I have no problem with the idea of committing suicide except I am not sure that suicide ends it. I want life to make sense just as mathematics makes sense. Life must be more than the period between the cradle and the grave. If there is nothing else or no further experiences to endure than suicide should be an acceptable choice just as picking up and going across country never to be heard from again. Trust me this has nothing to do with religion. While I am pretty convinced that there is a supreme intelligence, religion is truly the opium of the masses and has done more harm to enslave people than all the auction blocks.
9 comments
From a physicists point of view, all matter is energy and much like water goes through different phases in form (water, steam, ice and returns) so too can be said for much of matter.
The intelligence and vastness of the universe is far greater then most humans give it credit for.
That said, the pleasure of life comes from a combination of our friends, family, relationships, some meaningful work, and the ability to live our choices and desires and not just survive throughout all life.
I would disagree religion has done more harm then good, it has stifled the advance of knowledge sure, but it is also often the glue in how well people treat and care for each other. Despite what the media will have you believe, The majority of muslims, jews, christians are decent in an everyday sense.
There is abiding my religion and there is understanding the important tenets/precepts of religous teachings, both are vastly different.
I don’t believe people should steal or kill or harm, and yet governments do this daily.
And yet i abide by no real religion. So you see the teachings can be good.
That said, it is science that advances the understanding of the physical world.
If i make a watch and leave it on the street, and someone finds it, they cant be sure who the maker was, but by there simple evidence of its existence, they must conclude there is a make who understands someting they dont (how to make a watch).
By the same extension, because a vast infinite universe exists, one must conclude a maker possessing some inteligence greater then my own.
Just because one does not know or understand who or what the maker is, does not mean the maker does not exist.
I try not to bring up this topic to people who find religion to be, as you say, their opium. At least, I try not to bring up the topic to suicidal people as I don’t want to offset a delicate balance which may be keeping them alive. Some people do cling to religion or if not, finding you believed a lie your entire life is surely not a pleasant experience and it is not one I want to put people through if they don’t want to.
You seem to want to know about the existence of an afterlife and it is that topic which I will discuss. To state my position up front, I do not believe in one. I think we should make life into whatever we want and have as much fun as we possibly can (that is the short version).
You already admit that religion is opium to the masses, so let’s start there. Let us answer the question “Why?” Why are these ideas so popular? And why do you believe them? Religion is and was propagated (it is more complex now days but it is still true) because its ideas are appealing. People *want* to believe that they will see those who have died around them. They want to think that life will never be over. They want to think that someone is watching over them (personally, I find the idea of someone watching me like that kind of scary – nobody likes a stalker).
These supernatural ideas wouldn’t exist if they were not appealing to people, and you sort-of admit that. I am willing to discuss this with you for many days to come if that is what you want to do. Ask me questions or tell me what you believe and why you believe it. If you want to stop at any time, just let me know. Like I said, I don’t want to increase the suffering that makes you consider suicide.
@ GRS; I used to struggle with the concept of infinty or eternity too. The best metaphor I ever heard was comparing “existence” to numbers in mathematics.
Numbers don’t end. You can start at One, and keep going without ever stopping. There is no last number. The same is true if you start at Zero and count backwards…you’ll go forever into negative numbers.
So if death is nothing more than a transfer of energy, (assuming that humans are comprised of units of energy at a molecular level), one could argue that in some form you could potentially last forever. The energy just transforms into ? after your physical death.
(I don’t believe or dis-believe this, btw. A friend turned me on to Quantum theory last year).
@adastra I hope you do not actually believe in Paley’s watchmaker argument (or maybe I just mistook what you wrote).
The argument requires that you prove that the universe was necessarily designed which would therefore make the design of the universe a premise to any such logical proof. In general, it would require additional proof that the universe could not come about by natural processes.
So, you can not assert design and then declare a designer. And of course, that just leads to more questions about where the designer came from leading to the all fabled infinite regress of designers or a designer which arose from a natural process. In which case, via Occam’s razor, it would be more logically valid to say that there was no designer as it is an additional step of complexity which would therefore be in need of design.
Finally, any designer would therefore been in more need of design as it would have to be complex enough to create an entire universe (infinite regress). If it is not more complex, then we would need to assume a less (or equal with a lesser designer somewhere in the regress) intelligent designer. Of course, if a simple process could bring about something complex (with or without a regress), we could once again apply Occam’s razor and cut away the supernatural part and leave a simple natural process which does not require design.
