To be or not to be?

Question

That is the question.

Answer 1

80% of humanity, the religious folks, don't need to ask the meaning of life, the church tells them....the supernatural explanation. But the rest of us can't swallow religious dogma, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that there life after death, that people are tortured or rewarded after life or that there's invisible spirits running around.

I've come to two conclusions recently:

1. Life has no meaning
2. Life has a million meanings.

First, there's a certainty that death and annihilation awaits not only you, but the Earth in general. It's an astonomical certainty that our sun will supernova and leave the earth a burnt crisp, not to mention all the other extinction level events around the corner.

Second, the million things that give us meaning are the pleasurable experiences we can conjure up during the short period we are here on the earth, in the form of the relationships we have with our kids and other people, and the 'housekeeping' types of purposes. What i mean by that are the curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, preventing war, helping other kinds of things.

So the bottom line is, we only have a temporary meaning to life, to reduce pain and increase pleasure, other than that everything is lost to oblivion.


To be or not to be? "To be" is temporary and "not to be" is inevitable.....

Answer 2

As Sartre put it, and I paraphrase, "The only real philosophical question is why have I not yet killed myself." That's a more mundane way of asking the same question Shakespeare asked 400 years prior.

In other words, what is there to live for? If you can't answer that question, you are a living breathing contradiction until you choose suicide or an answer.

Answer 3

To Be = To Exist
Not To Be = Not To Exist

Do you want to live or do you want to die?

That is the question.....

Answer 4

How adventuresome are you? If you like interesting situations, then you want to be. If you are a coward, you always wish you were not in existence. Adventures are interesting, Stick with it, pal. You are needed.

Answer 5

But the difficulty arise when trying to figure out the answer.

Answer 6

It most certainly is the question,
which is why
sometimes you need be
and sometimes you need not be.
that is the answer!

For now, try to be!

Answer 7

TO BE is the obvious answer. To not be cannot be unless you first be.

Answer 8

to be ;-)