If you spent a lovely day at the beach, and then returned the following weekend knowing
that it had one fewer grain of sand, would it seem like a different beach?
So, too, would the universe continue in its ways if humanity weren’t here to witness
it.
The universe is absolutely massive, and we are virtually insignificant in it.
I’ve seen no evidence that the rest of the universe cares we exist or is even capable
of caring.
But I don’t really need validation from the rest of the universe to find my own life
important?
Why were you, and why was I, willing to sacrifice my humanity, sacrifice the sum total of human
experience and interaction, the sum total of human knowledge, on the altar of a dream?
I have on occasion had people tell me that my life must be so depressing because I’m
an atheist.
It’s doom and gloom and once you die, it’s all over.
And it’s just absurd to me how many people live for dying in this weird way.
I think fragile, fearful humans were terrified of death, and so they wrote their own ending
to the story.
This happy fantasy.
A place where they’ll be reunited with people they’ve lost.
They’ll experience constant joy.
And of course, they’ll never, ever die.
To me, living for the afterlife, thoughtlessly following a set of “what not to do” rules
which you cannot question, that’s basically devaluing life in favor of worshipping death.
And apart from the lack of evidence of a Heaven or Hell, there is another problem that the
concept of an afterlife has.
It is to diminish the value that we place on our lives in the here and now.
An unlimited supply of anything, including life, means that its existence cannot be appreciated.
If life is eternal, then there should be no sense of urgency.
The worst aspect of western monotheism is their system of judgment, wherein it doesn’t
matter how good or bad you were in life.
You won’t be judged according to your deeds the way you should be.
It doesn’t matter what an evil, selfish, sadistic, bigoted victimizer you were in life.
All sins can be forgiven if you but believe.
I do not fear being dead, but the concept of the alternatives offered by the religious
do trouble me.
Consider the more palatable alternative of the two, Heaven as opposed to Hell.
Whilst descriptions of Heaven are as diverse as those who believe in Heaven, there does
appear to be one constant.
It will last for eternity.
Imagine that.
Imagine eternity.
Given eternity, everything that can be accomplished will be accomplished.
Beyond all achievements, there will be only limitless, pointless existence.
The first 100 years may be passable.
The first 1,000 more painful.
The first 10,000 insufferable.
But this is just the start.
An eternity in Heaven would be Hell for me.
When I think about my own death, I used to feel scared, but I don’t think I do anymore.
I’m not afraid of being dead.
After we die, we will not know the truth at that point.
We will not know, wish, think, remember, dream anything.
When we look at what a human being is, what their identity is, that I am this collection
of my memories, my hopes, my dreams, my desires, my consciousness exists as a product of the
brain that is in this body.
That ends at death.
I don’t find this sad or tragic, either.
I don’t really welcome death, but I don’t live in fear of The End, and I’ve come to
see it as just another part of the natural world.
And to borrow from Mark Twain, I had been dead for billions and billions of years before
I was born and not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
In some respects, we never die.
Our lives are entangled with those who come after us just as our lives are entangled with
those who came before us.
I mean, there is scarcely a living soul on this planet that doesn’t go to bed at night
without their lives in some way being affected by the work of the hands and minds of folks
like Faraday, Newton and Pasteur.
But these entanglements go way beyond the vulgarly obvious main roots.
For similarly, almost everyone’s life is intertwined with the people who grew the grain
and made the bread that these men ate.
So it becomes clear that death is not the end.
We are intertwined with lesser and greater things.
Just because there is no Grand Scheme that it plays into doesn’t mean that there’s
not something beautiful about what’s going on here.
Ironically enough, the only part of me that is for all intents and purposes immortal is
my material body, because after I die and after our sun dies, and after the planetary
nebulae it leaves behind fades away, every atom of me will be recycled into the universe,
ultimately becoming part of other planets and stars.
We are all originally stardust, literally, and we will be stardust again and forever.
Even though a cell might not last forever, the role it played in the life of the larger
organism was important, and that is how I see myself, as a part of something bigger.
I have everything to live for.
I don’t want people to mourn over my death.
If anything, I want them to celebrate my life, what I have accomplished.
I, for one, think that your life becomes more meaningful when your beliefs are based in
reality.
Knowing that this life is the only one I have makes me a lot more conscious of my actions.
Makes me want to do something with this short life I have.
Make some improvement in the world, however small it may be.
There’s too much to learn.
There’s too much to see.
There’s too much to know.
There’s too much to experience.
I’m not just going to exist.
I’m going to live.
For the beauty that cannot be seen.
For the honor of those whose shoulders we stand on.
For the hope of those we aspire to become.
And for the inspiration of those who will surpass our achievements.
Life is a precious, brief, fragile, amazing thing.
And instead of being so fixated on living after death, I want to truly live before it.
And be thankful that, against incredible odds, I was able to witness this particular part
of the universe, with my own eyes, firsthand.