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| Death - The meaninglessness of life
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THE ‘MEANINGLESSNESS’ OF LIFE Death is the end of a life. When a person dies he ceases to exist. The Christian faith however believe that when a person dies he only relinquishes his physical body but does not relinquish his identity. His identity lives on in death. His identity can safely be referred to as his essence, his soul. We can thus safely assume that according to the Christian faith, a dead person his aware that he his dead. It follows that for you to retain your identity in death, one must be aware that he or she no longer inhabits this physical existence. We can therefore safely conclude that the identities of the dead must reside in some kind of realm of existence. I have deliberately chosen to use the term Identity rather than Soul for obvious reasons. I am of the opinion that the whole frenzy with the afterlife is mainly for the reason that humans want to retain their identities in death. Afterlife, is thus man’s quest for immortality in another cloak. Death is thus reduced to some kind of unexplainable but necessary event that has to occur in order for man to swap his physical existence for a metaphysical one. Why this elaborate search for answers? I think it is because of all of God’s creation, Man is the most accomplished. Man by average has the longest lifespan and possibly has inhabited earth the longest. It would therefore seem meaningless if despite all our individual and collective accomplishments, we don’t retain our identities when we die. If our individual identities were to perish in death, our whole sojourn on earth would thus be a meaningless exercise. Would the lives of a Dog, rat, cockroach or lizard be meaningless? This animals die all the time, and I don’t see them complaining that their existence on earth is meaningless. Do we feel they can be excused because they have no identities? How can we safely assert that animals don’t have individual identities of theirs? In my opinion, our quest for eternity leads us to believe that our lives are meaningless only to the extent that we do not live on in death. To put in another way, life is meaningless if earth is the only type of existence that there is. Religious faiths believe our existence on earth is only transitory, so to that extent whatever accomplishments or sufferings we go through is just to qualify us for the afterlife? This leads me to ask the following questions. What qualifies to be called the afterlife in Christian faith? Where do the dead eventually reside after judgement in afterlife? Is hell a residence in afterlife? According to Christian faith, when we die, we transit into the spirit world to await the judgement of God. Thereafter, the bad people go to hell, whilst the good people go to heaven. The above presupposes the following. 1) That we retain our identities when we die. This is because without our identities we cannot be judged. Our identity is therefore what connects us directly to our earthly exploits while alive.2) That we retain our identities even after judgement. This is because, we must retain those identities to either benefit from our godly exploits on earth by going to heaven, or we must be made to pay for our evil exploits by being subjected to hell fire or eternal condemnation. We can therefore deduce that our existence in both Heaven and Hell are eternal. The only marked difference is that whilst the former is eternal bliss, the latter is eternal suffering/damnation. However, the most important observation in all of these is that any which way, we still retain our identities in death. We can therefore deduce that according to religious faiths, for your life to have any meaning, you must do good whilst inhabiting this physical and transitory existence. This is necessary in other for you to be guaranteed a place in heaven, thus eternal bliss after death. The mute point in religious faith explanation of understanding death, is that you really never die. This is because in my opinion for one to die, one must cease to exist in all ramifications. One must relinquish both ones physical body and ones identity. In my opinion, if one were to follow the teachings of religious faiths you will be judged when you die. For God to judge, and consequently reward or punish the dead for their earthly deeds, they must exist in death and the punishment must be linked to the deeds of that person. I can therefore safely deduce that according to religious faiths, we live on in death. Life thus has a meaning, if we view it as some kind of trial or tests that qualifies us for how we intend to spend the rest of it when we shed our physical cloak in death. Life would thus be meaningless if our earthly existence is the only existence. In all of this, we can see man’s desire for immortality. We can see man’s desire to live forever. We can also see man’s desire to explain off the seeming imbalance, inequalities and injustices in our existence. We do this by clinging on to the belief in an afterlife devoid of the quirks of our earthly existence. An afterlife of bliss. The caveat however is that we must live Godly lives to qualify for this existence. The trouble makers in our midst would however be condemned to an eternal life of damnation and suffering. The good and bad both get to live in death, but do not get to coexist the way they do on earth. In my opinion the promise of a better life in death, is some kind of balm to soothe the nerves of the weak, the defenceless and those that have been unjustly treated. The reward of an eternal life of bliss is good music to the just, whilst the condemnation to an eternal life of suffering and damnation seems just and fitting for the wicked. Why does it seem inconceivable that we do not live on in death? How would our lives be meaningless if we did not live on in death? What would be the whole point of our lives if there was no afterlife? What is the purpose of our existence, if this is the only form of existence there is? All this in my opinion, are valid queries. However, to successfully solve this riddles, one must ask the question I broached earlier. Who ultimately owns our lives? Do our lives belong to us, or do they belong to God? It is cushy to think this is absurd. How can one ask who owns the lives we live. We live the live, so we must certainly own it. If we own our lives, then the proposition that our lives are meaningless unless we live on in death seems very valid. Sadly, however, ultimately our lives do not belong to us. They belong to God. Religious faiths readily testify to this. My question thus is this, if our lives or more appropriately our identity/soul ultimately belong to God, would it be meaningless if death was final? In my opinion, it is futile and redundant searching for the meaning of life beyond our earthly/physical experience. Whatever meaning there is to life beyond our earthly experience, is not for our creator to decipher and not us. God is the custodian of our identity, so only him can safely answer as to why he lets the soul inhabit a physical body, only to recall that soul through death. I believe it is the very belief in the afterlife, that makes life look meaningless. It is our search for immortality that makes life look meaningless. It is the quest to be eternal like God that makes us to believe that our earthly existence is transitory. It is that quest which leads us to believe that we live on in death. If we were to be eternal like our creator, it follows that we have power over death. This is because whatever power death can claim to have over us, is just a mere illusion since we really don’t die, but merely transit from one realm to another. Death therefore becomes an illusionist, a great trickster for the living. However, if we are immortal as suggested in afterlife, can we choose to be born into this physical/earthly existence or not? Why don’t we proceed directly to the afterlife? What is the usefulness of the experience of our earthly existence beyond the qualification for heaven or hell? Why would God set us up for failure? If we became eternal like God, how would he exercise control over us? If we lived on in death, what would be usefulness of God in our lives?
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Posted by gombotinsure on 2007-07-29 13:04:48 | Rating: | Views: 170
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Gombo,
What you have written has been regergitated as if it is pregnant with meaning & something to believe & live by for too many generations. If you choose to believe that sterile dogma you are of course free to do so. But if you really want to find meaning in your life then go out & look for it & let the speculations of the dead rot in the damp dungeons of eternity.
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Posted by jlindsaysmith39
on 2007-07-29 23:44:41
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