What is the ultimate goal of life?

Some say reality is broken because we lack a unifying goal to which all of our decisions and actions play towards. Once upon a time (and for a shrinking few) the ultimate goal was/is to get into Heaven or (if you’re an away from person) to avoid going to Hell.

Back then, when people believed in a Heaven and Hell, the stakes were high. Make the right choices in life and get rewarded with eternal life and heavenly bliss. Make the wrong choices in life and get banished to Hell and tortured for eternity.

Think about it, if you really believed in a Heaven and Hell (eternal bliss or eternal damnation) would you still make the same choices you do now? Would you change the way you live?

And now that the stakes aren’t that high, what’s to be gained by living a virtuous life versus a life of debauchery?

from Book I, Paradise Lost:
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub
Thus answer’d.   Leader of those Armies bright,
Which but th’ Omnipotent none could have foyld,
If once they hear that voyce, thir liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extreams, and on the perilous edge
Of battel when it rag’d, in all assaults
Thir surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lye
Groveling and prostrate on yon Lake of Fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amaz’d,
No wonder, fall’n such a pernicious highth.

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@langgris
4 years ago

Now there’s a thought! I deleted my first thought (about being more pious in order to gain entry to heaven) as I thought about my liberty and free spirit which would be strangled. There’s not much I would change either in the past or the future. So, hell no!

@langgris
4 years ago
Reply to  @langgris

BTW: The ultimate goal of life is to leave the place better than you found it.