Informed_Debate's profile . Informed_Debate group posts
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| Doghouse_Reilly |
on Thu 22 Dec 11, 12:52 PM to the Informed_Debate group.
Pop quiz, which I aim towards my fellow atheists, what is actually the point of existence? Religions have this one pretty much figured out and have dominated discourse on this topic for centuries. But for those without fairy tales to cling to the universe can be a very cold place indeed.
Everybody, everything, dies. If we look long term, really long term, even our species and planet are doomed.
Philosophically this is a pretty dark place to start to look for a meaning to life. Most religions and philosophies attached to them rely on a pay off, an afterlife, an eternity of bliss after a lifetime on Earth. But without that it suddenly becomes a little trickier to justify much other than relentlessly selfishness and nihilism. I mean is there any reason at all not to spend your life exclusively in pursuit of as much happiness as you can lay your hands on?
| 22 Dec 11, 1:10 PM Muzzlehatch UK(TN), 7 yrs |
We are born, we live, some of it's good, some bad, then we die. In the past we remained in memories of people who knew us in real life. Today, with the advent of the internet. Our thoughts, photo's etc remain in perpetuity. Immortality of sorts. I've enjoyed my time here. I have no expectation of re-incarnation, or stepping up, or down to some unbelievable eternal state of happiness or damnation. Not that I'd object to the re-incarnation bit, if I could come back knowing what I have learnt this time. If I couldn't remember, what would be the point?
Enjoy now. It's all your going to get! Owner of The Croppery Dungeon and Breakfast. Organises The St Leonards munch. | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 1:34 PM Prussian_blue UK(ST), 10 mths |
Pleasing yourself is interesting for all of five minutes, even hobbies are just treadmills for an idling brain. As a species we do seem to put more effort into our own amusement than we do into making other people happy, as blobs of jelly we are uniquely pointless in the scheme of things. Perhaps it is the atheists that are that are the aberrations, possessing a sense of spiritually gives mankind a point. That sounds like evolution - blobs of jelly that become self aware and then define a point for their existence, that seems like a natural progression to me. Edited 22 Dec 11, 1:36 PM by Prussian_blue | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 2:24 PM Siglorel  UK(RG), 11 mths  |
Rather more than a "pop quiz" I think. You've raised several questions which I'm sure we all spend most of our lives avoiding examination of. Like you say - it can be pretty dark when you consider the ultimate fate of the Earth (engulfed by an expanding Sun), and the likelihood of anything any of us have done continuing to exist and have meaning beyond that. Even if you believe that humans will one day expand to other stars you face the likely heat death of the universe, and the potential "end of everything". Then there is the idea of "what before the big bang?" - a meaningless question if you believe that space and time came into existance at that point, but try getting your head around "time did not exist" for a minute... So, perhaps the most probable situation is that our consciousness is an emergent property of random events, and will eventually be engulfed in future random events. Step outside the universe for a moment, and consider the whole 4 (+) dimensional crystal that is all of space-time from big bang to the end. Let's make what is inside it as beautiful and meaningful as we can - just because the other options seem idealogically and morally bankrupt. I don't even need to postulate a final observer - the thing is the point - the universe, for me, is its own meaning, and secular humanist that I am I still demand the highest possible moral behaviour from myself, and still beat up on myself when I fall short (all too frequent). Do unto others, know thyself, and live! Season greetings to you all Ian See worlds on worlds compose one universe, observe how system into system runs | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 4:10 PM Rhoobarb UK(FK), 12 yrs |
Why does there have to be a point to it? It just 'is'. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 4:18 PM Monkey_Wench UK(B), 20 mths    |
The point of life, biologically speaking, is to perpetuate itself. Breathe out, so I can breathe you in, hold you in.... | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 4:20 PM Attitude_Adjuster UK(N), 6 yrs |
a bit like x factor really.... And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 4:40 PM Doghouse_Reilly UK(MK), 6 yrs |
But we're not life are we, we're individuals. We can't perpetuate ourselves. We can have kids sure, but to talk about breeding as the sole point of life, well it's a bit lame isn't it? The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 4:40 PM Doghouse_Reilly UK(MK), 6 yrs |
But we're not life are we, we're individuals. We can't perpetuate ourselves. We can have kids sure, but to talk about breeding as the sole point of life, well it's a bit lame isn't it? The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 5:41 PM kitiara UK(WV), 8 yrs |
I, personally agree with you, and don't think that we have any actual meaning or any pre-ordained plan to our existence. If I may just quote a extract of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, which states how amazing it that we are actually here; "Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favoured evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely - make that miraculously - fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older that the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and too briefly-in you."
Nice things come in small packages...but so does poison! | ||||
| 22 Dec 11, 5:50 PM Monkey_Wench UK(B), 20 mths |
Ahhh, you want a middle ground between the fairytales and the cold universe? Your question asks what is the point of existance. Without any of the religions and philosophies you are left with biology. And biologically speaking, the purpose of life is to perpetuate itself. There is nothing more. If you want to include philosophy in your 'pop quiz' then life is what the individual makes it. We all have our personal philosophies. Mine is informed by my faith in the magic being sitting on the cloud, and all the other fairy tales, so I try to have a positive impact on the world. My reward isn't in an afterlife, it is this life. The rest is a bonus. Breathe out, so I can breathe you in, hold you in.... |
