JESUS TALKS TO A SPACE MAN ABOUT THE MEANING OF LIFE

	My ship entered the void. I was to search for life on Mars. At the time, I was doing what I would now consider to be “meaningless pastime until my life ends,” but for other people. All of this work, my training, the resources required to get me on to that planet, was indeed impressive, but almost offensively so. It's all for nothing, I know now.
	Here's how it went. I landed on Mars, and began wandering aimlessly for clues of life. I was equipped with technology and tools, for maximum efficiency. After a while I came across a figure in the distance. The shape began to clarify as I grew nearer. It was a man, with holes in his hands in feet, staring off the cliff of Olympus Mons.
	“The universe is just a big rock tumbler, you know,” said the figure as I stood next to it.
	Oh?, I replied.
	“What separates man from animal?”
	I thought for a moment.
	Sentience?
	“Nature is just a designer of a slow-evolving line of machinery. Frogs and bats and worms and bacteria – they aren't sentient. They have a massive complex system with protocol and actions and reactions that occur under certain circumstances, like a robot of sorts. But instead of cogs and pistons, they function with muscles and joints and hormones.
	“Natural selection filters and evolves the machines. Inevitable isn't the right word to describe the specific process in which the universe creates these machines, but it's not the wrong one either.”
	And humans?
	“Sentient beings have the same set of protocols and actions and reactions to different circumstances – but they also have the choice to betray the protocol.”
	But are sentient beings not a result of natural selection?
	“Sentience is the inevitable outcome of natural selection, yes. It's not a direct danger to the rock tumbler, but it does create a redundant loop in the cycle.”
	Then what's the point of this rock tumbler?
	“Must there be a point to everything?”
	I suppose not.
	“When nature creates these machines, it's not aware, and it does not acknowledge any flaws in the system, because it is not a thing that can consider or care about these notions. It's simply a series of events that occurs in such a way that creates the machines, and in time, lost, in a self-destructive manner.”
	Then what is of sentience?
	“The ability to think comes with the implication that everything must have a meaning, which is not necessarily true. That is to say, those who can think don't have a better understanding of the universe than those who don't.”
	So the documentation of observations in the universe – science – is meaningless too?
	“It has whatever meaning its documenters give it.”
	But the advancements of civilization – medicine, technology, and the ability to comprehend more about everything, it has no point?
	“Science, the documentation of observations, is what makes the rock tumbler useless. Thoughtless beings, the machines that behave on instinct and gut reactions, not by choice but by necessity, are more content in their place than anything else. After countless eons of refining, it is thought that ends the particular branch.”
	What makes you say that?
	“The meaning of life is that there is none. Not questioning it is the best off you can be from an objective standpoint. That is to say, the thoughtless beings that do not question their first reaction – that cannot question it – are the only ones who can even vaguely picture their place in the rock tumbler.”
	But what exactly makes science redundant?
	“Frogs and bats and worms and bacteria – thoughtless machines that are unable to think twice, they do what they are designed to do and lengthen their gene pool's existence. With the function of thought comes the delusion that there is a purpose to everything. When we try to apply meaning to everything, we end up confused and angry.
	“In addition, thought results in organized civilization and prepared food, meaning that human's gift of intelligence initially used to bang together rocks and make fires and spears is now idle, and must occupy itself with entertainment – books, movies, games – and the notion that meaning can be applied to everything. More specifically, the idea that one day they will uncover the secrets of the rock tumbler.”
	What's wrong with aspiring to uncover the universe's secrets then?
	“There are no secrets. There is no point. It just is. That isn't to say that sentience is a deviation from the cycle of machinery. Thought is not an anomaly. It's just the end of the line. If sentience didn't stop the rock tumbler, something further down the line would. That's because the universe isn't perfect. It has no goal. Its machinery has no point. It just is. Technology, entertainment, arts, science, it's all just meaningless pastime to occupy people's thoughts until they die.”