The purpose of life

I was again provoked by some more Internet nonsense last night - no, nothing that wanted to "prove" that one belief system or another could not be wrong. As they all contradict each other on this, they are never to be taken too seriously, and the proof is always anything but ....

No, this time it was the other old chestnut which reads "Atheists, why live?" - d.h. if you have no life after this, this one obviously has no purpose usw. Put this nonsense to one side for a moment, and go off on a tangent.

I saw a couple of days ago a wonderful clip of a hawk in action. In a few moments of exhilarating, if possibly frightening action, you could watch it descend from the sky at amazing speed and with amazing accuracy take out its prey (a pigeon, which was killed instantly) in full flight.

The result of this action we followed to the hawk's nest, where it used its capture to feed its young (who will one day have to learn to use similar skills).

Look outside at the moment and see sparrows picking up seeds from a neighbour's garden, or a blackbird picking up a tasty worm from the same place - nothing like the effort involved!

The hawk has to live, it needs food. Why is it a carnivore? Why this spectacular performance to capture its food? Surely there must be an easier way to feed itself? The purpose of its spectacular diving technique though is practical, it is not to provide aesthetic pleasure to ornithologists. And in this life, note, not as an action to merit reward or punishment in the life to follow!

Nature provides us with some examples that are remarkable (see the hawk in full flight, watch the behaviour of the male emperor penguin in the depths of the Antarctic winter usw), and many others that are extraordinarily mundane (watch the average cow in a field for example).

They live this one life (Buddhists, and any other individuals committed to the theory of reincarnation, will not agree with me here, but anyway), make the best of what it offers them, and when their time is up, they die. If you are a pigeon (see above), a vole in the direct sight of a hungry owl, or a steer in a slaughterhouse, that death may be short, sharp and very painful. If you had a purpose to your life, it was for the benefit of some other creature!

For humans though, at least according to a lot of the mythology past and present out there, this theory is not supposed to work.

This life, however short ( maybe only a few seconds) or long (120 years is possible - but hopefully I will not live that long!), is merely preparation for something else that follows. You are here to be judged for your actions and if you are good you end up on a cloud playing a harp, while if you are bad you end up in Tartarus pushing a stone permanently up a hill only to watch it fall down when it reaches the top (or find yourself in Eternity's answer to Abu Ghraib being permanently tortured!).

If this nonsense were true, wouldn't it sound like a waste of anything up to 120 years?

But why differentiate the human being from the hawk? We may have spectacular talents, why not use them for the good of those around us now?  The purpose of this life surely (if there is one) is to make the best of what we have and perform our lives accordingly and not worry about what follows, which I am 100% convinced will not exist anyway - death will be the end, period! I wonder how many hawks make it to this mythical Heaven anyway!