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I would like to hear your thought and views on - "What is the purpose of life?".....Why are we born? What is the truth of this world? Has life got rules? or is it play as u go along? Why is it from the second we are born we are dieing? In genral..What is the purpose of life?
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What is the purpose of life?
I would like to hear your thought and views on - "What is the purpose of life?".....Why are we born? What is the truth of this world? Has life got rules? or is it play as u go along? Why is it from the second we are born we are dieing? In genral..What is the purpose of life?
Thanks
Tima
Surely like any other organism, we are just here to reproduce as many times as possible before we die.
Re: What is the purpose of life?
no. obviously.
Look to your childhood and read the following (reproduce it as many times as possible and read it) again as you ignored it last time so maybe you've got issues?
god is the perfect father, the missing unobtainable perfect father, the perfect role model, the father that defends and defines our new born world, the father that gives us life and shows us the light every morning when he opens the curtains/door. If you don't want a perfect father you don't want god and if you DO want god it probably means you have a want for a perfect father. If you have a want for a perfect father then maybe you feel let down by your father's lack of perfection a lack that can't be filled by your father but your imaginary friend might be able to help you and you better not try and say anything naughty because he can see and hear everything anyway coz my dad's bigger n better than your dad anyway.
if you still think reproduction is where its at good luck. (Eats shoots and leaves?)
Re: What is the purpose of life?
I think that it is only the time 't' that makes life...so why was the time created? to create a movement and so on...it cannot be guest so it cannot be understood :)
Re: What is the purpose of life?
to get people to church on time.
Everything can be examined and reduced but it all is easily just insane if anything?
But you don't want a meaningless existence (which is the only option) like it or not so the games begin.
Re: What is the purpose of life?
You are invited to a celebration banquet! http://cli.gs/d2mtZr
Re: What is the purpose of life?
We have agreed to leave a world of spirits, take on a physical form and experience all that tribulations encountered in an earthly life - with the sole purpose of proving we are worthy to rejoin our heavenly Father when our spirits leave our mortal frame, attaining degrees of glory commensurate with the efforts we have made to build our heavenly father's kingdom here on earth. Jesus Christ has, through His atoning sacrifice given us the gift of resurrection - what we experience beyond is the result of our endeavours in this earthly life - whether we have chosen good or evil.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Doesn't the rejection of creationism rob people of a sense of purpose? If you came from amoebas and are going back to the same, then life has no purpose.
HOWEVER, there is a purpose to life, and that is to know the One who created you. Forget about all the garbage that we came from monkeys and ask God to show you His ways. If this world wasn't created, then how on earth do you explain the complexities of the human body? The way gravity works, and how people show compassion in times of trouble? Even Darwin himself thought that the theory was ludicrous when he looked at the human eye.
There maybe some people reading this that I'm some deluded Christian that threw away my brain to jump ship and 'follow a voice', but look at the writings of Paul in the New Testament. Do they look like the rantings of a nutter, or the findings of a man who knew He'd found his purpose? Philippians Chapter 3 talks all about this. His purpose was to know Jesus more, and that motivated him, even when he was beaten and persecuted for his cause. People who choose to reject the notion of God are more in need of Him than those of us who choose to accept Him. How many of them are depressed, dissatisfied, suicidal even? We all want to be our own God or ruler, but chances are, we've screwed it up already. Hope this helps.
For more read Rick Warren: The Purpose Driven Life.
p.s. Where did the monkeys come from? ;-)
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
The above is a complete misquote of the original
s.p. Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider in Los Angeles in 1966
What is the purpose of life?
I Think, Wherefore I Am.
Re: What is the purpose of life?
Why or Therefore ?
maybe a few " "
or is Little Richardjohn the chosen name of a chimp who came upon a vacant keyboard and ...
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I still hold that this is a non-question, whatever the metaphysicians say. And however beguiling their approach.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
dear charlie valentine just coz I cant play the piano doesn't mean your compositions are rubbish even if they are french
"this is a non question" is only maybe acceptable if you is Kurtis Rush
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Just a suggestion...try reading, `The Myth of Sisyphus` by Albert Camus.
