On Friday, February 24, 2017 at 4:08:26 AM UTC-8, wrote:


In most religions, what one does in this life affects what kind of afterlife
he'll have. That certainly would make "things" meaningful to one rather
than meaningless. OTOH, religions that avow predestination would seem to
fit your prescription.

What one does indeed !, spirituality is nothing more than the ability to be inspired and be inspiring and those who pass through existence and the transition from childhood to adulthood should gain the appreciation of the connection between the individual and the Universal in physical terms, the connection between an individual human and God in religious terms or where the temporal is encompassed in the Eternal is brief glimpses in spiritual terms.

"Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." from a letter of John


Many mistake 'convictions for faith and that is a joyless affair where they meet others like the empiricists who are equally driven by joyless convictions and the racket they produce but it is not so for those who come to realize what Christ and Christianity represents. It is most crucial in physical terms and especially in astronomy where the experience of large scale structures and motions are experienced at a human level.

The mindnumbing pronouncements of the empiricists and many like them as regards the fate of humanity or the planet are meaningless rubbish that tries to substitute for their efforts to bury their inspirational faculties under layers and layers of inherited convictions received through the education system.

Astronomy is perhaps one of the most powerful experiences and a reminder that the individual not only acknowledges the Universal but participates in the great cycles that make existence possible so people can leave 'afterlife' aside and enjoy what they have in any given day.