It makes us what we are. - General

[i]Mortality.[/i] From the youngest of children to the oldest among the elderly, we all live with the knowledge that we won't be around forever. We go about our daily lives, preferring not to think about death. Some of us do contemplate such things in the late hours of the night, when sleep does not come easily. Yet we are seldom crippled by fear of it. The world is a beautiful place, and no matter how fast and hard we live, we know we'll never get to see and do it all. Having life itself and the opportunity to appreciate it as intelligent, self-aware beings is simply amazing. Go outside and take a look around you. Whether you live in the city or countryside, there's life everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of people and creatures, each of them with different worldviews, experiences, and imperatives. Whether it be a warm, humid summer night or a crisp, bright winter morning, sit down on your doorstep, breathe deeply, close your eyes, and do your best to feel as one with it all. When you've found that serenity, come inside, close your blinds and your doors, and turn on the TV. Look at the news, and reflect on how little we appreciate what we have. We end the lives, hopes and dreams of other human beings and animals with little thought for them, and over nothing more than petty, ultimately inconsequential differences or for equally petty, inconsequential gains. Nuclear war is a very real possibility that we live with in this day and age. Humanity as a species is ultimately doomed, and deep down, we know it. We've surrounded ourselves with artificial wealth and allowed our struggles toward achieving material goals to fill our minds, making us forget how lucky we really are just to be able to experience life. Even more remarkable is the fascination human beings have with death. We depict it artistically in music, written fiction, poetry, movies. We see it on TV news every day, read about it in the newspapers. All of this is because it's horrifying and thrilling at the same time. We don't know what comes afterward. Some may delude themselves into believing there's a benevolent, omnipotent being watching over them, and that there's some continuity beyond death. I'm an Atheist, and I don't share that view. It's the fact that we're so fleeting, so temporary, that drives us to better ourselves and to try to be more than we are. It's our impermanence that gives so much beauty to our lives and the lives of those around us. It's why we can love, laugh and cry. That's why, despite what it means for us, I've always felt that there's a sad kind of beauty to the idea of the Cataclysm. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDH8Z7Kg1p8[/media] [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Undescriptive thread title" - Dragon))[/highlight]

I'm not going to die, and the Apocalypse is bullshit.

I'm pretty sure our energy will be around again in other forms of life in some other lifetime, if not reborn as humans.

[QUOTE=CombineGuru;18454124]I'm not going to die, and the Apocalypse is bullshit.[/QUOTE] I'm not talking about the Christian idea of the Apocalypse. There is no god. I'm talking about the day, be it a week or a thousand years from now, when we finally let the missiles fly and wipe ourselves out.

Death sends you into a cascade of nothingness, floating around in space with no memory, no conciousness just nothing.

[QUOTE=archangel125;18454184] I'm talking about the day, be it a week or a thousand years from now, when we finally let the missiles fly and wipe ourselves out.[/QUOTE] When we just get sick of living and decide to commit a global suicide? Sounds interesting.

[QUOTE=archangel125;18454184] I'm talking about the day, be it a week or a thousand years from now, when we finally let the missiles fly and wipe ourselves out.[/QUOTE]Even as soon as 20 years from now, there will be anti-ballistic missile laser systems around. You won't even see any missile coming close to their target.

[QUOTE=archangel125;18454184]I'm not talking about the Christian idea of the Apocalypse. There is no god. I'm talking about the day, be it a week or a thousand years from now, when we finally let the missiles fly and wipe ourselves out.[/QUOTE] I think we're more likely to have the apocalypse happen in a much less dramatic way, like the sun being gone, our planet imploding, meteor hitting us. Something that just destroys the planet with no warning.

[QUOTE=codenamecueball;18454196]Death sends you into a cascade of nothingness, floating around in space with no memory, no conciousness just nothing.[/QUOTE]Nothingness itself is something.

This thread was a great read. Let's not ruin it by turning it into a religious debate, shall we?

[QUOTE=Ilya;18454210]Even as soon as 20 years from now, there will be anti-ballistic missile laser systems around. You won't even see any missile coming close to their target.[/QUOTE] Aye, maybe. But don't you worry - humanity will come up with other ways to kill each other off.

I'm an atheist so I can't die.

everybody poops :downs:

Does SOMEONE actually think about death? Hell, when it happens, it does, who cares. stay off the drugs kids

[QUOTE=Reaver1991;18454368]I'm an atheist so I can't die.[/QUOTE] I'm Christian I go to heaven, and you rot in hell. woo

