What Is The Point Of Eternal Life?

[nailit]

I just don't get this idea of eternal life. What is the 'POINT' of having eternal life?
Whether its living forever on a paradise Earth (JW doctrine), living forever in heaven (Christian doctrine), reincarnating endlessly (Eastern religious doctrine) or whatever.
Life is precious because it is finite, yes?
If it went on forever then it wouldn't have any value.
A football game only has 'meaning' because it has a start time and a finish time. If it went on ad infinitum it would be totally senseless.
Why is life any different? Leave aside Dawkins v religionists etc.
Can someone tell me, why life would be any different if we were to live eternally?
Just what would be the POINT???
What the hell would you DO for all eternity for one?

[Canary42]

I would be fascinated by the long term geological history (but I agree it might be a bit boring waiting for something to change)

[agchristie]

//A football game only has 'meaning' because it has a start time and a finish time.//

Bill Shankly is turning in his grave!!!

//Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.//

[agchristie]

//What is the 'POINT' of having eternal life?//

So that in the 34th Century we will have achieved Brexit.

[vetuste_ennemi]

If you're a Christian it's all about worshipping the "Lamb" and playing devotional music. If you're a Muslim man it's about having sex forever. (Don't know what the girls do for fun.)

[Mamyalynne]

Concepts don't need a point unlike a written novel or a school timetable.

[Atheist]

Nailit, I agree with you. Eternity doesn't really exist. Eternity would just relegate experience to nothingness. Eternity means that there would be no now, no life, no change, no anything of interest.

[vetuste_ennemi]

PS: it's a long time eternity, isn't it?

[Atheist]

VE, eternity isn't a long time,it's no time.

[Atheist]

ag, shame on you for dragging brexit into this. (I know you weren't serious.)

[Muntin]

Julian Barnes [I think it was he] has a wonderful short story about this. You can have whatever you want--golf? get round in 18 every time. Football--your team always wins. Any kind of earthly delight is available in heaven 24/7. Food, wine etc for ever and ever. People top themselves after 100 years or so, it just gets so boring.

[agchristie]

Sorry Atheist. I take 100% responsibility and couldn't resist it!

Onwards and upwards..

[jourdain2]

v-e it is a long time. I suppose that it is for one's essence (spirit) encompassing one's knowledge and experience to continue and add to the kingdom of God along with other loved ones. This feels clumsily expressed - I don't like the word 'kingdom' - more like adding to a continuity of godliness and power. Even that's not right, sorry, but I know what I feel. Hard to express.

[jno]

life doesn't have a point anyway. Perhaps you believe God put you on Earth for a reason; non-believers don't really have that option. You can decide to make the best of it, but there are plenty of suicides who don't see anything precious in it at all.

Just as a hen is an egg's way of making another egg, so you're here because your genes wanted to crate a mechanism for perpetuating themselves. That's what the meaning of life amounts to, whether it lasts a year, a hundred years or a million years. If I did happen to be around for eternity I dare say I'd find ways to fill my time, just as I do now.

[Atheist]

jno. How do you fill your time?

[jno]

on AB.

[Atheist]

And, jno, you wouldn't have time.

[Atheist]

Eternity means there is no time. AB presupposes time.

[jno]

I disagree; you live second by second, minute by minute, and each AB post will still have a time stamp, though they will get quite long.

[agchristie]

I'm nowhere near old enough but am interested to know whether one does get world weary?

I sometimes hear people give up and that's not always if they have lost someone close.

Do people seriously tire of life after a certain point? Enthusiasm and vitality etc

[vetuste_ennemi]

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time..."

and its gloomy conclusion sums it up for me, Atheist.

My only interest in eternal life would be watching how the human drama acts out. Obviously the false prophets who predict the end of the earth due to climate change will be proved wrong just as all the earlier religious fanatics were, but will the civilised world wake up to real threats? Or will today's Cassandras continue to be ignored and Western culture go the same way as Troy?