Our big discussion topic today was invoked by Dean, who asked about happiness and the afterlife. I attempted (and failed at such) to recall a quote from Christopher Hitchens:
Christopher Hitchens, "Religion: A Celestial North Korea"
Hitch, provocative and strong-willed as ever, outlines the idea of a religious afterlife--i.e., 'Heaven'--which makes one point in itself but, I feel, perhaps only answered part of the question we were considering. So the question remains: would we find happiness in the notion of an afterlife, even from an atheistic standpoint?
Well, the answer varies. For myself personally, I see no reason to believe in an afterlife so I don't necessarily find comfort in that. I find that the true beauty of life is the fact that beauty, and indeed life itself, are fleeting. Nothing lasts forever. The beauty is in the here-and-now. Meaning does not, I contend, come from a never-ending future, but rather from an infinitely terminable present. Would skydiving be quite so adrenaline-inducing if there was no possibility of danger? Would music sound so beautiful if there was no ultimately human emotion behind it? Would the love you have for the people around you feel quite so important if you knew there was no vulnerability, that there was no chance of losing them, that you would "see them on the other side?" To me, the answer to all of these is a resounding NO. The tears I shed at the sorrow of the loss of a loved one, or at the joy of a new one arriving, are contingent upon the fact that I know how beautifully fragile life is. I know and accept that I only get one short chance to act right, to love my fellow human, to do the right thing. That's what makes life meaningful to me. That's why I speak up when I have an opinion. That's why I think critically about everything. I try as hard as I can to make every second of my life count. I don't need or want an afterlife. I don't want to live forever. I just want to live today.
"It frightens me, the awful truth of how sweet life can be."
Bob Dylan, "Up to Me"
"There's only us, there's only this
Forget regret or life is yours to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today."
Jonathan Larson, "Rent"
Carl Sagan, "Pale Blue Dot"
Neil deGrasse Tyson, "The Most Astounding Fact"
I like what you have to say, although Hitchens is a bit of a ass.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather not waste my time thinking about something that
may or may not be. There is only the present. No past, no future.
As for life being fragile,
"Life feeds on life, feeds on life, feeds on life.
This. Is. Necessary."
My friend Maynard makes things clear, maybe a little blunt.
Life is not fragile, we are.
No past? No future? Are we the sex pistols? I thought that brand of nihilism was passe, like the '80s.
DeleteI have no idea what it can mean to say that life is fragile but that we are not. Perhaps after you've introduced yourself, oaf, you can explain what your friend Maynard had in mind.
Sex Pistols? Nihilism?
DeleteNone of that here friend.
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.”
Just your typical twenty something ripping off Alan Watts.
Hitchens is opinionated...not to be confused with being an asshole. I wouldn't be the only one to tell you that these are some of his nicer words.
DeleteNihilism is here, you're just not aware of it, friend. The Sex Pistols chanted "no future" in one of their songs, for one thing. For another, temporal nihilism is exactly what you're describing...Which is something Alan Watts is suggesting in that quote you used just above.
I'm with Phil on life not being fragile...Are you referring to life as a whole continuing on regardless of the individual? Because whole planets can cease to exist in the blink of an eye...only if we make life into a meta-universe version of life can this ideal hold true. Life will continue, hopefully, sure, but life in the sense of experience is certainly more fragile than you give credit.
Also, if we're going to call Hitchens an ass, we should DEFINITELY apply that term to Maynard J. Keenan. Dude, he took pictures of himself in front of Starbucks and McDonald's in other countries and summarized all of their culture by saying that they were just like us lol. He even mocked them, titling the pictures with phrases like "Paris--One of a kind"
DeleteDon't get me wrong, I absolutely love Tool, APC, and Puscifer, but sometimes being an asshole isn't being an asshole--it's just stating what we think about stuff.
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ReplyDeleteI totally gave in to the melodramatic inspirational video on Tyson's answer. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why people are still trying to determine whether or not there is a god. Who cares, there is a universe that we now have the ability to see! Whoa. The realm of the metaphysical keeps expanding as we expand our discoveries of what really exists.
Thanks Brenna. You make a beautiful point. So much time is lost--so much of "this" moment--looking out and over and ahead.
DeleteI'm so glad we agree!
DeleteMe too. Tyson's a worthy successor to Sagan. Hand-picked, practically. Looking forward to his "Cosmos" redux.
ReplyDeleteAs WJ said: the religious impulse is (for most) for LIFE, not God.
One more thing: Hitch may have behaved rudely, aggressively, and sometimes like an "ass" - even an ass-squared - but I challenge his critics to name anyone who ever faced and reported his own demise with greater grace, or with greater insight into the dignified mortal mind, or (finally) with greater humility. Name-calling is easy. Dying with your lifelong convictions intact is hard.
ReplyDeleteYes! Thank you.
Delete"I know and accept that I only get one short chance to act right, to love my fellow human, to do the right thing. That's what makes life meaningful to me. That's why I speak up when I have an opinion. That's why I think critically about everything. I try as hard as I can to make every second of my life count. I don't need or want an afterlife. I don't want to live forever. I just want to live today."
ReplyDeleteReminds me of this old favorite:
Carpe Diem!
:)
http://youtu.be/0wjpRQ__lsI
Throw back time! Thanks for the link, Rebecca. I needed to remember this movie today :P
DeleteI loved reading what you wrote! Personally, I found that when I was younger, and things were simpler, and there was more good than there was evil in the world (at least it seemed to me at the time), it was very easy for me to believe in a god, and in doing so, I did feel that holding onto that faith made me a happier person... believing that I would meet my family in heaven one day, and we would all live happily among the clouds, but as I got older, and life got harder, and things got clearer, it was very hard for me to make myself continue to believe in that same ending. My husband and I met in high school, and we shared the same belief... we were both very intelligent people, even at a young age, but we were unable to get our minds around the belief of an afterlife. This is probably why we waited 9 years to have a child... because , who was it that said… something around the lines of "if a child was told of all the evils of the world, they would never choose to be born"?... anyways, it was something like that, but my point is that we didn't know if it would be right to bring a child in to this world, because it CAN be scary, and even a cruel place to live at times. Would we tell our child the truth, or would we not tell them anything, and let them decide, or would we pretend to be believers, and take our child to church every Sunday, in order to preserve that innocence within them that comes from not knowing? In the end, we decided that life IS fragile, and we only have the one we were given, so we decided to live it instead of waiting for the chance to pass us by... when it comes to parenting, whether you believe or don't believe, I think all you can do is love your child as much as possible, and instill in them virtues that you think they will need in the journey of life, and equip them with the knowledge of what might or might not be, and hope (or pray, if you'd rather), that their life will be a happy one, and that your life had something to do with that! :)
ReplyDelete