Is there a purpose to our lives?

The past few days, I've become permeated with a feeling that so much of what we all experience in this life is pointless.

I watched a movie last night about a teenage boy's experience joining the Nazi regime in the 1940s. I watched the time, thought, and emotion invested by thousands into the Nazi way of life, and I thought...how pointless. Those years of those people's lives were wasted on foolish thinking and foolish motives and foolish rituals. Foolish causes. It was a waste of their time.

I've been thinking about the time and money so many Americans invest in getting ready for the Christmas holiday, and it seems so pointless. They hang the lights, they shop for gifts, they make Christmas cookies. For what reason?

I used to believe firmly in the Christian religion. I heard various Christians make the argument that without a belief in a higher power, life is pointless and therefor without hope. I think I am experiencing that right now. I feel as though our mourning over the deaths of others is an overreaction, considering that life on our planet has supposedly existed for billions of years. The loss of one human life, or even hundreds or thousands of lives, in context, is miniscule. Over the past week, television stations have aired stories about the death of actor John Travolta's 16-year-old son. My reaction has been: I don't care! At some level it seems that I am not "supposed" to react this way; but the reality is I never knew John Travolta's son. I've never known John Travolta. Many, many people die every day on this planet. Why should I feel especially sad about the particular death of an actor's son whom I've never met? I would be curious to hear somebody try to give me one logical explanation as to why I should have any emotional investment in the death of John Travolta's son's death.

So I'm feeling pessimistic about the grand scheme of life. Why value honesty? Why try to help people? I don't know. But I will say this: if the reality of our situation is that nothing lies beyond this life; if this is all there is; if there is no higher power and no heaven or hell beyond this life...then that's what it is. Just because it's depressing or hopeless doesn't mean it's not true. A Christian might say, "Life would be hopeless if there was no God in control, so I choose to believe in God." But I would counter that sometimes reality is positive, and sometimes it is negative. Just because something isn't appealing to us doesn't mean it's not a reality. A person might find the prospect of rain to be depressing; that doesn't mean the weather person should predict clear skies and sunshine. The reality is that sometimes it rains!

I read a quote this week that I am very fond of. It goes something like this: "Philosophical suicide is accepting comforting answers to unanswerable questions." I think that sometimes the most comforting answers are bullshit.