What's the Point?

[canadarocks]

Just a note to discuss what the point of life, the universe, and everything is from various points of view. For me, I have thought about this question over the years and, although I know the ultimate answer is 42, I have come to a personal answer for the question. Rather than bore people with my thoughts, it occurred to me that the same question could be asked of God.

What is the point of God’s existence? If God is omnipotent and knows what happens in the future, what’s the point of his/her existing. It seems to me that he/she would be bored with it all. He/she created the universe, earth, animals, and people to do what? Was it to create people to live their lives for him/her, ultimately to join him/her in heaven? Why not just create a heaven that is already pre-populated and skip the whole living on earth portion. Was it to play a little game of good versus evil? He/she already knows what will happen so why bother starting (running an experiment that the answer is already known can be tedious for the experimenter). Was it to have people learn to live better lives by following his guidance? Then why provide such a poorly written/conceived/contradictory guidance manual (and why not have created people with the rules to live by already ingrained in them).

I would like to hear other thoughts about the purpose of Gods life/existence. As I consider myself a “free-thinker”, I am always trying to figure out why people of faith don’t ask these questions or, if they have, what answers have they come up with.

[DangerousBeliefs]

Who?

[jaderook01]

I do ask these questions. I also can't come up with any satisfactory answers. I also seriously doubt that anyone can answer them either. Yes, 'why?' is the first question on my list to ask of God.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by canadarocks
I would like to hear other thoughts about the purpose of Gods life/existence. For God, wouldn't this be the biq question??

To be, or not to be.

And while he's deciding, he's entertaining himself with a play of his own staging within the theater of the absurd.

[canadarocks]

It's the lack of a suitable answer about the point of God's life/existence that is one of the reason's that I don't think that there is a God. All the more reason for other's who have faith to seriously consider that theism is just fairy tales.

[jaderook01]

Originally posted by canadarocks
It's the lack of a suitable answer about the point of God's life/existence that is one of the reason's that I don't think that there is a God. All the more reason for other's who have faith to seriously consider that theism is just fairy tales.

I must disagree. The fact is we're all here existing and it all just seems too contrived. God is the only plausible answer I've yet to see bantered about, so I'll go with it.

[canadarocks]

Why does there have to be an answer? There may be no "purpose". It could be that life as we know it is a natural occurrence in the universe and that the purpose of life is the same as the purpose of a rock (i.e. there is no purpose). With that thought, just enjoy the ride! (and no guilt from belief/non-belief in God). No heaven, no hell, get over it.

[jaderook01]

Originally posted by canadarocks
Why does there have to be an answer? There may be no "purpose". It could be that life as we know it is a natural occurrence in the universe and that the purpose of life is the same as the purpose of a rock (i.e. there is no purpose). With that thought, just enjoy the ride! (and no guilt from belief/non-belief in God). No heaven, no hell, get over it.

No answer and no purpose is just not satisfying. I find that to be an unacceptable conclusion. ;)

[canadarocks]

Whether you find it satisfying or not, that is the way it might be. Try to imagine life if "no purpose and no answer" is the reality. Is you life still worth living? Of course it is! You just don't have to worry about wasting time, money, and effort pursuing things that don't matter. To me, what does matter is helping others (personal satisfaction) and making the lives of my kids/wife as enjoyable as it can. Don't need to seek any other purpose to life.

[jaderook01]

Originally posted by canadarocks
Whether you find it satisfying or not, that is the way it might be. Try to imagine life if "no purpose and no answer" is the reality. Is you life still worth living? Of course it is! You just don't have to worry about wasting time, money, and effort pursuing things that don't matter. To me, what does matter is helping others (personal satisfaction) and making the lives of my kids/wife as enjoyable as it can. Don't need to seek any other purpose to life.

Perhaps I don't find my pursuits to be a waste of time, money, and effort. Also, as much as I appreciated John Lennon's music, I'm just not cut out for that sort of depressing imagining. Regardless, I'm not suicidal so I hardly would find life not worth living any way I might look at things. :p

[canadarocks]

Personal pursuits are fine, even if yours includes attending church, etc., etc. I only have problems with xians when they 1) try to push their views on me, and 2) act like they are better than non-xains. Anyway, I'm still looking for more thoughts of what others might think the purpose of Gods life/existence could be.

[jaderook01]

I certainly don't aspire to join either of those categories. Continue thread...

[csense]

I only have problems with xians when they:

1) try to push their views on me

"...All the more reason for other's who have faith to seriously consider that theism is just fairy tales."


2) act like they are better than non-xains

"..theism is just fairy tales."

"..wasting time, money, and effort pursuing things that don't matter. "

"...get over it"



Do you see how each can interpret the other in much the same way?

