# How long is ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 1, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148 "2014-07-01T23:19:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/1 "2014-07-01T23:19:16Z")
In “The Road”’ by Cormac McCarthy, the narrator says, “Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what the he knew. That ever is no time at all.” So who is right, the boy or the man? Is ever a long time, or no time at all? For those who haven’t read the story, the context is the end of humanity. I think the boy is right. Ever is no time at at all. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/2 "2014-07-02T03:16:15Z")
The boy sees the destination in those all around him, but the man sees both the long journey behind him and the untold future ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/3 "2014-07-02T03:35:09Z")
Zen, man. It’s both. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/4 "2014-07-02T03:49:08Z")
How long if forever? It’s all the time that is. How long is forever and ever? It can’t be longer than just forever because forever is all the time that is. So ever adds no additional time to forever. Ever is no time at all. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/5 "2014-07-02T03:56:46Z")
Time is a human construct: there is no such thing in reality. You can’t alter the past. You can’t predict the future. All we have is now. Now is the only time we have. I think I read George Harrison saying this, obviously influenced by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/6 "2014-07-02T04:05:20Z")
The movie _Ghost_ cemented my atheism, when (do I need to spoiler this?) the vaguely anthropomorphic shadow-demons took away the recently-deceased bad guy’s soul. It occurred to me that if those were demons of some kind, and afterlife beliefs typically incorporate some kind of “forever and ever” notion, then those demons are going to have to torment this schmuck for a very very very very long time, eternity as it were. I started to feel sorry for them - _what kind of lousy job is that to be stuck with, having to day-in-day-out torture some condemned person who just got greedy?_ After a few million years, which is literally nothing compared to actual _eternity_, wouldn’t this be thoroughly and obviously pointless? And once I shook off the notion of eternal souls and such, the whole structure of religion in general collapsed and seemed both pointless and immature to me. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/7 "2014-07-02T04:42:17Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I started to feel sorry for them - _what kind of lousy job is that to be stuck with, having to day-in-day-out torture some condemned person who just got greedy?_ After a few million years, which is literally nothing compared to actual _eternity_, wouldn’t this be thoroughly and obviously pointless? Um, that kinda\* is\* the point. Demons (who are, of course, former rebel angels) are being punished by having to live a pointless existence for all eternity. It is not just human souls that are supposed suffer in hell, the demons get it even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/8 "2014-07-02T04:48:02Z")
That doesn’t really help - it’s another made-up rule to try to bolster other made-up rules. Besides, it runs counter to pop-culture depictions of demons laughing as they torment the condemned, and indeed trying to tempt humans into committing sins that will get them condemned in the first place. “Get thee behind me, Satan” loses its punch if Satan is sympathetic. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/9 "2014-07-02T05:59:39Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Um, that kinda\* is\* the point. Demons (who are, of course, former rebel angels) are being punished by having to live a pointless existence for all eternity. It is not just human souls that are supposed suffer in hell, the demons get it even worse. You kind of wonder what their motivation is if they’re not enjoying the suffering they’re inflicting. What happens if they just decide to not torment any damned souls? What threat can you hang over the head of somebody who’s already eternally damned? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/10 "2014-07-02T06:10:21Z")
All time is a continuum from never to ever. So never is zero, and ever is infinity. Or never is that point at the beginning of the big bang, and ever is the final end of the universe, which never quite happens. And if demons have free will, why can’t we? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/11 "2014-07-02T06:59:04Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Time is a human construct: there is no such thing in reality. > > You can’t alter the past. > You can’t predict the future. > All we have is now. Now is the only time we have. > > I think I read George Harrison saying this, obviously influenced by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. When I was a child, summer was “forever”. Now it’s practically no time at all. And that’s the change over the course of forty years - itself practically time at all. Without someone to appreciate it, time might as well not exist at all. It’s there only because we - or someone - is there to appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/12 "2014-07-02T07:59:44Z")
To infinity, and beyond! ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/13 "2014-07-02T08:26:16Z")
I think it was supposed to be a comment on the fact that the boy knows no other reality but the post-apoc world, while the father remembers the world before. There was another part where the father muses that he must seem like an alien to the boy, when he was talking about the time before the disaster. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/14 "2014-07-02T12:08:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You kind of wonder what their motivation is if they’re not enjoying the suffering they’re inflicting. What happens if they just decide to not torment any damned souls? What threat can you hang over the head of somebody who’s already eternally damned? I’ve been toying with a story idea about a Prince of Hell who one day says “Fuck this shit, I’m going to apologize.” ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-ever/692148/15 "2014-07-02T14:15:45Z")
In another part of the story, the narrator asks (paraphrasing) “what is the difference between the never to be, and the never was?” If there’s no one to see it or appreciate it, or remember, what is the significance of everything that ever was? All the wars, the suffering, the monuments, the game changing-changing last minute scores? Is it the same as if those things had never happened at all?