Life, the universe and everything

[stardog]

Ever thought that maybe this life is just the beginning, of something else? I'm not talking about organised religion here, I don't believe in it at all, but judging by how huge the universe is, there must be a purpose for all that space. We'll probably never get far into it from this earth, maybe a few thousand lightyears. Maybe the idea is to learn about everything and become wise here, then move on to something better (and I'm not talking about heaven), somewhere billions of lightyears away. Maybe this is just a 'starter block' I just think life on Earth is wayy too short for death to be the end, and for a lot of people it's just a pointless existence anyway.

I'm thinking too much here. Just imagine if organized religion didn't exist at all though, people would have far better theories about what happens after you die. It's a shame most people follow this one standard belief, and reject all other ideas, just because a bunch of loonies thousands of years ago said that it was so!!

Anyone who wants to join the religion of Stardogaism, please form an orderly queue in this thread 8) :lol:

 

[allanboy]

When I die, i´ll go to heaven , and watch my life all back, in movie and max payne comic style. This is keeping me from comitting suicide and not carrying life on.
Thinking after life thoeries more complicated than this is for people who care more about things i currently do.


heh, sorry if that came harsh, but it´s what´s in my head right now.

Looks like I cant say the S word...

 

[Chilling__Echo]

i like what you have to say stardog, very interesting.

i think about the universe when i'm stressed, my problems here become so small and insignificant and irrelivant to everything else out there. there's countless of possibilities when it comes to theories of the universe.

i'd hope there was more to this life than just earth. and people. if that's the case, i'm not impressed. i have alot of questions for God (i know your thread isn't refering to him though, this is just a tangent i guess).

i wish i could just levitate up into the sky, ozone, atmosphere, and out into space. there being just nothing. floating into oblivion.


POOF


dammit, back to the real world... i have too many chapters to read for my classes... :x


"Meet me in outer space...

we could spend the night, watch the earth come up.

I've grown tired of this place

won't you come with me?

we could start again..."

- Incubus

 

[pea]

ed

 

[Chilling__Echo]

i believe in evolution and all that jazz, big bang theory, etc but i think it was created by something - that being God. other than that, who knows?

plus, if this was all there was, i might have shot myself by now. if there wasn't a purpose, well damn, why am i wasting my time? so far i'm not too impressed with life. but then again emotions are pretty irrational so that makes humans pretty irrational - we just try and attach something more than there really is to existing. i'm not comfortable with just accepting that that's all it is - just life, science, logic. everything else just gets us all in trouble :?

and i'm sure i contradicted myself a million times in that last paragraphn :lol: but it's all good. i just accept that i don't know everyhting and hopefully there's more there than what meets the eye

 

[Scrabbl]

Is life valuable? Does it mean anything?
Is there a purpose to our lives? What is it?

Is life valuable? Yes. Because -- if it's not valuable then why are you still alive? -- Like Chilling said. _But_ your life is valuable to you and yourself alone. I don't think life means anything to the universe or to anything else other than the self.

Is there a purpose for us? Yes and no. "No" because, I believe we aren't pawns created with a greater purpose in a god's mind. We're just apes who're not trying to do anything in particular. Then I said "Yes" because, there is an inherent goal for every person (that has nothing to do with the universe, god or his greater scheme) and that purpose is to be happy.[/b]

 

[Chilling__Echo]

i gotcha, i just don't see why we'd be created unless we weren't a part of that scheme - at least not individually if that makes sense :?:

when i get stumped i just try and remember that whatever created us probably has infinite knowledge and we might be missing something since there's so much we don't understand. like there is so much more to understand but we're not capable of doing so

 

[Scrabbl]

i gotcha, i just don't see why we'd be created unless we weren't a part of that scheme .

I guess maybe what you meant to say was: "i just don't see why we'd be created unless we were a part of that scheme"? *got a bit confused* Correct me if I'm wrong.

Ok. So you're essentially saying that we are all created for a greater purpose.

And you're using this logic: 1. Everything in the world is created for a purpose 2. we humans are part of the world, 3. so, we must be created for a purpose too.

I'm not sure about whether the premise -- "Everything in the world is created for a purpose" -- is true or not. How did we come to the conclusion that maybe it's true? Well, we humans tend to think that there is a purpose to everything because we're making an inference from the fact that we ourselves do everything we do for a purpose. In other words, because in our world, every (not-stupid) human does stuff and create stuff for a reason, you infer that non-human creations and so on must also be created by some creator with some sort of reason or purpose. Hence, "Everything in the world is created for a purpose."