[jaderook01]

csense,

;)

[csense]

:th:

[canadarocks]

I am trying not to push my views on others. I wanted to generate some discussion about what people thought that the purpose of God's life/existence is and I guess I got side-tracked with some responses. If folks would like to discuss/push their views, start another thread and let folks who have considered opinions about the original post continue here.

[Beleth]

Ever play with one of those Mandelbrot-set-generator programs? Zooming in and out of different spots, just to see the shapes certain areas make?

[canadarocks]

This is the fractal stuff right? What are you suggesting?

[Wudang]

I think Beleth is suggesting that god is a) not omniscient and b) is a couch potato and bored.

[HTmonkey]

If god created us, then he needed us for something.
What would that be? Entertainment?

Stephen King's An Evening At Gods...
St.Peter to God: "So Earth’s still there, Huh? After all these years."

But who needed god?


"First one must feel the need of God, then one must form or receive an acceptable idea of God." H.G. Wells (?)

[Benguin]

Sorry, I just don't accept there has to be a point to any of it unless someone can prove otherwise.

[csense]

Originally posted by Benguin
Sorry, I just don't accept there has to be a point to any of it unless someone can prove otherwise.

Is there not a point to either creation or evolution...after all, if order is indistinguishable from chaos, then what is the point of even inquiring.

[Benguin]

Is there not a point to either creation or evolution

I don't see how there has to be ... though it is possible there could be. Existence continues, things happen. Saying there is a point suggests objectives or a quest or a journey to some outcome (maybe the original poster can define that).

Creation and Evolution are theories to explain observed phenomena. I can't see how they could be proved to be a pre-existing rule book only a set of observations on how stuff turned out when it was left alone.

I 'm not sure I quite understand the second part of your comment, does it presume I would agree with the first part?

[csense]

Well, does not evolution have a qualitative movement or direction?
If it does not, then how do you explain, music, art, mathematics, logic, ethics etc....

[canadarocks]

I would think that one could consider that evolution has a direction, but not a pre-determined one. For evolution, structures and forms that adapt to the environment are more favoured than others. The changes in the earth's environment (plate movements, oceanic current changes, atmospheric changes, etc.) are occurring over a long time and can't be predicted if geologic history is any guide.

[c4ts]

But it is obvious according to teleology that God exists so that he could create us and watch us masturbate. Behold our hands, which exist to pleasure our reproductive organs, and these organs are designed to spray vital fluids which are pleasant in the eyes of God. Truly, masturbation is the activity of the divine.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by csense
Well, does not evolution have a qualitative movement or direction?
If it does not, then how do you explain, music, art, mathematics, logic, ethics etc.... Csense your last couple posts put me in mind of a documentary I caught part of the other day. So I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to express some random thoughts.

The documentary was about Marshall McLuhan ('The medium is the message' guy).

I really don't know that much about him but he had some terrific sound bites. One went somethihing like this...

<blockquote>We don't know who discovered water but we know it was not a fish.

Total immersion in the medium renders it invisible. </blockquote>People like Darwin, Maxwell, and Einstein were able to recognize patterns from within the mediums of life, electromagnetism, and spacetime.

This thread is called "What's the point." Perhaps the better question is, "What's the pattern?" For unless we recognize the pattern... the correct pattern... we are just fish in an all pervasive medium that we seem designed for. One that we can't get the sense of.

Your question on music, art, mathematics, logic, and ethics is a good one. But can we know that it is the pattern that will lead to an answer?

I've wondered if the nature of evolution predicts that we will play the role of the Neanderthal someday for a new species that will awaken from the stresses provided by the world we make.

I think it would be ironic if we become adept at DNA splicing and inadvertently create the species that replaces us. If that happens, wouldn't they say that is was the human species' purpose to invent them and then to die.

Speculation could lead in a thousand directions. It's a good thing to do, and I think the search for purpose and meaning is a good search. The chances of a bright answer are equal to the chance of dark answers.

But as a fish, without access to an understanding of the true medium I am in, I can only find answers that might be personally satisfying rather than for my species, planet, or universe.

[epepke]

Originally posted by jaderook01
Perhaps I don't find my pursuits to be a waste of time, money, and effort.

I've always wondered about this. It seems to me that if you don't think that your pursuits are a waste of time, money, and effort, then, almost by definition, they aren't.

I don't see how God enters into it except in one possible way: if you did think that your pursuits were a waste of whatever, but part of you didn't want to think that way, but somehow a God-concept pushes the balance.

[Benguin]

Well, does not evolution have a qualitative movement or direction?
If it does not, then how do you explain, music, art, mathematics, logic, ethics etc....

The outcomes may have qualitative movement, but evolution itself is nothing more than random exploration, the outcome depends on what survives. So maybe the point could be "Survival", but I'm not sure!