What gives your life meaning?

How can you have a want to live in either when you don't have free will?

Originally Posted by JackyBoy

The failed counter argument is that God gave us free will. That is wholly incompatible with God's omnisicience. Free will can only merely be an illusion. God already knows every choice and their outcome long before you ever make the choice.

Unless you do the logical thing and diminish the qualities of God. Throw out omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and benevolence and the problem with the arguments from pain or qualitative paradoxes go away. You're left with a potentially undesirable deity that lacks perfection, but a God nonetheless.

Man exists with the qualities we find undesirable in a God, why cannot a God exist in them as well?

With that said, I find that my "reason" is actually quite close to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The push through my day comes from the process of self-actualization, and namely -- learning. The ability to process sensation and information is one that I find drives me.

Socrates once said that the unquestioned life is not worth living. I hold that the life without learning is not worth living.

Originally Posted by JackyBoy

How is it compatible that life could have meaning while under the influence of God? If God exists then humans are a pathetic lot indeed. Every choice you make is the outcome caused by God. If things are controlled by God then there is nothing you can make, earn, and change. All of these things are planned out even before your birth.

The failed counter argument is that God gave us free will. That is wholly incompatible with God's omnisicience. Free will can only merely be an illusion. God already knows every choice and their outcome long before you ever make the choice.

People often say they wouldn't want to live in a universe without God. I wouldn't want to live in a universe where there is God!

One thing for sure; GOD is NOT totally absolute. GOD does control most of our choices and path, but S/HE gives us something in return. S/HE gives us free will. In this part, I have to agree with you. But the thing is, GOD may have already made a path for anyone to be walked through, but the choice to do it or not (once again) lies in the hands of us. GOD is omnipotent, and GOD controls all, but after all, S/HE only creates templates, and the rest is for us. S/HE is flexible, after all.

You know, some people say and believe that GOD is actually a little kid who does nothing other than watching human, playing jokes on human, and laughs at us. Most certainly, I agree on these.

Here's the news people: Life has no meaning. There is no reason for you to be here. Our existence is without purpose. You know everything you do has no impact on human civilization. You are a blip. All things listed here are just time killers, things to do, entertainments. They are the things you do to occupy yourselves so you can forget that your life is inherently useless. Life, for all it's sound and fury, signifies nothing.

And I, for one, feel pretty good about it.

Originally Posted by whinehurst

Life has no meaning. There is no reason for you to be here. Our existence is without purpose.

Life, for all it's sound and fury, signifies nothing.

Then, do you agree with suicide and killing? If you say that life has no meaning, then it's OK to end it whenever we want to, with or without any reason.

Originally Posted by Ozma

Then, do you agree with suicide and killing? If you say that life has no meaning, then it's OK to end it whenever we want to, with or without any reason.

Suicide? totally. I have no qualms if people want to end their own lives; it's their life to do whatever with.

Killing? as in other people? No. Killing is bad. Here's why: even though I believe life has no purpose, doesn't mean I don't enjoy living. I just don't delude myself into thinking there's a reason for me to be here. And I'm pretty sure most everyone else feels this way too (the bit about enjoying life). So really, it's just flat out mean to kill somebody else without their permission. I feel that the golden rule applies here; if you don't want anyone to kill you, then don't go killing others.

And if that's not good enough, well then, since life is meaningless, every action you take is without purpose, so killing somebody is just a waste of time and energy and why bother really?

What if you enjoy doing it?

well, some people do. But they're usually insane.

You know, Whinehurst, after giving a lot of thought about, actually you have claimed that life HAS a meaning. For you, the meaning itself is meaningless.

Originally Posted by Ozma

You know, Whinehurst, after giving a lot of thought about, actually you have claimed that life HAS a meaning. For you, the meaning itself is meaningless.

um, no: meaningless= without meaning To say that life has meaning by being meaningless is like dividing by zero.