Now, the logic would make perfect sense if indeed everything in the world is created with a reason or purpose. But in reality that's not true. We can't be absolutely sure that everything has a purpose simply because the things people do all have a purpose. In fact, I think, in this world, the only things that are created with a purpose are human's creations. I think only _we_ do stuff for a purpose. E.g. a table or a painting is made with a purpose, and a thunderstorm is not. And I think our being born into this world is not one of the things that has a purpose. Also, if you still insist that everything is created with a reason or purpose you may run into problems like infinite regression. 'Cause for now we can explain why humans are created by explaining that: God has some greater plans so He created us. But how do we explain why God exists. Well, we can say that there exists a meta-God or a higher god that has created this God with some purpose of his own. But how do we explain the existence of this meta-God. Well if you still agree that "everything exists for a purpose", then there must be a meta-meta-God, who is the creator of the meta-God. And so on. This is infinite regression. The "turtle myth" is also an example of infinite regression that I was talking about. You probably have heard of it but it goes like this (I'm copy-pasting from wikipedia): " A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

My original post is basically my conclusion: We're not a part of a greater scheme and we're not created for a purpose.

Don't worry if you don't get it. First, I haven't studied philosophy so I might be wrong on these deep stuff. Second, I'm extremely bad at explaining, unlike lawyerguy and so many other ppl at spw.

 

[Chilling__Echo]

haha, i agree - hey lawyerguy, come join us!!

but i totally got what you were saying - and excuse my previous typo but you got what i was trying to say. and in response i have nothing because you're right about the fact that i'm projecting the notion of having a purpose to everything on things that operate that way. or if they do, we have no proof of it. my mind has been expanded that much more haha :idea:

 

[Scrabbl]

 

[Chilling__Echo]

you post entirely way too little haha you should hang around more often!!

 

[Scrabbl]

you post entirely way too little haha you should hang around more often!!

Yeah I know. I joined spw like 1 year ago but got only 50 posts... I'm just way too shy. And I'll never feel comfortable around anyone, not even complete strangers on the net, so it usually takes a great effort to make me post, and that's why I don't post much. Also I don't post 'cause lately I found that I have given up trying to beat sp. consequently I'm not very interested in people's posts about combatting sp. And by "giving up", I mean, at school I still try to be normal, polite and assertive and all but that's just all _acting_. And acting is exhausting... It's just impossible for me to relax around ppl. And I just sort of learned to accept that sp will be a part of me for the rest of my life. I still read this forum 'cause it's comforting to see others who, too have to deal with the stress of dealing with people.

 

[cherish]

I started to read the craziest book because i've driven myself crazy wondering what the hell the purpose of all this is and i'll read anything just to see what it has to say. The book is crazy because it makes alot of sense.

It's weird when reading through the bible and then buddhist philosophy and other religions there's certain things they all hold in common which makes you believe that at one time maybe there was a god or some creator that did communicate with people and this is why the messages are similar, but over centuries the truth has been distorted by different religions.

I don't know, but the book is "Conversations with God" and it's not a religious book which sounds like an outright lie considering the title but if your interested in theories and philosophy it's really interesting.

 

[pea]

ed

 

[brownbag]

I think there's a purpose for humans, but it seems this purpose applies to people not suffering from any affliction such as SA or Pschizoprenia or a Mental Condition of any sort. Not that the "normal" people's purpose has anything to do with them doing something great or wonderful once they've reached a certain stage in their life, but a pupose of simply being able to live their lives out according to the nature of growing, experiencing by going out, and simply learning by those experiences.
And that is what i mean by purpose only applying to non-mentally afflicted people.
Whereby, with SA, i feel we've been denied that purpose of just growing up the way nature intended for, you know what i mean? and so, we basically don't seem to have a "purpose", as in a journey we go through living our life like the "normal" people do.
So the main question for us would be "What's the purpose of this sa/sp in our/people's lives?", if it even has a purpose being here.
"Would we even find out the purpose of it in our lifetime? Are we supposed to?"

as far as i'm concerned, i can't find a relevant purpose for how it relates to my life or life in general. the only words i can find for it as that of a feeling are "true isolation".
nobody truly knows interior isolation like we do.

 

[cherish]

maybe there's some lesson meant to be learned by having anxiety and not being able to experience life like everyone else is part of our purpose. Who knows really

 

[SongOfSongs]

"I want to die, is all," cried Ploy.

"Don't you know," said Dahoud, "that life is the most important possession you have?"

"Why?" said Ploy through his tears.

"Because," said Dahoud, "without it, you'd be dead."

-- Thomas Pynchon's V., Chapter 1