"People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction."

Vague terror, ha ha. Yes indeed. Dull terror. Frantic, an existential emergency.

Ha ha, so, you keep asking what the Big Question is, but that remark revealed that you know what it is, the Question I'm talking about.

How silly: A kid grows up being told about Old Testament stuff and going through rituals at church, and then s/he grows older and finds it all to be silly. Disillusioned, the kid asserts his/her atheism. Having taken on "atheism" as part of the developing identity, the kid disregards the Big Question.

My brother went through that common process, and he said he gets annoyed when people even talk about the Big Question. "Why talk about what can't be known?" he asks, exasperated, but how does he know it can't be known?

Haven't you ever tried to remember something, but you couldn't, and then it suddenly came back to you? Thre are unanswered questions in this reality, and life is long... you may yet remember something!!!

And I heard a rumor that meditation leads to certain transformation.

But what I still want to emphasize is that the question of whether or not there is a spaghetti monster and the question of whether or not our experience continues after this body dies are two different questions.

I agree with you that some people are silly to believe certain fairy tales. BUT for a long time I've been arguing that it is possible for our experience to continue after the body dies. What do you think?

But they are two different questions of the same kind. At one time, people recognized this, and treated them as such (only they called the spaghetti monster "God"). It is amusing that, having cast aside the concept of God, so many cling to the idea of an afterlife. They want the continuation and the bliss without any of the pesky necessity for moral behavior.I suspect that makes New Age-ism dysfunctional, even for a set of spiritual beliefs.

I''m not in on this discussion, but I must say that I enjoyed that paragraph.

The notion of a dull terror inspiring frenzy is sort of neat, if a bit paradoxical. Or perhaps it is neat because it is paradoxical.