Dialogue

-What do you believe in?

-I don’t believe in anything.

-What do you mean?

-I’m an Atheist.

-You don’t believe in God?

-That’s right.

-How can you live that way?

-What do you mean?

-Well, if you don’t believe in God then you don’t believe in anything after death.

-That’s right.

-How can you live that way?

-Again, what do you mean?

-I mean that it must all seem so hopeless and so pointless.

-What makes you say that?

-If you believe that everything ends when you die, then how can you have a purpose in life?

-It isn’t that hard, really. You just concentrate on the journey, rather than the destination.

-Huh?

-Look, when you go read a good book, do you read it to finish it? When you go out to dinner, do you do it for the feeling afterwards?

-But that’s different!

-Why is that different?

-Because there is still a next book, there is still an afterwards!

-You mean you wouldn’t go to dinner on the last day of your life? You wouldn’t read a book if it was the last book left to read?

-Okay, think of this. If it was the last dinner of your life and you knew it, wouldn’t you be tempted to splash out?

-Yes, of course.

-Then what stops you from doing that with your life, seeing as nothing else comes afterwards? Why not be amoral, evil and cruel? Without God how can you ever stay moral?

-You don’t really believe that it is fear that keeps us moral, do you? I happen to be moral because I can’t live with myself when I’m not.

-But doesn’t it all just feel futile? Don’t you just end up feeling that everything is pointless?

-No, not really.

-Why not?

-Simply because there is no overarching point to it, doesn’t mean I can’t set my own goals. I’m sure that being good and getting into heaven isn’t the only point to your life.

-You don’t need anything bigger?

-Hey, don’t you think it’s rather presumptive to say that simply because somebody else sets your goals and I set my own, your goal is bigger than mine?

-But if I do it right, I get to go to heaven!

-Not according to me, you don’t.

-This is going nowhere.

-Again, does it have to for it to have a point?

-So what was the point of this discussion?

-I don’t know about you, but for me the point was to have an interesting interaction with another person.

-And did you have that?

-Even better, I’m still having it.

-That’s a good point.