The book discusses the `absurd` that reveals itself when man or woman, face the irrational, unreasonable universe, which offers no clarity or path to support our existence, leading some to the conclusion that suicide is the only answer.
It is a very good essay, quite short and well worth a read.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Why should there be?
The void is blatant and troubles those foolish enough to worry about it.
most just settle for god and kill their integrity whilst retaining the shell.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
It all begins with learning. Ascend to the upper worlds of knowledge. as Plato showed in the cave parable. Always assume you are in a cave, and always ascend. Become enlightened, only to realize you may be in a cave again. Acheive clarity of mind, be content in studying and seeking. Pass on this knowledge before you die.
It is lonely but there is always the company of the one dragging you out of the cave. Just as nature is an interdependant network of parts sustaining itself, we must sustain ourselves by seeking the company of those with knowledge, and freeing those without. Life is this continous sequence of enlightenment, and perhaps it is encoded in our evolution to enjoy it, and therefore perpetuate it. Could it really then come to abrupt halt at death?
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
...which continous sequence of enlightenment that I'm hard wired to perpetuate and enjoy is that ? ...and when will it start never mind halt?
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
The purpose of life for any living thing (human or blade of grass) is to help to continue the species to the next generation. Thinking creatures like ourselves confuse the issues but there is no overall purpose other than passing their genes on to another generation.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
No, I wasn't giving a the complete answer, I just wanted to steer the conversation in another direction. What is that concrete thing that we are to seek I don't know, and I know that is the core concern here. Given what I said before is true, there is reason to believe we continue on after death. You might say, "If that were true why do we die". There may be a clear division to enhance the enlightenment experience.
Relatively and pratically speaking, it begins with a good teacher/mentor.
But why? And what compels us to do so? I believe the passing on of genes is only incidental. Genes are only the means through which we pass on knowledge. We procreate because we need love. We come to know someone, and through this awareness, this knowledge of someone (which we can say does happen even if we say there is no love involved), that incidentally creates this new set of genes which wants knowledge, of all kinds.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Outside of narcissism the first few years of one's child's life are the nearest one'll get to love and one won't respect it... ...live the dream
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I don't understand you, you say the closest one gets to love is from the creation and not the pro-creative act which caused the creation? And even then one will not fully appreciate the creation? And what dream am I supposed to entertain?
The designer is the purpose of it's creation. Attributing purpose to the designer is the creations' need and you would be false to project this need over such a chasm.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
but one does oneself a disservice by not stepping outside of oneself to try and gain an understanding, as that is part of any process of maturity...
...or you could just hold your breath until you get your way
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
What!? Is there a purpose to life?
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Not if you're god, only if you believe in god
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
The Purpose
Of Life
Is
Debateable
By those
Who do not know
What the purpose of life
Is
The Purpose Of Life
Is
Undeniable
By Those
Who know
What it is
But
This may say more
About what it means 'To Know'
Than about life
And its meaning
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
So you are perfectly content in entertaining some imagined purpose to existing? Tell me how you personally distinguish imagined purposes from what seem to be the more reasonable purposes.
The 'symbolic processing capability' affects the way we empirically witness all causes and effects, not just some. The very statement “Evolution has resulted in” was derived from this capability. Our understanding of evolution was derived from that capability. Everything our senses perceive is ‘symbolic’. Not only does it enable man to imagine purposes to his existence, it enables us to pursue all the branches of knowledge we’ve discovered.
By definition, an original designer could not be designed which would therefore mean the purpose is within the designer itself, or rather, is the designer itself.. If the original designer was not designed, it's purpose would be in a perpetual state of execution (fulfillment) and therefore have no needs of any kind.
A created things purpose always lies within the intention and purpose of what created it (just as all proof serves what it is proving), and a conscious being does have needs. The self-conscious being needs to be aware of it’s purpose it if has a designer. Even if we are not designed, we undeniably have composition. Since we have an ability to register this, we feel the need to study it and many other compositions (humans, and our branches of knowledge). And we cannot deny that this study is stimulating and pleasurable, so maybe our purpose is simply to witness our own evolution…?
