Do you hope you're wrong?

[TomFoolery]

I've got to admit that I have a curiosity about the future.  go extinct?  What will be the reason?  When will the Earth be destroyed as our sun expands?  But alas, I'm not going to ever know.

I ponder the same questions all the time. Especially considering in the grand scheme of things, humanity's existence is about as long as a dog's fart to the universe. Which really doesn't do much to help support the idea that my human consciousness will exist forever.

[CrucifyCindy]

I don't want an afterlife. But it would be nice if we could live to 200 or even better 500 years, in this world.

Are you some sort of masochist? This is samsara.

[Baruch]

I don't want an afterlife. But it would be nice if we could live to 200 or even better 500 years, in this world.

1. You don't want to be constantly getting more infirm.

2. It may be true, that you have never had time to do some things you want to do ... but if you wait for retirement, you may be too infirm to enjoy it.

3. There are twice as many things for me to do, every day, than I have time for ... having extra days doesn't improve this.  I am forced to choose, and that might not be a bad thing after all.

[josephpalazzo]

Are you some sort of masochist?

No, I love life.

This is samsara.

LOL

1. You don't want to be constantly getting more infirm.

Assume I'll be healthy for those 500 years...;-)

2. It may be true, that you have never had time to do some things you want to do ... but if you wait for retirement, you may be too infirm to enjoy it.

I'm not waiting.

3. There are twice as many things for me to do, every day, than I have time for ... having extra days doesn't improve this.  I am forced to choose, and that might not be a bad thing after all.

But in 500 years, think of how many more things you would do...

[Solitary]

I've done just about everything I have unselfishly desired. I have 3 left I will receive moving to California. But I'm not getting my hopes up for the third one, because it would take a true miracle.  I promise I will be like a Saint if Shiva is listening. Om! Om! Om!

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Prior to my birth I remember NOTHING,  NADA! I have no reason to believe that after I die it's going to be one bit different.

[peacewithoutgod]

Prior to my birth I remember NOTHING,  NADA! I have no reason to believe that after I die it's going to be one bit different.

This! If you really care that your departed loved ones are at peace, none have peace like that of the truly dead. To wish for them to go on and on forever is at best selfish.

[CrucifyCindy]

No, I love life.

But life is full of dukkha.

[Baruch]

Prior to my birth I remember NOTHING,  NADA! I have no reason to believe that after I die it's going to be one bit different.

So, you never watched Baby Geniuses ;-)

[josephpalazzo]

But life is full of dukkha.

And joy.

[1liesalot]

This is a complicated question. If I'm wrong, then a number of possibilities could be true. I could be wrong, and Islam could be true. I could be wrong, and pantheism is true. To assume that there are only two possibilities is a false dilemma. But let's assume that I am wrong, and Christianity is right. Do I hope that this is the case?

Well, let's see. If Christianity is true, then I will spend eternity in Hell for not believing. So I definitely do not want to die and find out that Christianity is right. However, if I were to learn that Christianity was true before I died, I think I would be filled with a multitude of emotions. My happiest days were when I was a Christian. Unlike some people, I had good experiences in church. If I could go back to that, I would.

Might as well call the Big Bang a deity, with a little help from evolution.

[Baruch]

The origin of all things isn't the "god particle" ... otherwise the LHC would have created a new universe two years ago (Higgs) and obliterated this one.  The origin of all things is the "god fart".  When G-d lets loose, it is serious business ;-)

[Mike Cl]

Your life is full of happenings, events, things, people, animals, and such..................YOU and only you, supply the joy, saddness, the shit and the shineola, and every other emotion.  You live in a neutral world (it doesn't give a rats ass about you one way or the other) and you color it any way you want.  You make every decision to 'Love It or List It"--every one. 

[SGOS]

I ponder the same questions all the time. Especially considering in the grand scheme of things, humanity's existence is about as long as a dog's fart to the universe. Which really doesn't do much to help support the idea that my human consciousness will exist forever.

It's only been in the last few years that I've become aware of how piddling man's duration as a species actually is.  I always knew he was nothing compared to the great survivors like the sharks or the dinosaurs.  I used to think of us as having been around for 3 to 5 million years, but now I'm hearing our lifetime as a species might be as low as 50,000 years, although it's often claimed to be 100,000 years.  Those guys from 3 million years ago, were just other hominids, failed evolutionary experiments, and a brief as those experiments were, some outlasted us by tenfold.  Somehow, I had gotten it in my head that all those different hominid fossils were our ancestors.  Some appear to be, but many aren't, and those are only the fossils we have found.  Who knows how many more of those failed experiments that we don't have a clue about have shared the planet along with others during the same time?  Now they are all dead, and we are the only ones left, which strikes me as a rather ominous foreboding about our future.

And along with all the other life on the planet, which appears so abundant at this time, is just what there happens to be here at this geologic moment.  For all the species that now exist, thousands of times more have gone extinct, most probably without leaving a trace so we don't even know of their existence.  Our future is not just tenuous.  Statistically speaking, our odds of becoming a resilient species on the order a turtle, is somewhere around nil.

[Baruch]

One example of a failed hominid ... saw a great program a few years ago ... at one point there was a man-like creature larger than us ... the Sasquatch candidate (not the same as the giant gorilla species whose fossils come from S E Asia) ... and turns out if a human is much bigger than we are now ... there is too much thermodynamic problems to cope with ... the core temp goes too high ... and for most higher animals, that breaking point is just about the same temperature.  With enough global warming (not balanced by increased rainfall etc) then all surface animals (other than humans in AC) would die of core temp failure.