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

[Thumpalumpacus]

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.

What you seem to not understand is that I am not making any objective statement. We are talking about feelings. I have witnessed folks losing the will to live not because they're unhappy, but simply for having lived enough. My experiences are my own, and they contradict your absolute statements given above. I trust my experiences more than I trust some schlub online who doesn't have the sense to understand that not everyone sees life the way he does.

You'll forgive my apathy, but I simply don't care enough about you to try changing your mind. I simply report what I experience and you can use it, or not. It's no loss to me either way.

You have a nice evening, now.

[Excited Penguin]

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.

What you seem to not understand is that I am not making any objective statement. We are talking about feelings. I have witnessed folks losing the will to live not because they're unhappy, but simply for having lived enough. My experiences are my own, and they contradict your absolute statements given above. I trust my experiences more than I trust some schlub online who doesn't have the sense to understand that not everyone sees life the way he does.

You'll forgive my apathy, but I simply don't care enough about you to try changing your mind. I simply report what I experience and you can use it, or not. It's no loss to me either way.

You have a nice evening, now.

I believe we are simply talking past each other at this point. There's no use in continuing this debate in that way.

You have a pleasant evening as well.

[henryp]

Do you not think life is an experienced instance?

It can be, for the purpose of this discussion it isn't however. It is a set of such instances.

All experienced instances are sets of instances.  There's a disconnect I can't identify here.  Maybe I missed something earlier in the discussion.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I believe we are simply talking past each other at this point. There's no use in continuing this debate in that way.

You have a pleasant evening as well.

It never was a debate. Your insistence on seeing it as such, rather than simply two people discussing their own experiences, is why this was never a "conversation" in the first place.

Sometimes it's not about being right or wrong, it's about being real.

[Excited Penguin]

It can be, for the purpose of this discussion it isn't however. It is a set of such instances.

All experienced instances are sets of instances.  There's a disconnect I can't identify here.  Maybe I missed something earlier in the discussion.

I was differentiating between one's experienced life as a whole and an isolated experience. You had conflated the two in your analogy.

[Huggy Bear]

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.

What you seem to not understand is that I am not making any objective statement. We are talking about feelings. I have witnessed folks losing the will to live not because they're unhappy, but simply for having lived enough. My experiences are my own, and they contradict your absolute statements given above. I trust my experiences more than I trust some schlub online who doesn't have the sense to understand that not everyone sees life the way he does.

You'll forgive my apathy, but I simply don't care enough about you to try changing your mind. I simply report what I experience and you can use it, or not. It's no loss to me either way.

You have a nice evening, now.

Come on now. 

Obviously when someone speaks of being immortal, it's pretty much understood that one does not age. 

If you get old YOU ARE NOT IMMORTAL, the fact that one ages means that they are in the process of dying.

As far as I'm concerned you don't know anyone who is perpetually in the prime of life that wants to end it, period.

[Excited Penguin]

I believe we are simply talking past each other at this point. There's no use in continuing this debate in that way.

You have a pleasant evening as well.

It never was a debate. Your insistence on seeing it as such, rather than simply two people discussing their own experiences, is why this was never a "conversation" in the first place.

Sometimes it's not about being right or wrong, it's about being real.

Very well. I apologize for my own part in creating this misunderstanding.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Come on now. 

Obviously when someone speaks of being immortal, it's pretty much understood that one does not age. 

If you get old YOU ARE NOT IMMORTAL, the fact that one ages means that they are in the process of dying.

As far as I'm concerned you don't know anyone who is perpetually in the prime of life that wants to end it, period.

I wasn't talking about immortality at all. We were talking about human beings -- mortals. We've been dying since the day we were born.

And -- I've known people in the prime of life physically who certainly wanted to end it ... and two who succeeded in doing so.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Very well. I apologize for my own part in creating this misunderstanding.

No problem. We all misunderstand things.

[henryp]

So maybe religious people aren't that crazy.  They have meaning.  Even if their sense of meaning is rooted in fictional beliefs, at least they have a sense of meaning.  And if life is meaningless anyway, then why does it matter whether a person's sense of meaning is based on fact or fiction?

They are crazy.  But that's the beauty of life being meaningless.  You don't get more points for not being crazy.  

The complication of shedding religion, is that you pull off one veil, and think "This is it!  Now I'm seeing things for what they really are!"  But people have been slapping veils on us since we were born.  And on top of that, evolution slapped a few on there as well.  That's why the immediate responses are filled with rational arguments about the Truth and how that's why religion is dumb.

But if you continue down the rabbit hole, you also stumble on the idea that the Truth and Rationality are also meaningless.   Those are tough to shake, because there is 0 pushback to the idea that you should seek the truth and behave rationally.

But those things are no different than anything else.  Of course, knowing that doesn't magically allow you to accept things that aren't the truth or are irrational (that you know of).  Still plenty of stuff we all think that aren't the truth and are irrational that we don't know of.  So unless you are a master self-deceiver, you can't get back in on that religion stuff. 

In the end though, I'd say it doesn't matter whether you find meaning in fact or fiction because the meaning we attribute to everything that says we shouldn't find meaning in fiction is also fictional.