Philosophical question of the month--March

[Communist China]

Well, all that Heaven and Hell stuff is complete bullshit, but I refuse to believe that you just ... stop existing.

And if you don't stop existing, and you don't go to Heaven or Hell, then you MUST come back as someone/something else.

Think about it. You're alive. Look at something... anything, and then imagine trying to think how to look at it when you're dead. You can't.

Personally what I think happens is this: You die, you lose all your memories, and for a while, you lie in the ground until you rot away, and then you're reborn as someone or something else. Perhaps on another planet, perhaps even in another universe, but you come back. And it continues.

The only reason the Earth's population has risen so much is because we're destroying all the forests and natural animal habitats, and killing thousands of millions of animals, and they're all coming back as humans.

And becoming activists!

I hope I come back as a donkey. Or a cow. No, not a cow. Cows get abducted by aliens too much.

[Elrothiel]

I hope I come back as a cat.

[Danny Top Hat]

Wolf.

[Jim]

The Gladiator?

[Danny Top Hat]

Yeah, the Gladiator.

[Jim]

Thank god for that, I'd thought you'd gone all weird on us and were considering comming back as that dirty animal.

You come back as Wolf, I'll be Hunter, and together we'll take over the world.

[Elrothiel]

What'll Jarmo come back as I wonder?

[Communist China]

Jarmo will never die.

[Elrothiel]

Of course not! His soul will live on! But his body will eventually die! But his soul will find another being to inhabit.

I'm just wondering what it is!

[Jessica]

Jarmo will inhabit a hedgehog

[RichardNixon]

You must believe in something though, surely, even if it isn't a God?

Otherwise everything just seems pointless.

But does there have to be a point?

[Elrothiel]

Ha!

He meant there has to be a point to Life. AKA if there's no nothing after we die, then why do we exist in the first place!?

[Jim]

'I can well imagine an atheist's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!"?and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.'

Everything has a point.

[Axlfreek]

that would suck to come back as bateria

[Communist China]

Ha!

He meant there has to be a point to Life. AKA if there's no nothing after we die, then why do we exist in the first place!?

Because of a scientific occurence that happened purely by chance. God was invented merely because early man needed an explanation for an existence they couldn't explain or, in some cases, needed the threat of eternal hell to keep them in line.

[Danny Top Hat]

Well, we've been asking these same questions since the very beginning and, dispite all that mankind has discovered, we're not getting any closer to finding answers.  There's only one way to discover the truth and I don't wanna go that way just yet.  I'll find out what's out there one day, just like we all will, but I reakon the real meaning of life is just to get on with it - live through the curiosity, reproduce if you can and prepare the next generation for what's to come.  In the end, death is the great adventure.

[Elrothiel]

Communist China... yes, but why are WE so intelligent? Why are we the ones ruling the earth? Why not dogs, or horses, or cats? Why are WE so special that we're the ones to invent cars and buildings and jobs and music and all the things that separate us from animals?

That's what I asked. NOT "How did we get here?". We know how we got here! We evolved over millions and millions of years from single cell life-forms.

The question is WHY.

[misterID]

Communist China... yes, but why are WE so intelligent? Why are we the ones ruling the earth? Why not dogs, or horses, or cats? Why are WE so special that we're the ones to invent cars and buildings and jobs and music and all the things that separate us from animals?

That's what I asked. NOT "How did we get here?". We know how we got here! We evolved over millions and millions of years from single cell life-forms.

The question is WHY.

We rule because we have thumbs. Thumbs rule.

[Danny Top Hat]

Yeah, thumbs are great.

Our intelligence is our defence mechanism, it's what keeps us alive and makes us prosper as a species. ?Some animals have horns, some have poison and some have wings. ?We have intelligence. ?And I don't know why.

[Communist China]

Communist China... yes, but why are WE so intelligent? Why are we the ones ruling the earth? Why not dogs, or horses, or cats? Why are WE so special that we're the ones to invent cars and buildings and jobs and music and all the things that separate us from animals?

That's what I asked. NOT "How did we get here?". We know how we got here! We evolved over millions and millions of years from single cell life-forms.

The question is WHY.

We're best adapted to survive in this world. Our intelligence and thumbs come from an evolutionary process, the same process that made it beneficial to be a giant reptile with huge teeth (dinosaurs) some time ago. Nows it's our turn, and eventually a different species will inhabit the earth.