Originally Posted by whinehurst

Here's the news people: Life has no meaning. There is no reason for you to be here. Our existence is without purpose. You know everything you do has no impact on human civilization. You are a blip. All things listed here are just time killers, things to do, entertainments. They are the things you do to occupy yourselves so you can forget that your life is inherently useless. Life, for all it's sound and fury, signifies nothing.

And I, for one, feel pretty good about it.

If you really want to get down to it, the meaning of our lives is to propagate our DNA. Plain and simple. We only exist as a means by which our DNA can be passed on to future generations.

That's really irrelevant, though. Live life for life. Enjoy it while you can.

I'm with you all over the place on that one, Capo. i guess that's also my point, when i said I felt pretty good about it. I only think of it as meaningless cause the way i see it, something the exists only to insure its existence is pretty stupid.

But fuck it, here we are, it's a freebie. We don't have to do anything to earn life, we just have it. Go have fun.

Wouldn't the meaning of life to be to enjoy it as much as possible, then? =\

(Taking meaning to be the point of something.)

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Wouldn't the meaning of life to be to enjoy it as much as possible, then? =\

(Taking meaning to be the point of something.)

Well, the way i see it seems to be harder to explain than i thought. When i say meaning and purpose, i mean that we are here on earth to do a very specific thing. I don't believe that very specific thing exists. And i like that it doesn't exist, because it allows me to fill in the gap with whatever i want. So basically, i'm mostly agreeing with you, i'm just defining it a little differently.

I guess, here's the thing, I don't believe in a Creator thing that made humans. So how can i think that there was a reason for us to be made? Since i believe our existence is basically a fluke, i believe we just get to be alive and intelligent and conscious for free.

Originally Posted by whinehurst

I guess, here's the thing, I don't believe in a Creator thing that made humans. So how can i think that there was a reason for us to be made? Since i believe our existence is basically a fluke, i believe we just get to be alive and intelligent and conscious for free.

If there is no reason for us to live, then why are we created in the first place? It's just a waste of energy, time, and ingredients. We are breathing right now because we are to have something, even if we are destined to do nothing at all. THAT is the purpose of life.

Even if you say it's basically MEANINGLESS; OUT OF MEANING, you still give it one fundamental base; that life's meaning is null.

Originally Posted by Ozma

If there is no reason for us to live, then why are we created in the first place?

That's the thing, I don't believe in a creator. So that question's irrelevant. I believe we are the result of complexity, that life was not intended, it just is.

Originally Posted by Ozma

Even if you say it's basically MEANINGLESS; OUT OF MEANING, you still give it one fundamental base; that life's meaning is null.

I don't know how to better clarify this, but I'll try: Either there IS meaning, or there IS NOT meaning. They are polar opposites. One can not be the other. It's like binary. It's either ON or OFF. You can not have something be ON because it is OFF. You can not have NOTHING and SOMETHING at the same time.

I'm not filling out a form (Meaning of Life: Null)
I'm saying there is no form ( )

Originally Posted by Ozma

If there is no reason for us to live, then why are we created in the first place? It's just a waste of energy, time, and ingredients. We are breathing right now because we are to have something, even if we are destined to do nothing at all. THAT is the purpose of life.

Even if you say it's basically MEANINGLESS; OUT OF MEANING, you still give it one fundamental base; that life's meaning is null.

Like I already said, we've evolved from the most basic lifeforms to better pass on our DNA from generation to generation. That is the fundamental "meaning" of all life on Earth. That should be meaningless, though, in the way with which you carry on your life. Live it to the fullest, because, really, what else have we got?

I definitely do not agree that each person is born into this world to do a specific thing, that's a silly thing to think. For one, I would find it pretty sad to be put here to do one specific task. Seems like an underutilization of resources, God.

I do think that to have happiness you must have purpose. Purpose, in this case, is not an intrinsic mission you're sent on from high, it's what you yourself are striving to do. My purpose is to be a great computer programmer. One's purpose can change, too. For example, when(if?) I have children, perhaps I'll develop an additional purpose to be a good father.

There's already been a lot of argument in this space by philosophers going back thousands of years. It might be helpful to go back and take a look and see what folks smarter than you & I have come up with.