What is the point to life?

[StarBaseSweeper]

I may think that the drop of rain has no meaning until a sentient being look or think about it.

"Meaning" is maybe meaningfull only for sentient being.

And yes, I do not think you know you will die when born, but I think you are taught you will rather fast.

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Wizarc:
Oh, yeah! wanted to add this. Phooey on religion. Who cares.

Just be sure that that's absolutely true before acting on it. It'd be a pity to find out afterwards it's not...

[dogscoff]

What's life for? Why, it's for figuring out what life is for, of course.

Oh, and to ask someone else is cheating, so you didn't just read this.

[Mephisto]

Seems to me that the question is more about what death is in the end. A wise men once said this about death (beware, rather long):

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give no judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I myself, too, shall have a wonderful interest in there meeting and conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and any other ancient hero who has suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a m an give, O judges , to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not. For besides being happier than we are, they will be immortal, if what is said is true. Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was better for me to die and be released from trouble, wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with my accUsers; they have done me no harm, although they did not mean to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them. Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

Apology of Aristoteles, 40c to 42a

[sachmo]

I think the meaning of life is up to the individual. My meaning of life is to try and raise my kids to the best of my ability, and love them without reservation. At least this is the assumption I am operating under, and if my "meaning" is incorrect, it's going to take a lot of effort by someone to change my mind.

[Renegade 13]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
What good are memories of good times, and bad, if life after death is nothingness where concience thought does not exsist?

Think about this, do you remember the time before you were born? If not, then how do you expect to remember the you were live after you have died?

Our lives are meaningless in the end, and the journey there is made even more terrorfying because we know what will happen.

What is the purpose to life if death is the end result?

The simple truth is you can't think like that, as it will rob you of all joy in life. I believe the meaning of life is to enjoy it for what it is, not to brood on what may or may not happen in the future (such as death). Sure, I believe there is no such thing as immortality, either through rebirth, or through life after death. I think death is simply nothingness, an absence of consciousness, not eternal torture in a hell, or eternal bliss in a heaven. Simple nothingness. However, the point of life is to contribute in some way to better ourselves, and to try to better all of humanity in some way, however small.
And we can attain some measure of immortality. If we have children, we never really die, and all of us are remembered by others, even long after death, so I guess it can be said that none of us ever really dies, at least in the memory of others, and because of our contribution to others.

[SpaceBadger]

Originally posted by Atrocities:

*snip*
...if you know that the end result is just going to be death

*snip*
...if life after death is nothingness where concience thought does not exsist?

*snip*
...if death is the end result?

First off, in the material I quoted above you are making some assumptions that I don't agree with. I'm a Christian, and I believe that there is more to it than what you've stated.

However, even assuming for the sake of discussion your chosen limitations, what about enjoying life while you live it? What about making the lives of others more enjoyable, or at least less miserable? What about leaving the world a little better for your descendants, or for just people in general if you have no descendants? What about not letting down those who are depending on you right now, and who are perhaps looking to you for an example of how they should live?

SpaceBadger