One does oneself a disservice by only reading parts of sentences…
Maybe by "one's child's life" you meant to refer to one's own early life then, in which case we were not totally conscious, we were in a 'dream' like state? And in being in this 'dream' like state we 'loved' 'mindlessly'? Well in being this kind of state we are in no position to even contemplate love or be aware of love. To the mind of the young human there is only physical dependence and acceptance. We recognize love as we become more self-aware, and not until we decide to nurture the smaller being we recognize as one of our own kind, that we bond the symmetry of our gestures. Still, before this is pro-creation.
We digress, all I was saying is that our concept of love complies with our need to pass on our genes.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
who's concept of love
and what concept is that then? ...our love concept?
who's need
this isn't cloning, your genes do not get pased on
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
But the original designer still has a need and from it comes something that does have purpose? Is that what you're saying?
Wow, that is so super Mia, you really like to question all things!
Do you accept the fact that you want love from somebody? Yes or no.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
If we assume for the minute that there was an original designer, we can't automatically assume that he had any needs, but if for the sake of argument he did have needs, that would still not be the purpose of him coming into being, so needs don't magically create a purpose for his existence. Needs can bring other purposes into being, however, because the need might require something to be done in order for that need to be met, and meeting that need would be the purpose of doing the thing in between which leads to it: that action has a purpose, but the original designer carrying out that action in order to meet that need still has no purpose behind his existence.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
The original designer, the creator, God, wishes to have a loving relationship with us, His children, like any father would. That is His will - or "need" if you prefer. To establish this relationship, the Universe and life came into being.
This, therefore, is the purpose of Life.
He loves you. Yes, even you! Try talking with Him.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
This is a complete mis-quote and makes no sense
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
That's what I said
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I don't remember who you are or where you said it, but if we agree on this, that's fine.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I may have misunderstood the original question but I old fashionly assumed "purpose" was intended to be interpreted to mean purpose... ...and not reinvented to read motivation as seems to be modern popular in some of the near past scribblings
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
The original designer had no purpose: it is completely wrong to assign one to it when it came into being with absolutely no purpose to perform.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I'm not clear as to what you mean by this. To clarify my position, a designer has a need of some kind and creates something (the thing designed) to meet that need (a purpose). The thing created has the purpose, not the designer. The original designer was not designed and therefore does not have any purpose to perform.
You say that the designer is the purpose of it's creation, but this is wrong: the designer's need of something is the purpose: not the designer him/her/it-self. Your second sentence is unclear in two ways: firstly in that creation isn't the kind of thing that has needs of any kind (though perhaps you meant "creationist's need"?), and secondly there's a referential failure with "such a chasm" as it isn't at all clear what your chasm is supposed to be.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Is not the answer in the presumption "If we came from 'what or where ever' ". What was it that motivated "we came" - for that is the answer to the "purpose" question.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
is the answer
Re: What is the purpose of life?
Whose life? My life? Human life? All life? God's life?
I have two dogs I chose to have to share my life. They are a pain. I love them. They love me (as far as I can tell). We are, in some strange way, family. One of them was a rescue dog, the sort of fleabitten mongrel that gets put down unless someone takes her on - and then she gives back mountains of love and joy for ever.
Perhaps that's something like the shared life and purpose of God and us.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I believe the purpose of life to be spiritual development. Within one's own spiritual development lies, I believe, the necessity of supporting the spiritual development of others. By spiritual development I am meaning those aspects of human potentiality that lead to an expansion of understanding, compassion, insight, creativity, originality and wisdom. Spirituality isn't only in the mind, or in the abstract development of aesthetics, for example, but reaches out for meaning and purpose, and is fulfilled through the enhancing of our potential as a species for goodness, for beauty, for truth. Very Socratic, I'm afraid, but I can't find any better metaphor.
Moira
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I think when a thread's been going this long it should be retired and started again from scratch: it's far too much work for anyone new to read the whole thing to find out if what they want to say has been said already. I have just read the entire thing, and pages of it are barely relevant, although they were valid enough at the time to the people involved because the conversation happened to take things in those directions.
My answer to the original question is that the question is only valid if you are assuming the existence of a designer. Of course, the designer would not know the purpose of his own existence unless he had a designer too, and sooner or later you must get back to an original designer who had no designer of his own, and so that original designer would have come into being without any purpose.
