Whats the point of studying and getting better at chess when lifeless engines can beat you?

I had a conversation with one of my friend, we've talked about chess, he said he knows the rule but he doesn't play it.
I told him to play chess with me. He said sure! We then played chess and out of those two games I played with him on chess.com he completely destroyed me. When I analyze our games he had 0 blunders 0 mistakes 0 innacuracies. He was cheating.
When I confronted him , he said "Imagine wasting your life on chess only to be defeated by an engine." He then told me that theres no point of me studying chess and Im just wasting my time, my dedication, my life for it and there are better productive things I should be doing rather than chess.
This kind of discouraged me. What should I tell him? Any good comebacks?

One possible reason could be:
Use it to find your truely good friends versus those pseudo friends who cheat on you as soon they have a chance and always have a cheap excuse if you expose them.

see u must play the game u like every game has its own goodness if u become a chess player like magnus think how much you will earn

Nice friends.

@ShreksGonGiveItToYa said in #1:

I had a conversation with one of my friend, we've talked about chess, he said he knows the rule but he doesn't play it.
I told him to play chess with me. He said sure! We then played chess and out of those two games I played with him on chess.com he completely destroyed me. When I analyze our games he had 0 blunders 0 mistakes 0 innacuracies. He was cheating.
When I confronted him , he said "Imagine wasting your life on chess only to be defeated by an engine." He then told me that theres no point of me studying chess and Im just wasting my time, my dedication, my life for it and there are better productive things I should be doing rather than chess.
This kind of discouraged me. What should I tell him? Any good comebacks?

"Chess is everything: art, science, and sport"

-Anatoly Karpov

I disagree that chess is pointless because of engines. Chess is not only abut winning. However I agree on the part that devoting your life to chess is not the best idea. If you think like that, you might as well quit everything you do - machines will be better anyways eventually ;)

You don't need any comeback, you just need better friends.

Why have you spent time and dedicated much of your life to it? Just tell him.

If you don't know why you have, perhaps you should question yourself and figure it out.

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By the way, did he play with an engine to teach you a lesson out of concern for your well being; or to gratify his own ego, because of a desire to appear smart, or because he values winning in competition?

A good "friend" you have there, OP. I hope he is proud of himself.

@ShreksGonGiveItToYa said in #1:

I had a conversation with one of my friend, we've talked about chess, he said he knows the rule but he doesn't play it.
I told him to play chess with me. He said sure! We then played chess and out of those two games I played with him on chess.com he completely destroyed me. When I analyze our games he had 0 blunders 0 mistakes 0 innacuracies. He was cheating.
When I confronted him , he said "Imagine wasting your life on chess only to be defeated by an engine." He then told me that theres no point of me studying chess and Im just wasting my time, my dedication, my life for it and there are better productive things I should be doing rather than chess.
This kind of discouraged me. What should I tell him? Any good comebacks?
Stockfish thinks about chess 24/7. Well, maybe not 'think' but it was programmed that way. If you did that then you would be just as good. Humans can enjoy other joys than chess, engines can't. We are different to engines, and better in many ways. Being stronger in chess doesn't make it 'better.'

By that logic, any pastime or sport can be declared stupid: why run,cycle if you can go faster with a machine? What meaning has to watch two teams of grown up men pushing or kicking a ball? Tennis? Whatever, even those sports will be played better in the future by robots.

Wasting time is a relative concept, anything is a waste of time if done without measure and judgement. Otherwise is called recreation, wich is good for the mind and body. That said, I believe chess is dangerous because it is easy to become obsessed with it, but hey, some people go bonkers over stamps.