<p>nomirdva nice points ....we have a moral obligation to procreate and we have hormones. BUT--> a sexual act doesnt necessarily mean reproduction. There are many ways of avoiding that(birth control etc.) What youre saying is that humans are naturally inclined to reproduce(which is debatable) and what i said isnt entirely true either now that i think about it. You make some good points...KEEP UP THE POSTS!!</p>
<p>it is not highly debatable. the human population as a whole is inclince to reproduce thus ensuring the survival of it's species.</p>
<p>Why is there something instead of nothing?</p>
<p>To say that we are naturally inclined to continue reproducing does not answer why we are around in the first place. To answer how we can about does not explain the reason for our initial existence.</p>
<p>Maybe the purpose of life is to find the meaning in your own life.</p>
<p>purpose of life is to find the meaning in your own life</p>
<p>ding ding ding.... i think we have a winner! that's really insightful</p>
<p>purpose in life and meaning in your own life -- there kinda the same thing</p>
<p>the point is there isn't the same one for everyone.</p>
<p>This is by nomir_diva:
"I disagree with this argument. All life forms "want" to reproduce. It's a part of evolution. People, just like all other living things, have strong instinctual motivations to do certain things. People want to have sex. They want the emotional satisfaction of raising a family. There doesn't have to be a mystical "meaning of life" to motivate them to do that."</p>
<p>You are absolutely correct. However, you just pointed out the 'tendency' of human beings to procreate and marry for satisfaction. Philosophers believe there is something beyond tendencies. Such as something "we ought to do"....This is what we call the "meaning of life", and what we are talking about in this thread.</p>
<p>there is no "meaning" to life, it just is. technically anyone can makeup their own meaning. whatever you want life to mean...let it mean that...but theres still really isn't a meaning. you live, you die. thats pretty much it. i'm not bitter or depressed either, I'm just really realistic. i'd rather enjoy my life than trouble my mind with such philosophical (and pointless) crap. i enjoy philosophy, just not retarded topics. seriously, think about it...there's no real definite meaning. besides, it more liberating that way. you don't have to worry about what your "purpose" is or anything. </p>
<p>anyway, thats my opinion. and opinions are like buttholes, everyone's got one, mine just doesn't stink as much as other peoples...</p>
<p>I have no idea why the world was created and why God put us here, but within my own sphere of existence I have my ideas as to how I should live.
I think it's entirely true that our ultimate goal in life is to be happy. But, like Aristotle, I agree that happiness is virtuous activity of the soul. </p>
<p>There are several... conditions, I guess. By living a virtuous life I don't mean that one can print out the Ten Commandments and check off whether they did or didn't do them everyday. That's shallow morality. You can only really live virtuously by realising what's at stake - it's like offering a drink to two people, an alcoholic who hasn't had a drink in 2 weeks and someone who's never liked the taste of alcohol. They can both refuse it, but for one it's a moral choice and the other is indifferent. The indifferent one can just as easily take the drink and get drunk but still can't understand the evils of alcohol like the alcoholic does.
My personal tick is awakeness (as a way for describing virtue), I think I first picked it up from Thoreau in Walden and then it was strengthened with Dante's Inferno (when he describes abandoning virtue as "I was so full of sleep just at the point where I abandoned the true path"). And it works for me, when I'm more awake, more focused, more aware, I tend to be living better. I also think that it's sort of like boot camp - you might not know why the hell your drill sergeant is putting you through this, but after boot camp, I imagine you feel pretty damn good. The more you experience, the more you put yourself through, the more you grow (it's the old "what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger").
