GENIUS FORUMS

Depending of course on the interpretations you get from how a purpose is defined, I wonder what type of opinions you have on the matter.

Is there a meaning to [our] life? A life without meaning is one without purpose which would yield us all to randomness.

Perhaps we are intended, existing purposfully, to please the creator. Maybe to use our talents to benefit mankind or just to be happy and enjoy our stay. While our purpose physically may be to reproduce, is there one a spiritual one?

Agent Smith from the Matrix trilogy shares his opinion in that the purpose of life is to end. While that may be apart of life's cycle, that leaves a gap between birth and death. Purpose is our reason for being alive after birth and until death...What do you all think about, the purpose of life?

also, this is my first post on the forums, hi everybody :)

Hi Doggy, and welcome.

The purpose in Life itself, if there is such, is unknowable.

The purpose of one's own life is knowable. Contemplation, meditation, prayer, and fasting are ways to discern this purpose, if it is unclear.

The purpose of life is to live and die.

Inevitably so, but how?

How is the way to live and die?

You're living right now. That's how you do it.

The only purpose to life is the purpose(s) you give it. Aside from that we have just as much purpose in the universe as a grain of salt.

the purpose in life is to learn how to be be relaxed in the face of the fact that one is no more significant in the big scheme of things than a musquito larva hatching in some old stagnant pool that is tucked away down some old dirt road, located on the edge of some obscure old town that is marked only on one soiled map, a map which is packed away in some old box that sits in the cellar of an old house that hasnt been occupied in years.

And the purpose of my life is to help people realize this in a way that will eventually lead the student to a life of relaxation and clarity of mind.

Cory Duchesne wrote:the purpose in life is to learn how to be be relaxed in the face of the fact that one is no more significant in the big scheme of things than a musquito larva hatching in some old stagnant pool that is tucked away down some old dirt road, located on the edge of some obscure old town that is marked only on one soiled map, a map which is packed away in some old box that sits in the cellar of an old house that hasnt been occupied in years.

And the purpose of my life is to help people realize this in a way that will eventually lead the student to a life of relaxation and clarity of mind.

You're wrong, cory. We are significant. God loves you. We are favored creations. This is why satan releases his hate propaganda into the minds of the foolish, to slake his jealousy of man. Say no to nihilism.

millipodium wrote:You're wrong, cory. We are significant. God loves you.

God loves everybody the same. We are all equally significant or insignificant as the bug in Cory's example. Being equally significant or insignificant does cause loss of significance of significancy - but significance is less of a constraint than a consideration, and more of a contextual descriptor than a term of universal meaning.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:

millipodium wrote:You're wrong, cory. We are significant. God loves you.

God loves everybody the same. We are all equally significant or insignificant as the bug in Cory's example. Being equally significant or insignificant does cause loss of significance of significancy - but significance is less of a constraint than a consideration, and more of a contextual descriptor than a term of universal meaning.

Should killing a bug then, therefore, deserve the same legal penalty as killing cory? (3 points) why or why not? (3 points) Please be concise (2 points).

millipodium wrote: Should killing a bug then, therefore, deserve the same legal penalty as killing cory? (3 points)

That would depend on the larger implications.

millipodium wrote: why or why not? (3 points)

If either a wasp or Cory were posing an imminent lethal threat, deadly measures may be required. Since it is more likely that Cory will be of benefit to the universe by being kept alive than even an entire colony of wasps, yet a wasp's nest on one's house is more likely to be of harm to the human inhabitants and their guests, and Cory has the capability of understanding how to live harmoniously in the world (and even if he couldn't, he could be reasonably contained from doing harm), it would be okay to kill the inhabitants of a wasp's nest attached to the house but it would not be okay to kill Cory even if he glued his tent to someone's house. If someone decided to become a serial-wasp-killer, that could have a negative environmental impact, and should be appropriatly punishable.

millipodium wrote: Please be concise (2 points).

Milli wrote:

You're wrong, cory. We are significant. God loves you. We are favored creations. This is why satan releases his hate propaganda into the minds of the foolish, to slake his jealousy of man. Say no to nihilism.

Oh dont be such a wuss.

Keep in mind that just because I say that humans being arent anymore important than a musquito doesnt mean I don't have values.

Because I value truth, I can see that by aggrandizing a particular part (human beings) I end up deprecating and destroying the balance of the whole. By deprecating and destroying the balance of the whole, I my self am deprecated and to a certain degree destroyed, for my aggrandization was only an illusion. My aggrandization, in actuality, was just deprecation, corruption.

And who agrandizes and deprecates themselves as badly as americans?

Such is their trademark

To aggrandize IS to deprecate.

Are you saying the purpose of a wasp's life is the same as my life?

Doggy wrote:

Are you saying the purpose of a wasp's life is the same as my life?

No, I'm just saying that one isnt any more significant than the other. One simply has a different use than the other. Is my purpose 'better' than the wasps?

No.

However, that doesnt mean I try to be like the wasp. Just because the wasp isnt any more important than me in the big picture, doesnt mean I try to be his equal, or reduce myself down to the activities that the wasp was designed for.

I am a human and unlike the wasp, I have my anxiety, my sorrows, my intellectual confusion, my self consciousness and if I am to be rational, than I have to deal with the problems of being human in the only way that it can be rationally dealt with.

