Pyrrho]

Hi there, so this is my first post here. I won't bore you all with the details, but I've been on the way to deconversion for some time. There's one thing I struggle to get my head around though, largely because of my religious background (Catholic) I'm sure but it is something I do think about a lot.

Life. Living. What is the point of any of it?

No I'm not posting this while slitting my wrists to a Hawthorne Heights/Linkin Park mix, and it is something that crosses my mind whenever anything good or bad happens now. You built a sandcastle? What's the point? It's going to be gone when the tide comes in. You finished reading some novel? Well wasn't that a fine waste of an hour.

...

Have any of you got an answer or an idea, because I can't come up with one.

I am a bit baffled by this, as you seem to answer your own question. But rather than just stating it outright, I will ask you to think back to your Catholic days, when you thought there was some point to life. What, with that mindset, was the point of building sandcastles? People do it all the time, fully knowing that they will not last. Even Catholics.

I get the impression, though, that you never enjoyed building sandcastles yourself, or you likely would not have used it as an example. So, try again with something you enjoy. If you like fine wine, think about it as an example. What is the point in drinking a glass of good wine? After you are finished, the wine is gone. Or if you like music, what is the point in listening to a great piece of music? When the piece ends, it is no more. Of course, for me to give a proper example for you, I would need to know what you enjoy doing. Hopefully, you can provide the example for yourself.

Notice, with all of this, it is the same, regardless of whether you are a Catholic who believes that there is some purpose to life, or someone who believes that there is no purpose to life. Most of life is such that it does not matter at all if there is any ultimate point or not. Indeed, it is those who believe that there is some point or other to life who are most likely to miss out on opportunities to build sandcastles (which, of course, is now being used as a metaphor for whatever you enjoy doing). That is because they waste their time doing things that they believe will further that ultimate purpose in life, which is a total waste of time, since there isn't any point to it all.


This reminds me of how some people complain about the idea that death is the end, and that there is no afterlife. To me, that is a very strange thought. If there is an afterlife, as in traditional Christianity, you should be worried, for your entire life, that maybe you got something wrong and will end up in Hell forever. But if there is no afterlife, then there is no "mistake" that one needs to worry about committing that will cause one to be there. Not to mention what Epicurus said about this:

• Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.
  

http://www.epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html

My advice is to go build a sandcastle. Or if you prefer Voltaire's advice,

• "All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden."

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19942/199...9942-h.htm

[dyresand]

There really is no meaning to anything really life is short and well... grand scheme of things nothing is forever everything even the universe is going to cease existing.. well in the mean time
enjoy life to its fullest do stuff find love (not that i am) go have fun.

[Jenny A]

Drive-by existential nihilism?

[Minimalist]

Life. Living. What is the point of any of it?

It beats dying. The question is, does it beat filling your brain full of superstitious shit like "the prof" has done.

Let Jim Jeffries explain it to you.

View My Video

[Drich]

Nell: Trouble go away at nigh', an' Nell caw Mi'i - an' Nell an' Mi'i - ye', Nell an' Mi'i - like t'ee in the way!

[thesummerqueen]

“I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"

Death thought about it.

CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.

― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

[FlyingSpaghettiMonster]

I was actually suicidal when I asked myself this, the more I realized that religion was wrong the more I realize the shitty position my life was in, so I stopped caring for most of my teenage life. Sure I'll get those raving morons that say "but you have the Internet people have it worse! Be happy you live in a first world country" which in my mind is equviliant of talking crap to a person who broke their leg by telling them to stop complaining because someone else doesn't have a leg. But what idea finally made me to start to care was not the negative comments from others, but the idea that my life didn't have to be shitty and without value. The fact that life is short and ends quickly and this rare opportunity to exist with a conscious is such a gift to me. The meaning to my life is enjoying something that is probably extremely rare. Life in a galaxy of non existence and emptiness is more then enough reason to enjoy it, because with effort you can do virtually anything you can put your mind to. And I'll try anything to extend the clock or become immortal, whether it be by uploading my memories onto a computer, or using replacement organs, or cybernetics. Because once you die, it's gone for eternity. I would rather try to accomplish eternal life, there is large universe to explore and make sense of, a few hundred years isn't enough and satisfactory for me.

[Mudhammam]

All the answers can be found here, my friend:
http://youtu.be/xjfKteUBa_s

[Cato]

Nestor's video confuses things; it's simply not that difficult. Here's an example of life philosophy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlbedF4VIvc

[Chad32]

That song reminds me of another one.

*sings* Hakuna Matata
What a wonderful phrase
Hakuna Matata
Aint no passin' craze
It means no worries
For the rest of your days
It's our problem freeeeee
Philosophyyyyyyy
Hakuna Matata!