Part of my meaning of life - as a theist - is the idea that you cannot live a perfectly virtuous life (no, really, try it), and that life does not end with a simple attempt at it. To be completely happy you would have to be completely virtuous, and I believe you can only achieve that through God - one of the virtues is accepting your own limitations and accepting that you need divine help. And by this I don't mean accept salvation and you'll be saved forever and ever and that's the end of it. People who have only heard of Dante's Inferno and have never read the complete Comedy don't realize that the same sins that are condemned in Inferno are repeated in Purgatory - with the difference that people damned to hell would not change their ways regardless of what might happen, while those in purgatory are given the chance to climb upwards. (And man I could go on about the really cool - and accurate - metaphor of the spiral but I won't because this is too long already.)</p>
<p>Coqui - you enjoy philosophy but not the fundamental philosophical question?</p>
<p>i like the middle paragraph limon....umm yeah i think life shouldnt be used only to ponder over a meaning and study books. Instead, it should be seperated into study but i believe experience is far more important in life and can be most valuable in the long run.....so basically we should LIVE (the verb) life instead of constantly studying life Lets get 5000 views on this!!!</p>
<p>by limon: "To be completely happy you would have to be completely virtuous,"</p>
<p>before i say anything on that line...i gotta say...you're extremely insightful and i really like your post (unlike the ones that say there is no meaning..cuz' that's just sad and depressing).</p>
<p>BUT...i Don't think "complete happiness" is necessarily "complete virtue". I think "complete happiness" is the ability to be happy at all times. What's important is to know "HOW" to be happy all the times, and i don't think that requires being completely virtuous.</p>
<p>Well, the thing is - how would you define happiness? How would you be happy at all times? I don't consider happiness a passive emotion, as something that just happens to you and you can't help it or not, but as the product of the act of virtue. There IS a sort of pleasure that comes about by good circumstances and company and so on - chance, but that's a fleeting and not a permanent happiness. I don't know quite what you mean about the ability to be happy at all times... but in one way it sort of fits my description, you would be happy regardless of external circumstances if you were virtuous, because your happiness would not depend on something that by chance could end but by your own efforts.
The thing about virtue is that it's not completely defined by own act or another, but by habit (in the same way that one sin does not mean a vice). The more drinks you turn down (as an alcoholic) the easier it gets, until the temptation is gone. I don't mean to say that you can't be content, even very happy with yourself, but my experience has been that there's always something greater, always something to strive for, but the closer you get to that perfection, the happier you are to try and get there.</p>
<p>Haha, Lock, the funny thing is that I think learning is one of the best things you can do with your life.</p>
<p>Limon, i completely agree. Once again, you absolutely stun me with your insight....
But, i still have uneasiness with one of your views that says "you can only achieve complete happiness through God" and "one of the virtues is accepting your own limitations". </p>
<p>I'm personally against thinking there's "limitations" to humans. I like believing in the "infinite potential" theory.</p>
<p>I'm also not sure about things on God....there's so many interpretations of Him that its hard to understand which one you are talking about even though it's the same "God". Some interpretations i agree with, and some interpretations i completely disagree. What kind of interpretation do you have?</p>
<p>Well... my own ideas about God aren't very clear. Last year I was practically an atheist, now I'm a completely convinced theist - but I don't know which religion. I believed in a God first out of a philosophical necessity, and now I'm pretty sure I'm Christian. I still believe most religions aren't quite as incompatible as people think, and I tend to combine Christianity (which I don't know much about... only through C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, and Dante) with Eastern philosophies (which I only know about through studying martial arts). I think they've all hit on some good metaphors (I'm big on metaphors) to describe our situation. Which interpretations do you agree/disagree with? </p>
<p>You might be right about humans having infinite potential, I don't know. My own experience has been that no one is completely virtuous, although there are people who get a hell of a lot closer to it than others. Something I picked up when reading Descartes was that men would always choose what was true and good if they knew what it was. Since only God is all-knowing, and men clearly aren't, men must fall into error. In the same vein, I'm sort of uneasy with men being unlimited in any sense - our nature is to be finite, limited.</p>
<p>42 is the answer to everything in life...
