Hi there,
First off I don’t believe in any form of god or divine being. Secondly, I don’t believe we continue after dying in any shape or form. The idea the energy of our existence permutates into the universe after we die? Well, it’s cute but that’s about it. Third, the universe is on a course of self-destruction.
Strangely, the strict dictionary description of Athiest is the non-belief in god – which means that certain spiritualist groups, who believe their soul continues after death but there is no divine being are Athiest. I am not this.
The belief our consciousness does not continue after life was first given the name Eternal Oblivion. (As far as I can tell) Bit grandiose but there you go. Second, the belief the universe is on a one way mission of self-destruction is given the term Big Freeze.
So, for starters, I’m an EOBF.
I’m 50 now, started believing this around 13 and it has been a real struggle. From complete hopelessness to depression to drugs (which, strangely did work? But when you give up the drugs, it all comes back.) Needless to say, these thoughts have had a profound effect on my life.
When I was in my early 40’s I decided one day I would try and ‘think my way out of it’ or, at the very least, ‘find a different thought path’ as opposed to, what I lovingly call, ‘mourning the death of the universe’. While scientists state: “The universe created us so that it may know itself.” I have always felt more that: “The universe created us so that it may mourn its own demise.”
I found refuge in the thought: ‘what does this practically mean for the human race?’ This, I have discovered, to be a really great thought! Rather than the moping: ‘there’s no point in anything anyway’ it lead to a singular question: ‘what is the point?’ Now rather than going for some grandiose answer my brain came up with one really quickly: ‘Me and the human race. We are the point.’ After a little more thought, it sharpened to: ‘the continuance of the human race.’
Being conscious – the fact that we are conscious – is the point. And the more consciousness we can bring into existence, the better. Which does tie up with why biologists say we are here, to reproduce, which is nice, but I realised that afterwards.
But it is here where my agreement with Christians and Humanists (which, I think, is just a continuation of Christian teachings without the god bit) parts ways.
Firstly, we can reproduce at around 13. See historical data for what time kids can start work – around 7. So realistically speaking, the human race can see out the lifetime of the planet earth by only living to around 20 years old. So as long as humans live to 20ish, they can die then and we’ll be around for as long as the planet is around. That is not a good thought, it’s definitely not a nice thought – but it does seem realistic.
Secondly, we can push off this planet and get to a different planet. Here’s a realistic view of going to Mars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESQ1bKd7Los Not such a good idea.
Third, it appears, through normal mining techniques, we’re going to start running out of various metals and minerals. Take into account that on average we lose about 40% of what we recycle due to the recycling process and, well, that doesn’t help much. You can look this up for yourself on the internet but keep a close eye on cobalt – we need it for anything electronic in the modern day? So mobile phones, laptops, batteries… Yeah. It’s a biggie. A ticking clock. This really does push the idea we need to go to other planets though… After ‘running out’ the world does still hold these materials? The problem is we need to mine mountains and the sea bed – mainly the sea bed – to get at them. To put this into perspective, we can't even reach the deepest sea bed, never mind mine it.
Fourth, the pollution, plastic waste, environmental damage just by us being here and building houses… Sadly all of this could be drastically reduced by drastically reducing the human population. Chop the world’s population in half and suddenly it’s half the space, half the plastic, half the environmental damage… I saw someone state: ‘You’re being anti-human!’. Which is a fair point… The problem is the reality of our universe does appear to be anti-human.
Fifth, lets say we do manage to colonise the solar system and suck all the goodness outta it, it, once again, is finite. So we’re living under a ticking clock. Hang on a sec, no matter what we do, or where we go, we’re always living under the ticking clock of resources. So wherever we go, we gotta keep moving.
Six, the answer is to leave this solar system, go to another one! Awesome, we’ll just hop around solar systems. From what I’ve read and seen, the closest sun will take voyager around 40,000 years to get to. Now realise that using our propulsion rockets that we use on present day spacecraft that carry humans, it’ll take around 78,000 years. Now realise that our best nuclear power stations run for 40 years – but they’ve been upgraded to last 70 years… Yeah. That’s a problem. Ah, lastly? Just keep in mind that the closer you get to the speed of light, the denser material becomes. You’re made of material. Begs the question: How fast can the human being travel before the human density reaches a point where your heart simply can’t pump blood around anymore? Scientists are guessing (with maths) it’s around a quarter of the speed of light. Closest star is around 4.5 light years away so around the 20 year mark. 20 years in space, radiation, weightlessness all equals human body problems…
So, as far as I can tell, we either start pumping all our money into rocket propulsion and scientific research for space exploration? Or we may as well just get used to farming our lives away and anyone getting over the age of 20 is kinda redundant. And the ticking clock for earth? 1.5 million years. A star is going to pass close by our solar system and it’s gravity will affect our sun. Can’t see that going too well.
So your thoughts please? And please don’t come at me with empathic or religious belief systems and the like… Unfortunately, where reality is concerned? We only need to live to 20 years old. And us going around saving each other? Unfortunately that’s just kinda adding to the problem.
For the final point, Albert Einstein was born in 1879… Total world population at the time? About 1.5 billion. Total world population today? 7.7 billion. I bring this up because we could lose around 4/5ths of the world’s population and still create minds like Einstein. Just so you know…