So there was no original purpose.
You can of course try to make up your own purpose for existing, but that is really just applying the word purpose to those things you already like doing.
Another possible answer is to say that we were designed by evolution, in which case you could argue that our purpose is to survive and pass on our genes, but evolution is an accidental process with no deliberate purpose behind it.
Interestingly, we do live our lives by a simple rule: ALWAYS TRY TO DO THE BEST THING. Everything we do is governed by this rule, so we avoid things we don't like doing unless we know that it is to our advantage in some way (eg. unpleasant work), and we try to do the things we like doing unless we know it will harm us (eg. eating too much chocolate). It is possible to show that there is no such thing as free will because everything we do is ultimately dictated by this rule: you can try to get away from it by deliberately going against it, but it would be a futile attempt which would prove nothing.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
The evolved purpose is to pass on genes.
Evolution has resulted in relatively great symbolic processing capability within homo sapiens.
This has enabled man to come up with all sorts of ideologies and imagined purposes for his existence.
Perhaps the question that should be asked is:
"what should be the purpose of human life?"
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
(Ref Post #284). Once again, David, I could not agree more!
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Dear Post 285
What purpose was served by post 284 other than to highlight the lamentable lack of perspicacity that flows so painfully where great thinkers fear to thread?
Perhaps too many thoughts in one place can be a bit overwhelming a bit like say a library with books though of course not too many books because then you'd have to close it and start another library all over in case any poor misguided fools felt they had to read every tome before passing comment one book at a time.
Rather than revel in the richness of the opportunity offered by a lush question it's the instinct of the witless curmudgeon to redefine it to fit the narrow constricts of their ability.
Some people buy clothes in the hope that they will fit them in the future where they don't in the present and who knows perhaps some people believe we live by the rule always try to do the best thing?
Should one size fit all when it comes to the purpose of life?
What's your favourite colour is beyond free will?
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Dear unregistered of post 286,
If you want to accuse me of "lamentable lack of perspicacity" you should switch your brain into gear first. I felt that I had to read the entire thread before posting my comment here because it seemed impolite to make a point which might already have been made in this thread, possibly many times. This is quite different from a library full of books which are complete in themselves and do not follow on from each other. How rude do you think it would have been to lecture all the people who have taken part in this thread if I was only telling them something that they have already discussed at length?
I am a philosopher, but I prefer not to call myself one because the word "philosophy" has been so badly contaminated by wooley-thinking buffoons who prefer to engage in endless waffle rather than to strive for real answers. I always try to cut straight to the truth.
You just don't like the fact that I've resolved the issue completely: your toy has been taken away from you and you're now at a loss as to what to prattle on about.
Is that a statement or a question? I take it you believe it is beyond free will, but how do you suppose you decide what your favourite colour is? Do you do it based on pure qualia, or do you do it by associations which load additional qualia into your consciousness and distort the outcome? Either way, there's no free will involved.
By the way, you don't need to be so modest if you reply to this: use your name so that we can admire you properly when you win the argument.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
What's my favourite qualia?
CBT doesn't exist?
Addiction is another myth?
Do you know what a knob is?
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
Not playing today then? I think I know why: I've been looking at some of your other posts elsewhere on the forum, and the cleverest thing you seem to have done is to register under the name "Unregistered": that must have generated a few snorts of derision. Are you also the unregistered person I accused of sniping from the shadows a while ago? It would certainly explain your overly negative attitude.
Anyway, if our conversation has ended, then I hope we've both learned something from it. I know it's hard for an idiot to learn anything from a genius, but a genius will always find something to learn from an idiot.
By the way, you asked the question:-
Well, I reckon it's something John Barrowman uses to open a door.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
you're too good for me tiger?
Sam where are you?
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I don't know about that: I wouldn't want to pick a fight with your tiger. I still think you have more talent than you realise: I can't stop admiring some of the eloquence in your original post. I hope you find a good way to use it positively in future, and I wish you well with it.
Re: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE?
I'm a little disappointed: I had hoped that "unregistered" would put up a fight rather than just howl at the moon.