10 Years To Live

**George** · 07-08-2007, 10:35 AM

I know this question is posed in many ways. The usual doctor walks into the office and tells you you have 6 months to live due to some terminal disease. The cause is never important only the time you have left matters.

But then I got to thinking. How different would the answers be between agnostics, atheists, and believers?

Theists and deists "should" tell you that they would be sad to go but have no worries and that they will happily prepare to meet their maker and be lovingly accepted through the gates of heaven. But what will those godless heartless agnostics and atheists say? Time to find out.

I decided to make it a bit more interesting and give it 10 years because it really makes you think since you actually have enough time to do something meaningful. As opposed to a 6 month death sentence where you barely have enough time to tell everyone goodbye.

So the question is now posed to you. You somehow got a glimpse at your future and saw yourself on the last day of your life. You see a calendar and can tell it's 10 years from now. So now you know for absolute sure when you're going to die. What do you do in the time you have left?

How does not believing in God or not being sure there is one affect your choices?

Mac · 07-08-2007, 12:46 PM

I really wouldn't do a whole lot different. Both of my parents and all of my grandparents passed away before I was 35 so I am no stranger to death. I know that I could die at any time and do my best to live my life to the fullest every day. Ten years would give me enough time to raise my children through the toughest parts of the early teen years. It would give me the time to make sure that my wife would be OK after I was gone. All it would do is reaffirm what I do already.

**debdodd** · 07-08-2007, 03:04 PM

I would read the books that I've been putting off ... I would spend more time with certain people ... I'd eat more of my favorite foods and not worry if I was damaging my health or spreading my waistline .... I would try more kinds of wine .... taste more flavors of ice cream ... walk barefoot in the grass more ... lay out looking at the stars at night and during the days look up at the clouds and imagine what object the cloud was trying to look like ... eat pizza for breakfast ....

the last year of my life I would slowly give everything I had that I didn't need for daily living .... I would label what stuff was left to to be given to whom or if I wanted it to go to charity or not ... death brings out the vultures if you have anything to leave behind ....make sure I didn't leave a dirty house for anyone to clean, nor any dirty laundry to be done and last of all ... if I saw it was a violent death or a painful death ... I would kill myself the night before.

God would have no part in my decision

moorehurst · 07-08-2007, 03:42 PM

From a practical point of view being given ten years to live would give someone enough hope that a cure could be found in the intervening time.

I guess the same thing happened to the American writer and feminist Kathy Acker. Upon being diagnosed with the breast cancer that killed her at the age of 40 she spent her last remaining years trying to find some meaning to life from a rationalist and then spiritualist point of view. It involved reading, travelling, learning, meeting the Spice Girls and writing.

I guess I would do the same although I possibly would pass up the opportunity of meeting the Spice Girls. With the possible exception of Ginger. And I would go to more football matches.

**George** · 07-09-2007, 09:11 AM

How would this change the plans you have though.

In most of our minds we all have plans for our future and most of those plans involve us living more than 10 years from now. How would this alter your life. Would you reconsider God and religion?

jaej · 07-09-2007, 09:17 AM

Quote:

And I would go to more football matches.

Exactly.

I really like deb's answer about just enjoying more little things, expanding your horizons, embracing life while you have it.

For me, I would drop out of school. There's no sense spending eight years of my life preparing for the two that I'm actually gonna be able to use my knowledge productively.

I would visit all 50 states and try to make it to every continent. Then, I would go live in rural china and work in a rice paddie or try to stop the hunger and violence in africa for the rest of my time. I honestly don't know which I would choose.

**SithLord** · 07-09-2007, 09:44 AM

Well.......

Since I have a crystal ball that tells me when my date of death is that means I know that I cannot die before that. So I would just use my indestructable super powers for the good of the planet for the next 10 years

jaej · 07-09-2007, 11:43 AM

I would jump off a skyscraper.

And no, george, I can't see my views changing. Unless the thing that kills me also causes me to lose all rationality.

Astreja · 07-21-2007, 12:20 AM

For the most part, I would carry on and finish the projects that I've already got on my plate. At the top of my list: Get my first dan black belt in karate; get a B.Sc.; continue to study music.

But I might move that trip to Iceland higher up in the list...

Unbeliever · 07-21-2007, 01:28 PM

I'm prepared, constantly, to die anytime in the next few minutes. Since I can't predict when it'll happen, I don't worry about it, and just live each moment as though it could be my last. I concentrate on the "now', since that's all I'm assured of ever getting.