wildbill@ucbvax.UUCP (William J. Laubenheimer) (03/27/84)
> And in the "leap of faith" discussion, there is one tremendous leap that > hasn't been mentioned yet: if there is nothing outside of this life - > why live? Why not just put everyone out of their misery? :-( > -- > The Ice Floe of the Q-Bick > {ucbvax,ihnp4}!{decwrl,amd70}!qubix!lab > decwrl!qubix!lab@Berkeley.ARPA I don't think this is right. As a matter of fact, I think it is completely backwards. If there is nothing outside of this life, if death is in fact The End, why die? Under this assumption, putting anyone (including one's self) out of his ``misery'' must rank as the most heinous crime possible, since this means that the person so treated has lost all opportunity to make something of h{is,er} life, or to make the world a better place to live in. After all, it's the only place we've got to live in. My position on the existence of an afterlife is essentially that of Robert A. Heinlein's alter ego, Lazarus Long -- I'm going to find out eventually, so there's no point in worrying about it. In the meantime, I will do what I can to improve the quality of life for everyone, here and now. Life after death might be better, or it might be worse -- but I'm in absolutely no hurry to find out. As long as we're on the subject of afterlives here, perhaps everyone gets the afterlife they believe in -- the Buddhist gets reincarnated, the Moslem goes to paradise, the Christian goes to wherever he believes a Christian with his record would be headed, be it Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or whatever, the solipsist (among others) simply disappears. This seems like an excellent way of reconciling all the various belief systems in the world. Think about it! Bill Laubenheimer ----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science ...Killjoy WAS here! ucbvax!wildbill