Why is it that we are alive, when so many others before us have died, in ways so inhuman that the mind can’t fathom?

[Keravnos]

This is a very often recurring question of mine, which has at times kept me awake at night. How is it that of all the tens of billions of people who lived and died in this blue green Earth we get to be alive? Where would we be if for example we had happened to be born to Jewish parents who lived in Poland? Why is it us who live and they who died?

I don’t delude myself into thinking that I am the first one to ask this question. Far from it. Nor will I find a suitable answer that would explain all this atrocious death that so many had to endure during WW2. There definitely were other periods of history in which death and destruction was rampant and spiteful, but this period, these 6 years are greater in numbers, viciousness and pure destructive mania than anything that came before. Hopefully nothing like that will ever come next.

In “Saving Private Ryan” the last scene of the Lt as he was about to die, what he said to Pvt Ryan was “Earn it!”. One of the reasons why “Saving Private Ryan” was such a great movie is because this wasn’t said just to Pvt Ryan but to anyone who watched this movie. We are all here, I believe, because someone of our ancestors died fighting to protect his children, that they might live to become loving grand parents to joyful children who want to hear “just another tale” from pops. Unfortunately, in WW2 he can’t tell them the truth of what happened, however much he may try, not until they are older, if they are lucky enough to have him survive until then.

So the question remains. How can we justify us being here, typing these lines, reading each other’s thoughts and questions ? How is it that we live while others have died? How do we justify our own breath on this Earth? If this is our life, that others paid so much for, that others had no chance to live, how do we “earn it”?

[gambit]

Because life is random and static. There is no reason, we simply live. The best way to make it worth it is to enrich other peoples lives, enjoy our own and eventually bring some more into the world to continue on.

[Kamos]

Luck of the draw man.

[Yaga Shu Ra]

So the question remains. How can we justify us being here, typing these lines, reading each other’s thoughts and questions ? How is it that we live while others have died? How do we justify our own breath on this Earth? If this is our life, that others paid so much for, that others had no chance to live, how do we “earn it”?

By doing as you were intended, if assuming your existence has been granted to you in specific.

Edit: Without preset conditions, a system of measurement, "it" remains impossible to quantify.

[Poach]

As Yaga said, you are working under the assumption that your existence was granted to you specifically. You are a product of your parents, there is no divine intention, destiny, fate or such in your birth. Do you believe that the keyboard you typed your post on was fated to be there? You, like the keyboard, are merely a product created by a certain means. An extremely complex product but a still a product.

[Playfishpaste]

If you feel you don't deserve your life, as other posters have said, you can earn it by your works.

The ones who died, also, were incapable of doing what you can do now.

[Keravnos]

As Yaga said, you are working under the assumption that your existence was granted to you specifically. You are a product of your parents, there is no divine intention, destiny, fate or such in your birth. Do you believe that the keyboard you typed your post on was fated to be there? You, like the keyboard, are merely a product created by a certain means. An extremely complex product but a still a product.

Allow me to respectfully disagree.

I am a human being, not a product, born of a father and a mother. My father believed in God. I guess, judging from my own beliefs today the following describes how I must have been taught.
“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”- Proverbs 22:6

If I can, I will try to teach my own children that when they are young and take them to Sunday school when they are older. It has helped me immensely.

The worst thing that could ever happen would be to be ungrateful to anyone of my ancestors, who did sacrifice a lot for me to be here. I am not working under the assumption that this life was granted to me specifically, I am convinced that anyone could be in my shoes. As for your materialism, and your denial of God, I won't presume to try to convince you. There will always be people forever locked in denial. They will be denied. It says so in the Good Book.

Because life is random and static. There is no reason, we simply live. The best way to make it worth it is to enrich other peoples lives, enjoy our own and eventually bring some more into the world to continue on.

Even if I do have an utmost respect for anyone who wants to express their views, however much I disagree with them, what you go by killed nearly 50 million people.

Looking at your sig. you seem to have a thing for hunting Jews. I don't know if you mean it or you just wrote it in jest (let's just say that's infinitely distasteful) but doing so would be extremely hazardous for your health. They are prey no more.

How about some other specialties of the regime?
-Here's what happened in Greece. I will take one of all the villages torched and destroyed their people slain. In Arta prefecture, August 17 1943, Wermacht's Edelweiss division executed 317 villagers, 172 of them being women, two priests and 13 babies, all less than 1 year old.
-Italian prisoners slaughtered in Kephalonia after Italy surrendered to the Allies and Hitler declared them traitors. 3000 "drowned", 1.135 executed and 25 Slovenes with them along with 5.189 more Italians who were summarily shot.

The list goes on and on, but the truth, documented and explained in detail by Herman Frank Meyer, a German who, looking for his father grave (he had been executed by resistance fighters) stumbled upon the Nazi's reing of terror, which he documented.
http://www.hfmeyer.com/english/publications/index.html

If you feel you don't deserve your life, as other posters have said, you can earn it by your works.