[QUOTE=archangel125;18454107][i]Mortality.[/i] From the youngest of children to the oldest among the elderly, we all live with the knowledge that we won't be around forever. We go about our daily lives, preferring not to think about death. Some of us do contemplate such things in the late hours of the night, when sleep does not come easily. Yet we are seldom crippled by fear of it. The world is a beautiful place, and no matter how fast and hard we live, we know we'll never get to see and do it all. Having life itself and the opportunity to appreciate it as intelligent, self-aware beings is simply amazing. Go outside and take a look around you. Whether you live in the city or countryside, there's life everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of people and creatures, each of them with different worldviews, experiences, and imperatives. Whether it be a warm, humid summer night or a crisp, bright winter morning, sit down on your doorstep, breathe deeply, close your eyes, and do your best to feel as one with it all. When you've found that serenity, come inside, close your blinds and your doors, and turn on the TV. Look at the news, and reflect on how little we appreciate what we have. We end the lives, hopes and dreams of other human beings and animals with little thought for them, and over nothing more than petty, ultimately inconsequential differences or for equally petty, inconsequential gains. Nuclear war is a very real possibility that we live with in this day and age. Humanity as a species is ultimately doomed, and deep down, we know it. We've surrounded ourselves with artificial wealth and allowed our struggles toward achieving material goals to fill our minds, making us forget how lucky we really are just to be able to experience life. Even more remarkable is the fascination human beings have with death. We depict it artistically in music, written fiction, poetry, movies. We see it on TV news every day, read about it in the newspapers. All of this is because it's horrifying and thrilling at the same time. We don't know what comes afterward. Some may delude themselves into believing there's a benevolent, omnipotent being watching over them, and that there's some continuity beyond death. I'm an Atheist, and I don't share that view. It's the fact that we're so fleeting, so temporary, that drives us to better ourselves and to try to be more than we are. It's our impermanence that gives so much beauty to our lives and the lives of those around us. It's why we can love, laugh and cry. That's why, despite what it means for us, I've always felt that there's a sad kind of beauty to the idea of the Cataclysm. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDH8Z7Kg1p8[/media][/QUOTE] "It's fucking nothing"

[QUOTE=archangel125;18454184]I'm not talking about the Christian idea of the Apocalypse. There is no god. I'm talking about the day, be it a week or a thousand years from now, when we finally let the missiles fly and wipe ourselves out.[/QUOTE] In a thousand years we will have colonized numerous planets, we won't be able to be wiped out by a couple missiles.

what you say is half right some people weren't afraid of death, take spartan warriors for example, they were trained to actively seek death in battle death is relatively scary

This is a wonderful thread, archangel125. I think I'll drop my 2 cents too; I hope I can do that without delving too much into philosophy; for I'll be trolled to hell for committing such blasphemy on FP!! Anyways, back on topic; I think it all depends on what perspective you adopt to look at things around you, I personally wouldn't give a rat's ass about the destruction of this world/universe if so chooses fate; people that I discuss this topic with would often accuse me of being a materialistic pig for this very reason, but I believe otherwise. I believe that all biological life is a molecular manifestation of "order fighting chaos"; I believe that a cell is a group of molecules (proteins and what-else) fighting against the tides of quantum disposition, trying to tie (entangle) their fate to thousands and millions of other molecules to try and stay "busy", keeping themselves in a constant state of flux, as in "belonging to a complex system", just to prevent quantum effects from consuming them into "limbo" again. I also believe that we're living in a giant fractal, if you shared my views, you'd notice that at the molecular level, order is fighting chaos, as in "cells versus everything else", but when those cells group together and form a multi-cellular gigantic whole (as to their own perspective), a biological being; you see biological beings (as individuals) acting in very unpredictable, chaotic ways. At another level, animals group together and form herds and hunting packs, humans form families, tribes; and later on villages, towns, cities, orderly governmental bodies, and nations; then again, at the peak of their rise, they fall; nations get into meaningless quarrels and dispatch troops into pointless wars fought over fractional mortal gains, and sometimes fought for no reason at all but their own stupidity; at this point, we're back to chaos, only at a different scale; so this is only the nature of things in my opinion. And since we'll all die at some point or another, it doesn't make much difference to me if we all die at the same time; life will simply go on.. even if our decaying corpses get buried beneath kilometers of radioactive soil one day; something always survives; and this sorry planet can't get rid of the plague that is life that easily. I think I delved too much into philosophy again, but I swear to god I had to remove two thirds of this post to trim it down in size; I had written much, much more. Tiny note: I'm not an atheist for I'm usually mistaken for one; I believe that: where there's a program, there's a programmer; and where there's creation, there's always a creator.

What great threads we've been having lately. So much for that Facepunch Revitalization thing. :suicide:

[QUOTE=voodooattack;18456066]<post>[/QUOTE] No, I agree with that. From a scientific perspective, all life is an anomaly, a lucky role of the dice. Humanity is simply the result of millenia of evolution and genetic adaptation. In fact, causal determinism dictates that we really have no free will at all. However, if we adopt this nihilistic perspective entirely, we lose our drive. In the end, we have to have something to cherish, some kind of joy in life.

Weird thing I thought about. If time goes on forever, then long after we die, like some sort of massive monkeys-on-typewriters thing SOME form of life is going to try and resurrect us for whatever reason. Kind of hard to explain, hope you got the point :ohdear:

youre not smart op even if you think you are