One of my cousins was just diagnosed with Liver Cancer. Basically, it's a death sentence. There are really no words to describe the situation and what she must be going through. Actually, Ed's The End are pretty close, but it's impossible to really hit it.

Anyways, this obviously got me thinking, about life, about religion, about why we are here. What is life about? What happens after?

I just thought it would be interesting to hear different takes on this subject. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but this is kinda tough for me to think about right now. I just feel so bad for her and her family and can't really do squat.

P.S. Fuck Cancer.

i think that its a problem we created the word "why" i imagine that we are just simply here.

to enjoy it, in whatever ways we can. both in the short term and the long term (inseperable really), so it's always a bit of a balancing act.

that's all i got...

hope things go as well as they can. that's horrible news.

What happens after?

There is no after.

There is if you have faith

I don't think what happens after has anything to do with what you think.

That should have no effect on whether or not parody posts go over your head from time to time. Even self-parody posts.

To answer the OP, I don't really know the point other than experience. I saw an interesting art exhibit at the Houston contemporary art museum last spring that was floor space covered with wood, tools, sawhorses, blueprints and what were the beginnings of construction of a large boat. The abstract that i read describing it told me that there would be a boat building workshop put on every Saturday until the boat was complete. After that, the artists planned to invite the public to watch as they set the boat afloat on some body of water and burn it in a sort of Viking funeral fashion.

The point being that the process of creativity and collaboration was more important than the end result. Perhaps that's what life is like.

reid cliffs: the journey, not the destination

the goal should be to meaningfully contribute to society... now trying to figure out what societies goal is is a different matter

for you personally

personally, I believe in some form of universality or objectivity in these matters, as well as most others

i do not hold that same belief.

do you believe truth exists?

or reality, for that matter?

truth exists at least to some degree, and exists within the arbitrary constructed frameworks we live and operate. but it is tough to find truth on many issues.

as for reality, yes, although i guess there's no real way to know anything is real except what's in your own head, though i'd say there's a high probability everything is real, and the probability it isn't is so low it's fairly easy to ignore it.

I'm here for the lulz.

"Why are we here?" is just about an impossible question to answer, in my opinion, because it implies there is some objective purpose to life. "What we should try to do while we're here?" is a more fitting one, I think.

Why am I me?

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 billion people have lived on earth.
Why do I occupy this body at this point in time?