It means that at some point nothing is significant anymore. There is no one for it to be significant to.
Then it doesn't matter, since humans might as well be significant on their own, same as the meanings they find.
Yes oblivion is the same as non life. If nature takes its course and one ceases to exist, that is oblivion.
Isolated oblivion is isolated
Does Nature have a point? What is it?
Nature itself doesn't need a point, it simply exists. You try to put agency on everything and you encounter this problem
Intelligent being is not limited to human. The most significant meaning that comes from you is temporary at best.
It being temporary is just how things are. Everything is temporary, so why should meaning and self be an exception to that?
Unsatisfactory to whom? This is a meaningless statment.
It doesn't have relevance to perspective, it's an overall estimation based on the various unsatisfactory beliefs and meaning we derive from their unrealistic nature.
You just said there can be so separation. If separation does not exist, there can be no separation.
Separation is a natural impulse, but it's unrealistic when made absolute. that's what I'm trying to say
Ultimatly I think it is more interesting to me to focus on humans than on non humans, since I am human.
We are not absolutely separate from nature though, so it would be foolish to just focus on us
That is because you assume there is no ultimate meaning.
Because it's fruitless, it's something we have no control over and have no interaction with except in the loosest sense of conforming to some arbitrary standard set in place by an equally arbitrary consciousness.
Ultimate meaninglessness is satisfactory to you, but not to me.
The problem is your search for ultimacy and fixation on it, seems to me.
This is an untrue, incorrect statment---"Moments are meaningful only as they eventually reach an end." Prove to me this statment is true. I find it interesting that most athiest believe we cannot enjoy life if we believe in eternal life or heaven. I think the truth is--reality is believing in an afterlife and a destiny of meaning makes this life more enjoyable. I think the truth is, Atheists do not enjoy this life as much as Christians on the whole and Christians are less fearful of death than atheists are.
I simply believe you can't appreciate life to the fullest since you think this life is only a transition, that it pales in comparison to heaven and thus you have contempt for it, as much as you can try to appreciate it being a creation of God.
Meaning is transitory in that we always move into a new perspective on meaning as we see it from a distance, in hindsight, so to speak.
Who's more fearful of death here? An atheist who calmly accepts his eventual death by throat cancer or a Christian who looks forward to the next life with little real appreciation for this life, except as it reflects your ideal vision of heaven?
You are assuming meaninglessness is reality. You don't see it as just assumption on your part
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I assume meaning comes from minds, not from something outside the mind.
My brain is matter--my thoughts are not.
That doesn't mean they don't result from matter.
How do you suppose life cannot be appreciated because it extends in time?
Same reason I believe that life is valuable in that it eventually passes away. One appreciates something all the more when they know that it could go away at any time and never truly return.
You should have used the word apprehention rather than appreciation. It would have been a more reasonable statment.
You can't appreciate something truly if it is not permanent in your perspective, so logically you don't really appreciate this life, you appreciate the next life.
Why do you get to claim something and not have to prove it?
Depends on how you define proof in each context. And in logic, especially with such a grand scale, when I make a negative claim. I claim it through lack of evidence. You, making the positive claim, are asked to present the evidence, correct?
You can see them as separte and not equal things. To combine them is to say nothing about nothing.
They are equal in being shapes, they aren't equal absolutely
Time is relative. Non existence is not relative
Nonexistence is relative. I can experience nonexistence indirectly. When my friend's stepfather died. I experience his not being here. You see?
What applies to love and life? I have lost your train of thought.
Our attachments. We can become addicted to life and love without moderation
Nothing about the spiritual realm is clearly the case.
Then you're obfuscating the issue entirely by saying it's inscrutable.
We cannot know the details but assuming the worst is simply assuming
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I'm not assuming the worst, I'm assuming the basic state of things from what I observe.
I accept death in this world as part of life. I don't accept ultimate meaninglessness and oblivion as reality.
Because you refuse to acknowledge it for fear that you will go into nihilism,which you haven't proved I am in the sense of anything more than existential.
And you failed to defend it being a bad thing.
I can't defend it if you dismiss all my claims anyway. You can't accept that life could be meaningful subjectively and existentially unless you also believe there is an ultimate meaning applying to everyone as if we're automatons.
You are wrong. I can accept that my life is finite. You make assumption about me when you have no knowledge.
Then by all means try to prove otherwise.
But you cannot and have not demonstrated any such thing.
Then why even have this discussion if all you're trying to do is tell me I'm wrong at each step?
Sounds to me like you are referring to the wheel of life.
It's sometimes called that
Yes I have. Your being unwilling to see it is a separate matter.
My refusing to accept some ridiculous notion of a purpose beyond ourselves is not unwilling to see what you believe, I simply don't accept it as true.
You don't know how things acturally are. You think you do, but you don't.
Then you don't either. We're both imperfect, unless you claim to the contrary about yourself.
So for our purposes you are a nihilist.
I define nihilism as believing we face a destiny of oblivion
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There are too many kinds of nihilists for you to just lump me into the vague category. Not to mention in your position, we might as well be destined to oblivion unless we believe in God and Jesus and such.
It's no one's, because no one's permanent and thus no one can hold onto it forever
This has little or nothing to do with our discussion then. I agree all is in a state of flux in this world. I do not agree that means it does not exist.
No one claimed metaphysical nihilism. Things exist, but they're temporary, that is the basic notion of anicca. NOWHERE did I say these things do not exist, I am not someone who believes everything is an illusion.
At what point is oblivion better than life?
there isn't any point, because in oblivion there is no self to appreciate or not appreciate that state
The similarities have nothing to do with our being separte individuals.
We experience things, but we of course understand them differently as individuals in some sense of the term.
So far you have been unable to explain how I am imcorrect.
If you want textual support, then you're barking up the wrong tree. Buddhism as a philosophy only has those basic points, but they are not so strict that they cannot be interpreted in different ways.
You complain of the Christian fixation on life and then deny Buddhism's fixation on death.
I deny it because it's not true. I appreciate life all the more knowing it is temporary. I claim that you cannot appreciate it, for you have contempt for the notion of impermanence and believe in some state of permanence in the future life.
Ok. I might take time to put a somewhat finer point on that idea, that what troubles many unbelievers (the whole issue of suffering) serves the purpose of molding us into being more capable of experiencing His Glory, and when the process is complete we will be able to do so fully. I do find in Scripture that the absolute best moments I have experienced could be roughly 10% of this at the most, that those moments were achieved by experiencing EL in the here and now as a "downpayment" if you will, and that it is the other 90% that answers your question of "why is EL desirable?"
Does this make sense to you?
