Doesn't everything seem pointless if there is no God?

Question

If there is no hope to live forever, why do anything? What is the point of studying, working hard, becoming "famous" or anything?

The truth is who cares if you won a superbowl 40 years ago when football was still new, or who cares if you discovered a new element, or invented a mathematical theorem? Who cares if you were a famous movie star, or one of the smartest people on earth, or anything? In 50 years, no one will care what this generation did, and no one will appreciate what is happening now. The smart person will be burried next to the dumb one, the rich and famous next to poor. Without a God, is our purpose in life to afford a better coffin than the person next to us when we die?

Doesn't everything seem pointless if there is no God, no salvation, no hope for the future?

Does anyone agree with me? All opinions are apprecaited.

Some people don't want to live forever. Why is that? There are millions of species of animals, and thousands of places we have never been to on this earth, and millions of things to discover in space, and much more. Living forever would unlock endless possibilities of knowledge and understanding.

If you do something, and live forever, what you did lasts forever, if you die, what you did will only matter so long.

My opinion is that I rather have a meaningful life for ever than a very meaningful life that will become worthless in a few years.

Answer 1

You develop quite intelligently the words of Christ:
8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
(King James Bible, Mark)
All our efforts here on earth are very necessary and urgent only for ourselves and for the human race to obediently serve the Cause of the One True God and the advancement of all mankind. Yes, we need to study deeply the Holy Books and to work really hard to gain more spiritual progress before ending our ephemeral moments here.

Answer 2

I completely disagree with you. To me, this life would seem pointless if we lived forever. What makes life so precious is that it's short. Only you can give meaning to your life. I don't believe there is any ultimate purpose for life, but that while you are alive in the here and now so you might as well thrive and enjoy it.

And yes, everyone and everything dies, but why not try to touch people in your life and make the world a better place? Why not strive to be remembered fondly? To achieve things? If you want hope for the future, make your decedents future worth living. Leave the world a better place then when you came here.

EDIT: If you want to know why I don't want to live forever, here's my answer. One episode of Star Trek Voyager addressed this dilemma when it had a member of the Q Continuum (a group of eternal, god-like beings) who had grown tired of the endless eternities because he had experienced all there was to experience and learned everything there was to learn and just wanted to commit suicide and not exist any longer. If you lived forever, that is what would happen. After you did everything there was to do, then what?

Answer 3

Who said that there had to be a point anyway?
If we simply try to leave the world a better place after we have died than it was when we arrived maybe that is point enough. Whether after death we go to Heaven, Hell, Valhalla or The Restaurant at the End of the Universe will remain an unknown until we get there. Believing that it will be any of these will not make it so in my opinion.
What I do know is that I have the power to make this world infinitesimally better or infinitesimally worse while I am here so I elect to make it slightly better. If that gets me a better seat in Heaven or only a better quality coffin, so be it.

Answer 4

I am not so sure I want to live forever. What am I going to be doing all that time? What if it is not like I thought it was going to be, then I am stuck for all eternity? I know I am alive now, so shouldn't that be enough? To live my life to the fullest for the few short years I have? That doesn't seem pointless to me.

What seems pointless to me is to live your life as a slave to some 2000 year old book, and there not being an afterlife. That would suck.

Answer 5

While I don't believe in god or a predestined point to the human race, I really don't agree with you. Since there is no after life, now is the time to grasp what you have, work hard and achieve. Make your life the best it can be. While there is no reason for us being here, now that we are, lets try to make the best of it and help our fellow man. Remembereing the next generation? What are you talking about, we are still reading printed books thanks to gutenburg, and Newtons theories are still studied. The constitution is still in effect thanks to enlightenment thinkers and such events like the signing of thee magna carta. So to say you won't be remembered is a myth. And if you aren't, who cares, you will be dead. However, take advantage of being here today.

Answer 6

I just don't see the connection.

I matter to me (and to people who care about me).

My life matters to me.

Since I believe that suffering sucks, and want us to get rid of as much suffering as possible, so it's no longer true that most people's lives suck most of the time, this gives a point to life.

Life SHOULD be a rich and fun experience.

The point is to make the world one where this is true. (Of course it's not all fun, but you live through the suckiness in order to get the good stuff.)

No one in their right mind cares about the superbowl, or wants to be a star.

I don't care what happens to my body after I die -- why should I?

But I like using my brains now, while they're usable.

I do have hope for the future -- just not much hope for my future (I mean, I don't expect to live long enough to see this world be fit for humans to live in, but that doesn't mean I don't care about this -- I do; deeply, passionately).

I don't need a god to find meaning and enjoyment.

"This old world is mean and cruel; but still I love it like a fool ... This old world; it's all I know. It's dust to dust when I have to go...." (song by Malvina Reynolds)

Answer 7

Believing is better than not believing. The benefit is only yours. Then why not believe? Why after something tragic do we pray to god or something higher than us or has more "powers" or "control" than us when things are out of our hand? How can we trust our senses...just because we dont see it, feel it, hear it, taste it or smell it doesnt mean its not there. You can only see up to the wall and not thru it or past it (and your senses DO make mistakes). If this is how reliable your senses are then how can you make such judgements that god may not exist. You dont have to believe in a certain god but believe that something is there which our mind and senses are not capable of understanding. We are not perfect. Its hopeless if you believe that this is IT, this life. There has to be a greater meaning. Dont give your mind and senses too much credit, it even makes mistakes in this materialistic world. We use this body as a vehicle to travel around this material world.

Answer 8

Actually, if there is no God, it would make life much more meaningful, because it's the only life we have.

There is no meaning in life per se. We have to figure out the meaning ourselves.

Besides, whether life is meaningless or not really has nothing to do with the existence of God.

Answer 9

Great question.

I like how you completely disregard the question of IF God exists and go straight to the issue of WHY God NEEDS to exist for so many people.

No wonder people can't explore the question of God's existence in an intellectually honest way. The NEED to believe makes it impossible for people to see the absurdity of their religion.

But, to answer your question, the fact is that NO ONE KNOWS if there is a God or if there is an afterlife, or reincarnation or heaven or hell and anyone who SAYS they KNOW is a liar or delusional.

The best we can do is live a life that maximizes happiness and minimizes pain. When you love yourself and treat others with love, life works!

Answer 10

Not at all. Why not try to make the best of your life? Either by helping others like kids, elderly, or poor that can't help themselves or by inventing something that will help everyone. Why would you think everything is pointless? Seems kind of shallow. I challenge people to define themselves without the mention or "shelter" of 'god' in anything they do - if they can do that, they can do anything - with or without god.