I deal with the problems of being human by means of logic and values, by means of a hiearchy of priorities. And in this case, some actions, people and things take precedence over others, but only in the same way that for a wasp, the nector on a flower takes precedence over the bones of a bird.

Personally, I judge things, actions, and people as more relevevent to my needs than others, and I do this for the same reason a wasp does what he does.

Cory Duchesne wrote:To aggrandize IS to deprecate.

Hmm, true, though the opposite is also true: for some people to defecate is to agonize.

Heh.

More seriously, regarding life itself, and the relative importance of humans, alot of people here are giving, in this thread, what can only be opinions.

Now, personal opinions are fine, and can do us individually plenty of good. But is there a way to verify our significance in the scheme of things or lack thereof? It's great to be humble and compare ourselves to grains of salt. It's also appropriate to feel we are special in God's eyes, if it helps us live better lives.

But so far as brute and unflinchingly logical Truth, what's the score?

I don't think there is any way to know for sure.

If we were to know the purpose of life, would there still be a purpose...

Cory Duchesne wrote:Milli wrote:

You're wrong, cory. We are significant. God loves you. We are favored creations. This is why satan releases his hate propaganda into the minds of the foolish, to slake his jealousy of man. Say no to nihilism.

Oh dont be such a wuss.

Keep in mind that just because I say that humans being arent anymore important than a musquito doesnt mean I don't have values.

Yes it does. It means you have anti-human values.

Because I value truth, I can see that by aggrandizing a particular part (human beings) I end up deprecating and destroying the balance of the whole. By deprecating and destroying the balance of the whole, I my self am deprecated and to a certain degree destroyed, for my aggrandization was only an illusion. My aggrandization, in actuality, was just deprecation, corruption.

A certain amount of survival oriented self love and love of others is evolutionarily adaptive.

The truth is you DO have a horse in the race, so to speak; you ARE a human. Preferring yourself is good.

Self-hate isn't cool.

Cory: Oh dont be such a wuss.

Keep in mind that just because I say that humans being arent anymore important than a musquito doesnt mean I don't have values.

Milli: It means you have anti-human values.

I don’t know who said this, but I agree: The difference between an ape and your average human is less than the difference between your average human and someone like the Buddha, Kierkegaard, Jiddu Krishnamurti, or Masanobu Fukuoka.

If having human values means chasing like a dog after woman, knocking one up, not being able to answer your children’s questions honestly, fearfully and neurotically binging on junk food and junk-ideologies, being patriotic, being tribal, and being fearful of new experiences…

Then sure, I have anti-human values.

Cory: Because I value truth, I can see that by aggrandizing a particular part (human beings) I end up deprecating and destroying the balance of the whole. By deprecating and destroying the balance of the whole, I my self am deprecated and to a certain degree destroyed, for my aggrandization was only an illusion. My aggrandization, in actuality, was just deprecation, corruption.


Mill: A certain amount of survival oriented self love and love of others is evolutionarily adaptive.

You can adapt yourself to the corrupt & ignoble world (and thus become corrupt & ignoble), or you can adapt the corrupt world to your noble self.

Milli: The truth is you DO have a horse in the race, so to speak; you ARE a human. Preferring yourself is good.

Yes and I prefer to be unlike the irrational swine.

Self-hate isn't cool.

Actually you’re right. Going Jesus-style by hating your lower self and loving the rationality of higher self won’t win you chicks and get you lots of friends, as being cool tends to do.

I get the impression that ‘coolness’ is very important to you.

Why?

You're equating buddhist zealotry / nihilism with rationality. They're not the same thing.

Milli: You're equating buddhist zealotry / nihilism with rationality. They're not the same thing.

How am I?

If you want to be taken seriously, then you are going to have to provide some reasoning to back up those empty accusations.

Otherwise, I see no reason to believe that you are much more than a trendy doll with a string on its back. Who keeps pulling your string?

Whoever it is, I'm sure he's getting as tired of your empty trademark phrases as I am.

Cory Duchesne wrote:

Milli: You're equating buddhist zealotry / nihilism with rationality. They're not the same thing.

How am I?

If you want to be taken seriously, then you are going to have to provide some reasoning to back up those empty accusations.

Otherwise, I see no reason to believe that you are much more than a trendy doll with a string on its back. Who keeps pulling your string?

Whoever it is, I'm sure he's getting as tired of your empty trademark phrases as I am.

You say giving all things equal significance, not valuing yourself above a slug, or whatever, is rational. I say it's buddhist zealotry.

You say giving all things equal significance, not valuing yourself above a slug, or whatever, is rational. I say it's buddhist zealotry.

I said the way a human functions is different from a slug. A human should not try to be like a slug obviously. A human has no choice to function the way he functions, and likewise a slug has no choice to function the way he does. Both are interconnected and part of the same whole and to aggrandize a particular part of the whole makes no sense.

I killed slugs last summer. Snipped them with scissors. It's not that I seen them as less significant. The fact of the matter was that I was dedicated to growing my own food and I seen that the slugs were eating my food.

Violence is a part of life. Buddhism preaches against violence. But then again, Dali Lama eats meat.

It was Hitler who was a vegetarian.

Buddhism is built on a lie.