@lucy4 Yes, it is true that energy changes forms, but there is no reason to suspect that it arranges itself into any form which can think or a form which will have all your memories in tact. It will just be energy.
@ suicidetalk; The Watchmaker Argument even has it’s own Wiki page now.
And yeah, I wasn’t trying to establish a link between the transfer of energy with cognizance, (even though I do like the concept of reincarnation).
Your voice sounds familiar, btw. You’re not in “The Grey City” filled with grey people, reading Camus are you?
@lucy4 No I am not in that city or reading Camus. I do not think you will have read anything by me before as I have not published anything more noteworthy than a few blogs and websites. I am, however, working on a collection of short stories (to be made available for free on my website, eventually). If you know the name of the person with the writing style similar to mine, I would like to know.
The idea of reincarnation is rather interesting but yet it seems rather pointless to consider it considering that we do not retain the knowledge of these past lives. It is not directly disprovable and can propagate quite easily within supernatural circles for that reason.
For a while I became interested in the ideas of Sylvia Browne. She posits that we all reincarnate as a means of learning and fun. We spend the majority of our time in a heaven-like place and only come to earth to learn things that can not be learned in a perfect-world environment. She even suggested that it would be possible to access some of your memories from past lives through meditation and prayer.
Of course, it was all nonsense. It only takes a few YouTube videos or a comic strip to demonstrate the failures of her psychic powers. A few Wikipedia articles such as “Cold Reading” and “Hot Reading” would also serve as adequate inoculation against these lies.
It was actually this that first made me feel suicidal in a much different way than I think many people feel it (although this was many years ago – more recently, depression and possibly bipolar disorder are the sources of these feelings). As I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that we reincarnate in the way that she proposes, I would get moments where I would want to kill myself. I would think about dying in a variety of ways including just waiting to die and moving on to a different, better life. Other times I would want to feel myself crushed or I wanted to feel some massive amount of pain as I died. I do not know why this is. It was that feeling you get when you know there is something you are missing, some glaring logical fallacy that you have over looked. I became sick to my stomach (as is normal when I find I believed a lie and was ignorant of the truth).
Anyways, that became more drawn out than I wanted it to. I thought you might find it interesting. That is also why I generally do not bring up the topic of religion to suicidal people. My own deconvolution was long and drawn out with each step bringing about some serious confusion as I tried to reorganize my world. If someone wants to know the truth (and the comments here have been surprisingly open minded compared to the opposition and debates I face elsewhere) I will tell them that which I know.
I’m always interested in a discussion on religion so feel free to continue this if you wish 🙂
@ suicidetalk; I generally don’t like discussing religion. It’s like a boring ping-pong game where we keep batting the ball over the net, over and over again, and neither side admits defeat.
As far as “Truths” with a capital T goes, I’m not sure that anybody has it all figured out. I believe everybody is floundering, stumbling through the darkness trying to make sense of an seemingly illogical world.
People who do “have it all figured out”, I steer clear of.
An afterlike would suck horrbly.
Just as bad as this existence sucks.
And if there is a supreme intelligence I am going to find a way to beat its supreme arse very badly for screwing up human life so badly in the design.
Could have created a paradise.
Sadistic freak.
Have you heard the phrase “pennies from heaven”? I never heard about this until my grandparents passed away. My grandfather passed away from cancer about 6 years ago and then my grandmother a year after him. We were pretty close. I moved out to my first apartment by myself about a year after this. After I was given my key I did a walk through the apartment to inspect everything and then I walked to my car to grab a couple of boxes. I walked back to the front door and I saw right in front of the door, three pennies all face up, and very close to each other. They were in clear sight and they were definitely not there when I first walked in the apartment. I checked my pockets to make sure if I had any holes I didn’t. I tried to think if I reached into my pockets at some point but I didn’t. At the time I thought it was very strange three pennies all face up nearly touching each other and right in front of my door. I told this to my mother later that day and she told me about “pennies from heaven”. I guess this has happened to many others before. To this day it still freaks me out to think about it but it is comforting in a way. I don’t know if the pennies came from “heaven” but I really do think they were placed there by my grandparents so if life after death or spirits are possible, I think the idea of an afterlife if possible.