<a href="http://www.empirenet.com/%7Edljones/%5B/url%5D">http://www.empirenet.com/~dljones/</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything</a></p>
<p>The meaning of life is something that cannot be reasoned (unless your reason is spiritual). Through a spiritual connection, one can find the truth. The world is filled with those who seek to cover up their own fears/insecurities etc; some hide with attitude, religion, status, within societal norms, or by joining with some group that will give them the answers they seek, which ironically reflects that they cannot find the answer themselves. I have discovered the meaning of life through meditation; pure intutition. I am more sure of it than of my own existance. But I will not tell you, because of two reasons. First, if I did, your presupposed thoughts would activate and render it useless. Second, as I already posed, it cannot be reasoned and not be explained. This brings into account communication. What is communication? What is a tree? A tree is nothing; t-r-e-e is an ordered set of letters designed to represent a concept, but it is not the concept itself. Obviously for this reason intuition and internal thought cannot be expressed with 100% certainty, though artists come the closest. This is concept on a fundamental and universal level, and limited human ability is in the position of capability of understanding, without capability of fully explaining.</p>
<p>that looks like you took it from the novel Narcissus and Goldmund (read that, it relates to all these posts)..Anyway i disagree with on this "Through a spiritual connection, one can find the truth" thats wrong spiritual connection is used to explain what is unexplainable by science and fact. Theres no definite truth through religion(if thats what you mean by spiritual connection) Spiritual connection is used to cope with the unexplainable.. What are you saying with "tree" -sounds like The Matrix to me. A tree is actually a bunch of atoms constantly changing and losing energy being converted into etc...just like us (i dont get where youre trying to go) KEEP UP THE POSTS!</p>
<p>...what are your thoughts on reincarnation? Pardon the seeming randomness of my question...but I thought as long as we're talking about life and religion....why not reincarnation?</p>
<p>Personally, I think it's a very intriguing concept. I like the cyclicalness (is that even a word? o_O) of it better than the linear, judgementalness of Christianity. However, I'm not a member of either religion (Hinduism/Buddhism or Christianity)...just your friendly neighborhood agnostic. :)</p>
<p>well I took it from Shakespeare....</p>
<p>My point is that science and fact are nonexistant as absolute objects. Both may attempt to explain some greater truth, but just as I said about concepts transcending communication, science and fact can never be absolute on their own. A tree is made of atoms? Thats not what they thought before the idea of an atom was pondered. Science is inherently limited by the powers of observation. Our universe may be nothing more than a drop of rain in another 256th dimensional universe. Our limited scope of view may be all we need to find the truth, but it might not. "Science and fact" may serve to guide someone to the conceptual truth. When I say spiritual, I am not saying (nor excluding) religion. But everything you do is judged by your spirituality, or lack thereof. For you to trust in science with any reasonablility, you must embrace it on a spiritual level. This does not imply a religious level, neccessarilly. I believe that a spiritual connection is not only a viable means of finding truth, but it is the only means. For if the world is really nothing but an accident, if we are simply consequences of a big bang and random events, then the answer is quite clear: life has no meaning. Without some greater power, and I am speaking abstractly here, what is the point of life? Why do anything? Why have morals? Why get up in the morning. When you die, you are gone. There is no spirit, no afterlife, so why live if it is only passing. But there must be some higher order. We understand things on a basis of cause and effect. How can time exist without some infinite phenomenon, one that either has no cause, one that caused itself, or both? This phenomenon might be a god, some universal spirit, or any else of a wide range, but it seems to me that the only explanation for a paradoxical situation is a paradoxical cause. It, like so much else, is beyond the schemes of human observation by self perpetuation. I believe that I have found definite truth, but through spirituality. </p>
<p>On an unrelated note, science is just another type of spirituality. Science is a philosophy, a natural philosophy, and philosophies that deal with the nature of the universe, the 'spirit' of the universe are, unsurprisingly, spiritual.</p>
<p>thechiiguin I think that reincarnation in the highly abstract view I have presented is viable because it gives meaning to life through a spiritual reality. But realize two things. By calling Christianity judgmental, you have thus judged it. That is a tad bit contradictory. Also understand that one principle of Christianity is to not judge others, "let he who has not sinned cast the first stone." So while individual Christians might be judgmental (which would make them Christians in name, but without spirit), fundamentally the religion is not. The same is true with the moslem terrorists today. They practice evil in the name of religion. They go so far in perverting their suppossed faith as to call themselves fundamentalists. Though there is some truth in the Koran with jihad etc, it has been horribly taken out of context. This means that, at least for this reason, Islam itself is not invalidated.</p>