The ones who died, also, were incapable of doing what you can do now.

I do believe that life is a gift as Phier wrote, I do try to live every day to the fullest, as I perceive it.
It isn't that I don't feel I deserve to live, I just think of all the others who didn't make it. Thing is, we could all not have been here, "had a different luck of the draw happened". This is a cause both for gratitude, but also consideration.

If life is an infinite loop of crazy chances how can it be livable. How can people make it through knowing that in the rest minute, chances are they may die (small as those might be?)
We can't. We simply can't. Our mind, however much we continue to deify it and glorify it is too small to comprehend the intricate details that weave our lives. Not because we really couldn't if we tried, but because some things we just won't understand, ever. Has any leaf that fell of a tree followed the exact same way of falling down than the leaf next to it, or that of a different tree?

I will stop here, because people will claim that my own thoughts are a cover up for something else (lure to religion they 'll call it). I believe in God, I believe that even with all of our science, weapons, knowledge and might, we are but a dust-mite compared to His Power. Let's leave it at that.

The end result I came across and I have all of you to thank for this is the following...
Even if our presence here may be a fortunate coincidence, our own life and actions determine what happens next. Making the most of our lives is paramount, but as important is that we don't forget our own. That we live their triumphs and sacrifices as they were our own, as it is this remembering which will show us the road ahead.

Because, this is what matters in the end: The road ahead.

[gambit]

Even if I do have an utmost respect for anyone who wants to express their views, however much I disagree with them, what you go by killed nearly 50 million people.

Looking at your sig. you seem to have a thing for hunting Jews. I don't know if you mean it or you just wrote it in jest (let's just say that's infinitely distasteful) but doing so would be extremely hazardous for your health. They are prey no more.

How about some other specialties of the regime?
-Here's what happened in Greece. I will take one of all the villages torched and destroyed their people slain. In Arta prefecture, August 17 1943, Wermacht's Edelweiss division executed 317 villagers, 172 of them being women, two priests and 13 babies, all less than 1 year old.
-Italian prisoners slaughtered in Kephalonia after Italy surrendered to the Allies and Hitler declared them traitors. 3000 "drowned", 1.135 executed and 25 Slovenes with them along with 5.189 more Italians who were summarily shot.

The list goes on and on, but the truth, documented and explained in detail by Herman Frank Meyer, a German who, looking for his father grave (he had been executed by resistance fighters) stumbled upon the Nazi's reing of terror, which he documented.
http://www.hfmeyer.com/english/publications/index.html

I can guarantee the nazi theme is all a jest, and the quote in my sig is a farce to show what type of things some people believe

[Poach]

Allow me to respectfully disagree.

I am a human being, not a product, born of a father and a mother. My father believed in God. I guess, judging from my own beliefs today the following describes how I must have been taught.
“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”- Proverbs 22:6

If I can, I will try to teach my own children that when they are young and take them to Sunday school when they are older. It has helped me immensely.

The worst thing that could ever happen would be to be ungrateful to anyone of my ancestors, who did sacrifice a lot for me to be here. I am not working under the assumption that this life was granted to me specifically, I am convinced that anyone could be in my shoes. As for your materialism, and your denial of God, I won't presume to try to convince you. There will always be people forever locked in denial. They will be denied. It says so in the Good Book.

An integral part of religion is instilling a belief that each invididual has a purpose for being, something by which they can justify their existence. In the case of Christianity, which I gather you follow, that purpose for being is being linked to an almighty creator that has a hand in the birth of each human. I've never been able to understand the need to justify existence using what is essentially a fairytale, but alas I won't presume to try to convince you. There will always be people forever locked in denial. As atheism has nothing compatible with belief in an afterlife, I can't give you anything for your last 2 sentences.

Just to be clear, incase you think I do, I don't disrespect my ancestors at all, as without them creating my nearer ancestors I'd never have come to be. Such, however, doesn't give me justification for believing that I am fated to be.

[Sumonious]

As for your materialism, and your denial of God, I won't presume to try to convince you. There will always be people forever locked in denial. They will be denied. It says so in the Good Book.

Allow me to express my opinion. I am sure that you did not have any bad intention, but I feel offended by your words. Their is no such thing as "denial of [YOUR] god", because your religion does not make up the whole population of the world. There are a lot religions with different belief than yours. Do you feel that their followers are denial of [YOUR] God as well? And that they will be "denied" by your god?

As an Asian from a different culture, I feel that there is an hidden belief in your sentence that only your ways is true, only your belief is matter, and we all need the love of your God. Please know that there are many places on earth where Christianity is seen as a radical, unusual religion.

As an atheist, I believe that you are trying to act as an righteous man be mercy to a wayward children. Mister, we are not locked in anything. You can be proud of your belief and so do we. We believe that only ourselves are free from the prison of the mind, that is religion. So next time, please do not act as your belief is the base, the foundation or the default and other's beliefs is the alternative or the false way.

