Random Late-Night Ponderings

It's one AM, I've been briefly asleep, and now I'm awake again, can't sleep, bugger the world and sod the rest, and so on and so forth.
So I started thinking, my brain swooping randomly hither and thither. And I started thinking about things I probably shouldn't think about, such as the afterlife, religion, why I'm pathetic, and how they get those little stripes in the toothpaste.
So I've come to a few conclusions:

THE MEANING OF LIFE

There is none. The meaning of life is simply to live; humans exist only to exist (and procreate, but so many people are doing that so well that it's probably not a major consideration).
So if there's no meaning to life beyond life itself, what about those who feel they need some sort of meaning? Well, they turn to...

RELIGION

(If you're highly religious, be careful - this may offend you, but I hope not -
it's not intended to.)
Well, what's the point in religion? All right, it's codes of behaviour to keep a bronze-age society disease-free in the desert, and to generally stop people from poking bloody great holes in one another with sharp sticks.
But since modern civilisation isn't bronze age (and, in most cases, not in the desert), and religion itself has so frequently been used as an excuse for poking bloody great holes in people with sharp sticks, then what's the point of religion?
Simple, again; because people are worried about where they go when they die. They want to know that, if they've been good, they go somewhere nice with sunshine, good food, and expensive golf courses.[1] They want to know that people who've been nasty to them go somewhere unpleasant, possibly with non-stop reruns of Kilroy[2].


But that's something I'll come back to. For now, there is, in my view, a basic flaw with religion:


Any god who craves worship isn't worth worshipping.
Look at SAS squaddies. They tend to be quiet, at least outside the Regiment. They don't tend to brag about what they've done, their level of fitness and competence, and so on. They know what they're good at, they're secure and confident in themselves. They don't need the adulation of the masses.
And yet people happily line up to swear fealty to a god that demands constant worship, which strikes me as odd. And how can people justify saying "My religion is right, all the others are wrong"? Well, OK, they frequently try to justify it with "Because God said so", but so do all the other sides, so how can any of them be more plausible than any of the others? And why should gods be given more regard than other people?
And that, I suppose, is my fundamental disagreement with religion. It says gods are more important than people, and stuff like that. If people go against gods, they need to be put down, and whatnot. But if gods go against people, who can't defend themselves, the god is the one who gets the praise.
It's like that line in the first episode of The West Wing - "We're being invaded by 1200 Cubans on rafts" "I'm not saying I don't like our chances."
Why is the bully the one getting the praise, while the underdogs are being told "You should have given us your lunch money, this would never have happened. It's your own fault."
Which brings me to...

MODERN SOCIETY

It's exactly the same. If you go against the norm, it's your own fault that you're shunned. If you, for instance, don't like getting drunk at every turn, watching football[3] and bonking people at random, you're an outcast, not in with the crowd, not worth the time of day.
There are people joining whole vaguely ridiculous subcultures, imitating hundreds of others to prove their individuality.
And why is everything divided into black and white? You're either Tory or Labour, Democrat or Republican, In or Out, Us or Them, Black or White, With Us or Against Us. There are no shades of grey any more.
And criticism is practically banned! People are so used to having their egos stroked - non-competitive sports days, whose stupid idea was that? - that they can't take constructive criticism; look at any fanfic site, for instance, and the slightest hint of dipping below "LOL bestest fic EVAH!!!11!!!" is considered a flame.

DEATH

So, what comes after it? Is it Heaven and Hell? Is it Limbo? Is it a cuppa with Osiris?
Actually, I quite hope that it's just The End. It's the least fright... terrifying of the alternatives. Or, if the world, as Terry Pratchett suggested, really did start with "A-one, a-two, a-one, two, three four", I wonder if death is the big twiddly bit at the end, with lots of fast runs round the drums and cymbals and the saxophone going all squiggly at the top of its range and everything sounding bloody incredible, and then you get off the stage, get your free drink, and then total oblivion. I'd quite like that, I think. [4]


That said, I should probably get some exercise. And some sleep would be good, too. I get vaguely wibbly when I'm tired, which is particularly disconcerting when I also have access to a keyboard, newsgroups, and m4d 100 wpm |337 7yp1n6 5k1||z. D00d. And, er, possibly w00t.
Oh yes, there was something else, wasn't there. So, finally...

TOOTHPASTE

Just how do they get those stripes in?


[1] - Like Dubai, in fact. Yes, heaven is a place on Earth. Possibly.
[2] - Actually, he's probably live all the time there.
[3] - Even when there's actual interesting stuff on TV that actually requires attention and some degree of mental activity.
[4] - Oh, and don't worry - however it may sound[5], I'm not planning to top myself. However unpleasant my life gets - and it's not that bad right now - it's nowhere near unpleasant enough for that terrifying uncertainty to become the more attractive option.
[5] - It's weird. Whenever you tell a doctor that you're feeling depressed, their first question is always "Do you ever think of harming yourself?" My answer, accurate on a couple of occasions, flippant on most of them, has always been "No. Harming others, perhaps." Fortunately
they all know I'm not homicidal except when someone's standing between me and
chips.