Now the theist view is that all of this is temporary, that this universe is not even a real one, it is artificial, created by a God as some experiment with a definitive ending date, over which we humans have no control. So all the great figures in history, and all the things they achieved, both for the good and for the bad, all of it was utterly pointless, a total waste of time: Hammurabi, Sargon of Akkad, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Justinian, Darwin, Einstein, Newton, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, etc. etc. Why did Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon River and end the Roman Republic? If there is a God then this act has no purpose, he may as well have just stayed at home and done nothing with his life.
Yeah, good point. To Muhammed the worldly life was comparable to a life in prison while Jesus told his followers to take no thought for the morrow. These were hysterical fanatics who really believed that end times was upon them. This renders culture and literature, science and discovery not only pointless, but it also makes all these things mere obstacles to the kind of crazed worship needed to salvage something from the dungeon we so rudely and optimistically call life.
. Stupid disbelievers!
Or perhaps there just happens to be more shit than good to recall?
In the present moment my mother wishes I were dead and thinks I'm crazy.
I'm not going to be diplomatic here, Stardust. When you have no or little reason to feel happy and all the reasons to feel depressed, well then you really can't help but feel sad. I know how that feels like. But in my own experience, I don't think I have in that case the right to then drench myself in self-pity. That is unless I'm the infamous Rwandan girl, who had lost
every single person she knew to the genocide. No one to tease her about her first love and no one to tell her about her first words. In fact, no one to confirm to that her whole life and all of her joyful and sad memories aren't mere hallucinations. If
tabula rasa means anything, it is surely this? What else can this girl (and those like her) have but capitulation and self-pity?
So to feel sad or depressed is not a
completely hopeless state to be in,
if it doesn't contaminate your foresightedness, your sense of perspective, your dreams and ambitions etc. (not that I'm directly writing to you, as I know you do have talents and goals, but just to get some thoughts out.)
Topic: Unhappyness