All life is really about death. When you look at evolution, you see nothing but species trying to prevent the death of their own genetic line. And while thousands of lines make it, millions more of the branches of the tree of life end shortly after they start. I guess we're somewhat lucky in that respect, at least for now.
[dustin] a lot of times it makes more sense to me that we have what i'd call a "spirit"
[dustin] which is less permanent than what I think of as a "soul"
[dustin] a spirit is still like a living thing, that can age and dissipate if it doesn't have a source of energy
[dustin] my idea of a spirit could still exist after death
[dustin] for instance it could attach itself to the energy of strong emotion, or a powerful place
[dustin] or it could go and find a new baby body
[dustin] or it could attach itself to something that's reinforced by a lot of belief, like heaven or hell
[dustin] i guess i find hell easier to believe in than heaven
[dustin] because i don't really have a clear picture of what heaven would be like
[dustin] it's easy to picture, say dante's inferno, or some other place designed for torture, but a place of infinite good or pleasure or.. what? there are so many conflicting ideas of what these things would be that God would be hard put to build a place that pleased everybody
[dustin] you know, some scientists think the universe is circular
[dustin] timewise i mean
[dustin] you've heard of the big bang theory
[stacey] i have
[dustin] where the universe started as a microscopic dot that contained all the matter of the universe
[dustin] something that dense warps time and space almost to the point of nonexistance
[dustin] also the theory goes that eventually all the matter in the now expanding universe will be slowed down by gravity and pulled back together back into a dot
[dustin] and because space and time are warped by gravity at that point also, the theory goes that maybe the point at the beginning and the point at the end are the same place and time
[dustin] so maybe there's only one soul, reincarnating into different sentient beings on each pass around the circular time of the universe
[stacey] it all comes back to "what is the purpose of life?"
[stacey] is it to be a good little consumer for the stupid companies out there? is it to ponder our existance and investigate and explore and make a firm decision as to what we believe or think or feel? is it to try to help other humans and creatures throughout your life? is it to fall in love? are you supposed to try to do a little of all of this in the short time you get?
[dustin] there's a lot of death in seinfeld, for a sitcom
[dustin] there's another "theory" that goes that the universe is a joke played on itself
[dustin] and maybe the joke is that you can't see that you *are* the purpose of life, because you're living it and looking at it from the inside