Would you sell your eternal soul to the devil in exchange for the best, happiest, richest, most exciting life ever imaginable?

I do not fear death because I do not fear consequences of not following god or any religious dogma. We are highly complex biological "masses" as you put it but then again the space shuttle is not a mass of metal, plastic and processors. It is a complexity, a sophistication just as is our human life. Minimizing it does not make God any more enticing or appealing or real.

We are a long term manifestation of eons of evolution, trial and error, adaptation to environmental changes. This is nothing so small and compact as a mass of anything. Once you appreciate what we are and who we can be, you will have no reason to believe in gods or magic or overseers. We can take care of ourselves and each other.

As far as logical or pointless? For you there must be some reward or punishment for having lived the way you do. Either you go to heaven or you suffer in hell.
That is very small thinking my dear. Rewards are for what we do as we do it. Immediate or long term. To live to please god is to detract from the good one does as they do it because of the reasons they do it. You do good because god commands you to do good? Can you not just do good for the sole purpose of helping others who require help? Then, you are doing it for them and not for some future reward because you did it for them. It is simple and pure. from the heart, not out of obligation. Everything else is just BS and for the wrong reasons.

Do good because you see it, not because you are commanded to.

Time, that so human concept, is marked by a movement from order to chaos. Everything starts out as form and eventually, over time, will crumble or decay. Our great cities when left unattended will succumb to the ravages of time and fall in great heaps of stone, glass and rusted metals. Bodies obviously are lead along the same path and move from form to decay (or shall I quip dechaos.) Given that what most people refer to as a soul, that consciousness and conscience we are cognizant of is dependent on the orderly human body must itself fall fate to the same consequences and dissolve into chaos.

Feel free to believe and call that chaos a return to the universal and infinite continuum. I just call it death but there is no consciousness. We are gone. There is nothing. It is as if we fell asleep as so many do to awaken without the sense of how much time passed when it has been all night, no dream recollection, nothing.

As sentient beings with a conscience, our best effort to make life valuable, are by endeavoring to strive for what universally all crave: happiness through love, laughter, challenge and achievement and justice. When the tears flow out of joy, you have achieved the greatest reward humans are entitled to. Celebrate that actualization and you understand that consciousness is finite and that is the best motivator there is.

That sense of a single entity uniting element about the universe you express above, that which you see as returning to, infinite, is probably that sense that what is living is connected to every other living thing by virtue of it being alive, something we all can relate to..

Thanks for a great conversation. Go on all you want. It helps piece your thoughts together.

Yes time, human invention, purely psychological... So if you believe there is really nothing else after death, and that we are all chemical forms etc, what do you think created everything? Where did that first spark of energy come from when there was complete nothingness in the beginning? Do you believe it was all a wonderful scientific accident? Do you believe it's possible to recreate the beginning spark of atoms, even though the big bang theory itself goes against many laws of physics and science? Don't you sometimes think there must have always been something already there, a greater force that created everything, a birth-less, deathless force that always was and always will be, that we are all part of that has a purpose for creating the universe and continuing it's existence? If you believe that time is a human concept, then we are all in a constant now and there is no time there just is existence, then there must be no beginning and no end, beginning and end are our limited human understanding and way of making sense of the incomprehensible, like dreams, we need a story with a beginning, middle and end to feel purpose and understanding. If time is just a human, physical concept, a measure of change, birth and death, development and destruction, then there must be an eternity that always was and always is, and a greater purpose for everything to continue existing forever. Not sure if I'm making much sense, I'm not as articulate with my ideas as I'd like to be.. But don't you think the only reason why God and eternity cannot be proven is because we are just humans and we do not have the technology or tools or knowledge or abilities to measure it scientifically in a way that is simplified and comprehensible to us? Don't you think the fact that no scientist has ever proven or completely understood anything for 100% certain fact such as thoughts, love, life and where it begins and comes from and where exactly it ends, what happens after death, planets and infinity of space etc etc shows that we cannot know for certain that God and eternity doesn't exist because we do not have the means to explain it or understand it and therefore are unable to prove it doesn't exist? Where do you think everything came from? Do you believe that everything that exists really will end, and how? Ha ha I'm probably going on way too much now, I don't think anyone can really answer any of these questions, but I would be very interested to hear some more of your insightful opinions!

No, I enjoy your thoughts. No need to express self-consciousness to me. :)

The physics of the universe created everything. We are all the stuff of stars. We are intricately connected to the universe, yes. One of the great benefits of being human amongst all other creatures is the desire and drive to know and understand our surroundings, to look into the future, review the past and explore for the sake of knowledge.

Then there is this thing called mystery, the wellspring for all our drive to understand.

Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.
Jean Cousteau

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.
Neil Armstrong

Mystery is but another name for ignorance; if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain!
Tryon Edwards

In an infinite universe, there can never be infinite understanding for there is always going to be something beyond. To reverse that consider this. You cannot get from one place to another because you have to go half way and from there half way and so on for infinity. You can always reduce anything by half.

Infinity cannot only be future directed but past as well. Not just towards bigger but to smaller. How do we reconcile that concept? Well obviously we can get from point A to point B. Thus, the concept of infinity must be a theory only. Physics is the ultimate truth. We are physical beings. Our thoughts are as well, manifestations of physical
processes. As much as we can imagine the impossible, we can no more produce it in the physical world anymore than we can teach an amoeba to talk.

Because we, as humans, with shall I say, infinite drive to understand ourselves and our relationship to our surroundings but cannot apparently must by compulsion suggest that something more knowledgeable than ourselves must exist to provide answers. THIS is why gods were invented. To absolve us of responsibility for the events that adversely affect our lives-climactic, geographic and later to fill the gaps of our finite ability to process everything.

How do I get around that? I don't. I just do not necessarily accept the concept of infinity. Infinity is too big and too small all at the same time.

Why does it even matter? What is the difficulty in knowing oneself and maximizing that potential to approach your finite best to serve in what ever purpose you feel is the definition of you? It is like getting caught up in some causality loop. It will drive you crazy. Personally, I do not want to be crazy.