would that change how you valued that thing? For instance, you love music, but you only have 5 minutes, in your whole life, to listen to it. Or let's say you loved bird watching, but you only had 5 minutes, rather than a lifetime, to watch the birds.
Seriously. Would you say "What the hell? I'll destroy the music and kill the birds! If I can't have them forever, they have no meaning to me!" Or would your very limited time with them make them even MORE precious?
How would you really respond? And, yes, this is how we Atheists feel when you ask us "If you don't believe in eternal life, why don't you kill yourself, kill all life?" Life is MORE precious to us because of it's brevity. Not less so.
Can you please explain how you think the brevity of life would make it MORE meaningless?
2007-09-21 06:12:25 · 13 answers · asked by Laptop Jesus 3.9 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Well, I think the whole, why don't you just kill yourself, argument is bunk, anyhow. I've never thought of that. The question I would pose would be, if there's no higher being, or power, or whatever, then what reason is there for hope? You lost a faovirte relative, etc, or, as a surgeon, you fail to save a patient, what reason is there to hope? When my relatives die, while it's sad, I know I'll be reunited someday...it gives me hope. Don't take this as a personal attack, I'm just telling you what I ponder. Not by any stretch of the imaginiation do I wish for you to kill yourself. I just don't happen to have enough faith to be an atheist.
2007-09-21 06:28:09 · answer #1 · answered by Joshua B 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
A person's religion does not ensure that he or she will or will not appreciate the brevity or non-brevity of his or her own life. Most people get a shot of perspective when something horrible happens to someone close to them or their age and start appreciating the smallest things. Others simply have a "what the hell- it won't matter in 100 years anyway" attitude.
The key word is attitude... the belief or non-belief in a deity has nothing to do with it.
2007-09-21 06:27:30 · answer #2 · answered by Antonio 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Mature Christians do not ask that kind of questions. I have also seen atheists asking that why do ot you saved ones just kill yourself so that you do not lose your salvation or to be united with God faster etc.
I think that when we value and respect the life here and when we love one another, we are doing what God planned us to do.
Life is meaningful,I want to make my time count here. Well spent life is never a waste no matter how long we are here.
2007-09-21 07:23:34 · answer #3 · answered by Nina, BaC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
5 minutes is not much time for any activity. I would spend it with those I love and care for, friends and family members. As for brevity importing meaninglessness, I see that it is only due to unbelief in afterlife significance. If matter innately strives for loftier consciousnesses without our intervention, then brevity would extol meaninglessness. Yet, that leaves us wondering why should we care for strangers? They'll turn back to dirt and I won't have to worry about them ever again, right?
2007-09-21 06:30:45 · answer #4 · answered by Sidereal Hand 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i imagine it is an enticing question, and that i'd like to come across it extra, yet i'm curious to carry close what you mean once you say that God has performed and is doing evil. are you able to provide me some examples of the type of belongings you're deliberating? First, i'd say that i don't think in a "sturdy outweighs the undesirable" weighing of God's movements. i don't think God has ever performed something evil. Ever. era. in case you're speaking about the deeds of God's "followers", then i imagine the answer is worry-free -- God isn't responsible for persons that declare to love Him yet in truth repudiate each little thing He teaches. He has condemned evil interior the most effectual plausible words. with regard to the direct movements of God himself, I actual have a 2-area answer. First, i'd say that we want to be sparkling about only what we assume of God has performed. My conception is that different deeds ascribed to God interior the Bible are both improperly attributed, mischaracterized, or mistranslated. for instance, even as the old testomony says that God "repented" that He made guy on the time of Noah, i imagine we've lost something in translation. God would not replace his ideas or understand he's made a mistake; He would not seem decrease back on His previous movements and understand they were evil. on the different hand, God quite did deliver the flood that killed Noah's contemporaries. absolutely a lot of human beings suffered as a effect. Does that mean God's movements were evil? i'd say no. this is evil for a man or woman to shorten yet another's existence without compelling reason or to cause them to conflict through needlessly -- and it might want to be for God, as well, if He were human. yet i believe God has far extra complicated issues to juggle, and he's taken with all of us's get top of entry to and go out from this existence besides. So if He alternatives second a million for a persons'' lack of existence as hostile to second 2, does that make Him evil? for each action ascribed to God interior the scriptures, i believe there's a compelling reason it is tied up in a blend of His justice and mercy. in a lot of circumstances i visit locate factors that fulfill my own want to understand; in some, i visit't, yet I believe that sturdy factors exist.
2016-10-20 02:22:26 · answer #5 · answered by rhona 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I do understand that you have love for things and people that you value and appreciation for life.
I would just like to tell you that Jesus came to make your life here better and to give you eternal life to continue to enjoy all of the things and people that you love due to the fact that He rose from death. All of His blessings are free to you forever, if you want them.
There is guidance in this life, protection from demonic powers, being made God's adopted child, the gift of being able to seek God's presence any time that you want to talk to Him, fellowship with other believers, freedom from fear, unconditional love, Jesus' forgiveness for your sins, salvation and eternal life.
Maybe if you would get to know Him personally (not religion) you would understand His love for you.
2007-09-21 06:30:58 · answer #6 · answered by 4HIM- Christians love 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
So you are saying you value life more than we do?
What are you likely to value more, a house made of wood that will rot away or a house made of stone that you know will be passed on from generation to generation? I think if you believe everything you do has eternal consequences you are going to weigh out your choices more carefully.
2007-09-21 06:35:49 · answer #7 · answered by sisterzeal 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It doesn't look like you are going to get a lot of people that are going to actually answer the question. But they will preach at you...
I think I appreciate life more now that I don't believe there's anything else after this. I think it kind of forces me to make sure I am making my life a good one - both for myself and the people I have in my life.
2007-09-21 06:37:16 · answer #8 · answered by Nea 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I'd celebrate the Mass until my very last breath.
Or, I'd play the first hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links as fast as I could!!
2007-09-21 06:19:20 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'd proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible.
2007-09-21 06:27:23 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