Existence: What is the point?

Exactly. If we are in a godless universe, THEN, God is a delusion, as well as any pretense of meaning, significance, morality, soul, or anything metaphysical.

If you do not have this sense of angst, or Something More, you are unique in the human experience. Or, it could be you have forgotten those feelings, and pretend they were never there. Only you know which.

Very few people, even professing atheists, in my experience, face the implications of their intellectual beliefs, but delude themselves with warm, fuzzy feelings of purpose, significance, morality, and meaning.

 

Good thoughts. You express many beliefs, and they reveal the assumptions made.

You believe that the Big Questions are delusions.. made up constructs out of fear, manipulation, superstition, or whatever.

IF.. your assumption is true, that of atheistic naturalism (or detached divinity), THEN.. your conclusion would be right. There is no meaning, soul, morality, or eternal consequence for our existence. They are delusions.

BUT IF.. a Higher Power imbedded these 'senses' in us, THEN.. they are real, and we delude ourselves into believing they are not.

How does one determine delusion, since it seems to be the most obvious condition for humanity?

 

I liked your poem. It is a common theme of counselors, shamen, self help gurus, philosophers, witch doctors, and priests, throughout the ages.

'Don't worry. Be happy.'

Your experiences have taught you that this outlook is the best for peace of mind.

Ah, but you see, because this HAS BEEN a problem in your life, and you capitalize (shout) your realization, you show that this conflict has been in your psyche. You are not unique to humanity, as you suppose.

If you have to 'seek' this happiness and peace of mind, does that not imply that it is not there? There is a 'lack'.. a void that you seek to fill by philosophical means?
And what if you don't 'find', this contentment? Or, what if what you think you've found is a delusion?

I find this statement conflicted. Your poem reflects a quest for purpose, meaning, peace, contentment, and other things. How is this common human experience a 'waste of life?' Sure, anyone can become obsessive about anything, and paralyze themselves with angst and anguish. But that does not mean that all ponderings, considerations, and searches for meaning, truth, or reality are 'wasted'.

The only REAL 'purpose', in the context of this discussion, is 'divine purpose.' All other beliefs about meaning or purpose are delusions, in a godless universe. So if you sought, and found, this 'divine purpose', it would not be a waste of life at all. It would be a tremendous discovery.. a fulfillment of this void and longing for Something More.

 

What has this got to do with a 'divine purpose'? If I sought and found divine purpose it would avail me nothing after my death. Life is to be lived and enjoyed.

 

How so?
If you found divine purpose for your life, implying afterlife conditions, a soul, and responsibility/consequences for your thoughts, words, and deeds, would that not be The Most Significant discovery, Ever?

To go from believing life is an impersonal cosmic accident, to a realization of the Divine Purpose would be off the charts, in any quest for knowledge or understanding. No other human discovery could come close, to perceiving Divine Purpose, in our life.

AND, if there truly IS a 'Divine Purpose', then that discovery could have implications for eternity. That seems pretty important, and would avail you, much.

 

Interesting that you give your conclusions are ascribed to the quoted post, which merely poses questions about questions. The only belief displayed is that language has the potential to become a labyrinth.

 

In a deterministic system, there can be no point.
In a non-deterministic system, the point is defined by the individual.

 

And if there isn't?

 

Again you equate eternal life with the belief in a 'deity'. Why? That's simply religious dogma. Is there any reason to suppose that an unbeliever may not receive eternal life - except for religious teaching? 'Heaven' and 'hell' are the two extremities of life's experiences with moderating experiences in between. There are many atheists in the world that are more 'Christlike' in their attitude and actions towards their fellow man many Christians. They are to be rejected?
If there is a divine purpose to life's existence it's in a bit of a mess. Look at the world.

 

I have been fascinated by EO Wilson's hypothesis that humanity is a "super organism", in which case the individual's purpose is to contribute to the whole's survival and well being. It can be speculated that we we interpret our individual subconscious connections to this species "gestalt" as "God" thereby providing the hormonal/emotional acceptance of our own ephemeral sapient identity in a universe we barely understand.

 

I'm not totally convinced that the theory of evolution is correct, but it has a lot going for it the way science lines things up. A key issue is whether we should expect to see the kind of change in cellular organization you cited within the time frame available for direct observation. ToE is based on evaluating samples of fossils across large spans of time and deducing what seems to have happened to creatures. It's a reasonable venture. Who knows how much more filling in the gaps will it take to be thoroughly convincing. They're calling it fact already, even though I think it's still premature.

You're calling that devolution, but there's no evolutionary change involved.

Yes it does. Dominance is not that big a deal. An improvement accrued due to beneficial evolutionary change can facilitate dominance. Evolutionary change occurs as a result of the genetic changes that I cited and interaction with environmental factors.

Since the definition is not confined to the mutually beneficial arrangement, the reality is the three available mutation scenarios that drive evolution.

Getting a new King and invading a neighboring country is not what I call evolution.

 

QUOTE yguy said: ↑
So despite a century in which the transition from single celled organism to multicellular, cell-differentiated organism has never been observed in a lab, you'd have us believe there's evidence of a transitional form between a soulless primate and a human being? QUOTE

A century in a lab controlled environment is the same as a million years in a natural, changing environment?