[Copperknickers II]

It is all down to luck. Certainly there are people who don't deserve life, but there can be noone in the opposite side (ie people who do not have life who do deserve it), so we must consider ourselves lucky to get a shot of what life we have. We will all die, indeed it is likely that some of us at least on this very forum will die, by many different means. I'm not sure about this forum, but another forum i visit has seen at least one of its most loved and prolific admins die young, very sad news and some members had a whip round to send flowers to his family even though only one of them had ever even met him.

[Phier]

So the question remains. How can we justify us being here, typing these lines, reading each other’s thoughts and questions ? How is it that we live while others have died? How do we justify our own breath on this Earth? If this is our life, that others paid so much for, that others had no chance to live, how do we “earn it”?

We didn't we just got lucky.

SOMEONE had to win, someone had to not die in the plague someone had to not starve, be bombed, be sunk, be murdered.

Only by being part of that chain can you sit here to ask the question as those who were are unable.

We have nothing to justify, nothing to earn. None of us asked to be born, to have the will to live, and to reproduce. We just are.

People win lotteries every day, life is just another lottery.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

Some of us are alive because some of us aren't. Probably if you go back enough, you probably notice that nearly all of us are alive, because of forefather who has killed someone to live. (This is just a hypothesis, I haven't begun studying it yet.)

[Ummon]

An interesting question. Perhaps elsewhere they are alive and we are dead.

[Keravnos]

Good to know.

[Monarchist]

Blast it, Ummon; you've just gone and taken the words out of my mouth.

One exercise I find very fascinating to commit is the imagination of small historical events. For example, if Albrecht von Habsburg had not killed Adolf von Nassau at Göllheim in 1298, there may have been no First World War, and hence no Second World War. Obviously, humanity is prone to mis-interpret morality and is quick to begin wars, but the precise dates, facts, and numbers of dead in WWI may have been entirely different if Adolf von Nassau had swung his mace a quarter of a second earlier. If Albrecht had, perhaps, slipped from his horse due to mud on the battlefield, and the Habsburg forces driven away in defeat, causing the House of Habsburg to collapse into obscurity, we may never have had the Thirty Years War. There may have been no Siege of Malta; perhaps, even, no lineage strong enough to hold the Ottomans away from Vienna in 1529.

On the flip-side, there may have been no Protestant Reformation if Habsburg had failed at Göllheim. After that, no Puritanism; no America, at least the way it is today. All this happenstance of a mere duel between two Dukes 711 years ago may have allowed you to be sitting right here, right now; typing your excellent question. It's not just about fate, morality, happenstance, and human inevitability, in my opinion. Why you are here and now, and not in a gas chamber 66 years ago, is a question that does in fact perplex me, as well. I've often thought about dimensions and history in this manner, to be perfectly honest. I once thought of the notion that, when all men who were alive in 1795 had finally died, the year 1795 would be stuck entirely in time in its own dimension of 'time', or of space. There is something more to this than simple irony and happenstance, I think.

Don't be too harsh, atheists.

[Trey]

So the question remains. How can we justify us being here, typing these lines, reading each other’s thoughts and questions ?

It is not necessary to justify our existence, given that our birth was not of our choice for better or for worse.

How is it that we live while others have died?

That, my friend, is a reason why many find it so difficult to believe in God. The evil live, it so often seems a long and for them, a personally fulfilling life. The good perish. It is unfortunate that others die.

How do we justify our own breath on this Earth? If this is our life, that others paid so much for, that others had no chance to live, how do we “earn it”?

Make it a life worth living. Honor those who sacrificed for you and your well being.

[Avendiel]

If you're asking for a justification, there isn't one.

[persianfan247]

You might as well ask why that stone is sitting over there or how come that leaf had to fall of the tree while the other one didn't, why do we exist at all? thats where this is heading and my personal opinion is that there is no reason for us to exist, just reasons why we exist.

[uos_spo6]

So the question remains. How can we justify us being here, typing these lines, reading each other’s thoughts and questions ? How is it that we live while others have died? How do we justify our own breath on this Earth? If this is our life, that others paid so much for, that others had no chance to live, how do we “earn it”?

Those before us live on through us. Every moment, action, spoken word and conceived thought has the potential to change the future whether miniscule or grand. Someone hears what was said, ponders a shared thought, or recounts an event and so and and so forth and everything that anyone who ever lived had done is passed on.

Legacy. Our forgotten forefathers may exist in remembrance only in impersonal historical logs, but their blood flows through our veins, our cells laced with their genes and the work they put in is visible in structures yet to even be built.

Our own breath is justified by the work of our fathers and mothers. They put in work for their children to reap the benefits, just as we do or will do. We die, what we worked for and learned is passed along. Physically we cease to exist, but the spirit and ideas established and transplanted to a new generation are what keep it all going.


N.E.R.D.

Nobody Ever Really Dies.


Just a thought.