What do you live for?

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. - Søren Kierkegaard

Very true, and either tragic or inspiring, depending on which way you look at it.

Kierkegaard was s a philosopher whose work influenced Ibsen's drama - interestingly enough Ibsen went from happy endings to increasingly poignant, even catastrophic, endings.

Not to mention, an atheist perspective? As the Father of existentialism I would expect no less, but this does not make his account an authoritative one.

Hope means looking past the future (what a conundrum), past the world that we live in, and to live in the perspective of a different world. If we lived in the perspective of this world we would end up violent, sadistic, selfish creatures, because that is what society, competition and capitalism breeds. Sure, there is wealth, but wouldn't you agree it brings along with it vices that man seem to complacently accept in the present as normal by-products?

I was asked if I thought world religions were 'comfort blankets', cushions and safety nets we place below our precarious positions in life to assure us with an illusion that 'everything will be alright'. In other words, if people believe in a god because it gives them an ability to stand up on their feet after defeat, regardless of an actual existence of god.

I find that assertion thoroughly repulsive, since it is almost as good as Cypher (from The Matrix) saying "give me my steak even though there is no such thing, because all my life is about is enjoyment for the period I am alive". Then 'belief' in a religion, in a god, is a mere opium, a dulling of the senses to be able to live for a while, for myself.

True belief, on the other hand, grounds the knowledge of the supernatural with experiences of God. It says, "I know there is a God, and if there isn't one I rather accept that too than go on living in a lie just to be 'happy'". Religion is not the opiate of the people; is it a life of love and necessarily a life lived for others. It is an enlightenment rather than a shutting out of facts and truth.