 

..there isn't. I was responding to your hypothetical, not making claims of Absolute Truth.

I dispute this, and claim that IF.. you discovered 'divine purpose', it might GREATLY avail you.

 

I cannot see how you can get a soul, morality, higher purpose, meaning, or any of these abstracts in a godless universe. Eternal life, with no God? How would that work? You posit a naturalistic universe, with no supernatural Being, yet believe in a mystical soul, and an afterlife? Why not include a God, in this imagination? How did this allegedly happen?

I do not correlate 'eternal life' with belief in a deity, but the actual existence of a deity. Real eternal life could only come from that reality, not mere belief. We are following the assumptions of each premise:
God
No God

 

The point is, premising abiogenesis is a leap of faith. You cannot see it, repeat it, observe it, or define any mechanisms. It is a belief, with no scientific basis.

Whether you try for a century, or hide behind 'millions of years!', it is a fantastic belief, nothing more. There is no scientific basis for naturalistic abiogenesis. It is the same as the former pop belief in spontaneous generation, just with added 'millions of years!' to mask its impotence.

But it is good to have some kind of basis, for any belief in origins. Abiogenesis is as good as any other.

 

You think i misconstrued your reply? Can you clarify and correct my misunderstanding?

I picked up on your statement:

"How?", "why?", "what for?" are questions we can ask because words can be put together that way. We may think that makes those questions serious. It might lead us to think they could be answered.

..which seem to reflect a naturalistic belief. You don't seem to think these are valid questions, but are absurd, indicating a non belief in the supernatural.

IOW, the questions are irrelevant and silly, because 'how' and 'why' do not really exist.. that implies a naturalistic assumption, it seems to me. If your intent was otherwise, i hope for clarification.

 

The post made no qualitative statement about the questions, merely encouraged self interrogation as to the meaning and potential worth of questions and questioning.

 

Ok.. thanks.

I'll probably go with hedging, or plausible deniability, since those are more common and easier to spot..

 

So was the belief in atoms to Leuccipus and Democritis in 5th century Greece. They simply hadn't the science to .discover them. 100 years ago it wasn't possible to alter someone's genes to prevent.disabilities, It wasn't possible to clone a sheep, but it's been done. Etc. Etc.

I understand the theory behind abiogenesis. It's no different to the theory of a divine being. Neither has been proved. Many theories have become fact and vice versa.
Here's another theory to consider. Life arrived on earth via some other means.
Try Panspermia and Psuedo Panspermia.
In recent decades is becoming more obvious that the basics for human life are found outside the planet.

What the future holds as regarding man's origin. - who knows.

 

Stop the presses.

Really? There's no other basis for asking those questions?

Why shouldn't we, given that the life cycles of some of those organisms are measured in hours?

So there's no experimental basis for it. Right?

Seeing I'm not aware of the filling of any gaps, I'd say it's a moot question.

And you figure that how, exactly?

Please, it's nothing but diversionary gobbledygook.

More to the point, it doesn't exclude the mutually detrimental arrangement.

What the hell do I care?

Actually my point has nothing to do with that. What I'm getting at is that evolutionary biologists have had at least a century to observe all kinds of organisms with short life cycles, all the while subjecting them to every sort of environmental stimulus they can dream up at times of their choosing, thus greatly accelerating the processes that supposedly happened over the course of eons; and if the transition I mentioned has been observed, I've yet to hear of it.

 

Why do you think that you can accelerate processes which have happened naturally over eons? Even in short lived creatures time and events are of the essence. A million lightning strikes in one day a hundred thousand years ago caused the death of one man. It so happens that man was carrying a faulty gene that would have changed future generations. What are the chances of your repeating the performance under the same conditions - which are not known. You can create all environmental stimuli you can think of. You don't know the exact conditions or whether the one subject ready for evolving is present.

 

You have an over- soul inside of you.... and so do I.... that is astonishingly old.

A near death experiencer was shown that there are fourteen Elohim.... the seven spirits of G-d..... but each are both male and female twins...... Every human being ever conceived has one of the Elohim within them as their over - soul..... most ancient part of their soul.

Gen 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Each of us were sent here to the earth to develop humility...... and learn how to clean up the mess..... restore all the souls led into captivity by former Covering Cherub Lucifer.

https://www.near-death.com/science/articles/richard-eby-and-secomd-coming-of-christ.html#a03

It is kind of like you are Special Forces... but for G-d.... and Rabbi Alon Anava states that you have seventeen angels..... recording every word you say.... and everything you do..... and even think.

https://www.near-death.com/science/research/future.html#a03

 

Because stimuli can be applied according to the timetable of the experimenter, rather than waiting for nature to do it once a year, once a millennium, or whatever.

Nevertheless, it was being done long before I ever gave it a thought, presumably by people who at least understood that one can hardly prove evolution occurs without observing it; and the results I'm aware of do not impress.

 

Ah, yes, of course. Man knows better than nature what stimuli to apply at what time and under what conditions. And what makes anyone think that those subjects need evolution?

 

So you think nature is not just sentient, but sapient as well. How very...odd.