As some of you might've known, I've been suffering from alot of emotional problems recently, alot to do with my self-esteem and my identity.
I've sometimes argued that if there was no objective purpose in life, then I would have hung myself already.
And today, whilst feeling the pain of my wounds, I feel like expounding on this argument, and why I find it so emotionally compelling (yet still be logical).
My first premise is that if (something Kant argued) the grave suddenly swallowed the righteous and the unrighteous, then it's hard to see that moral obligations do matter ultimately.
That is to say that if there was no afterlife of any sort, and we all just die, then ultimately, if I've lived a moral life or an immoral one, it doesn't matter. Sure, maybe your whole bloodline will be disgraced if you commit an immoral act now, but when the universe collapses and when humanity is no more, your immoral acts or moral acts will mean nothing. The acts of a righteous man then is of no significance just as the acts of an unrighteous man if everything ends at death.
Now someone might argue that we don't know that humanity will go extinct, but I think we know enough to say that our planet and even our universe will no longer be hospitable to our species in a few more billion years. And even if you do believe (a huge claim to make) that the human species will live on forever and ever, if a persons life ends at death, then why should he care about what he does? Why sacrifice pleasures just to "do the right thing", when you can have all the pleasures you want in this life, since YOLO? (you only live once)
Life without an afterlife is therefore, meaningless. Sure, you can definitely add your own meaning to it (and it can be quite pleasurable to do whatever your body desires), but in the end, there is no objective meaning past your life. Think about it in terms of playing a game; You can create your own purpose when playing a game. For example, I want to be the player who has the most amount of kills or I want to be the player with the most amount of assists in the game. But when the game ends or is shut down, it doesn't matter what you did anymore. Only oblivion awaits you.
My second premise is that God exists. This is based off other external arguments (though an argument can be made that it is rather absurd to live purposeless lives), and then the conclusion follows that our life has an objective purpose that has to be based off whichever God you believe in.
As for me, the implications are huge. If the Christian God exists, then it follows that our lives are to be set apart for Him. It follows that we ought to resist our fleshly desires which is sinful. It follows that we ought to put Him first (or at least try our very best to) in all things. It also follows that we will be mocked, ridiculed, laughed at for not enjoying the pleasures of the world.
And that means what to me? That meant losing my best friend, giving up on the girl of my dreams (because trying to do so would mean going to church for the complete wrong reasons and to lie my way through things) ,and basically get my self-esteem beaten down to a point where it can't seem to get any lower. If I do discover that God doesn't exist then I think suicide is better for me since at this point, I'll probably suck at being worldly and what not.
Then we have Pascal's wager. (or a form of his argument). The atheist can ask :"What if you're wrong? You waste your life!"
But the atheist doesn't realize that if there is no afterlife, then it doesn't matter at all what you do in this life, whether it is to pursue false religions or to sleep around with many women etc. You're not gonna be there to regret anything at all!
