God, The Afterlife, and the meaning of Life

Does belief in god(s) gives "our" life meaning? According to Oxford Dictionary The definitive record of the English language, meaning is defined as the significance, purpose, underlying truth, etc., of something, etymologically it means to intend. I understand how the idea of an objective force which create something implies a purpose or intention. However, if we don't know what this purpose is, does it give us meaning? Or is it a purpose to the one who created it and not necessarily to what was created? I have heard god at least Jehovah, created us for a variety of reasons from caprice to having dominion over his other creation. However, as Thomas Paine once wrote unless this was revealed to me too, this is hearsay and nothing more and thus it does not give my life a meaning. Also, how does an afterlife give this life a purpose? Some argue that this life is a precursor or a reward/punishment for the next, however how does a two year old who died when he was killed by his 12 year old brother or a four-year old girl with down syndrome who was stabbed to death by her mother life has a purpose or a meaning in the next one? ( these are two examples that I found when I searched the internet with a simple phrase "two year old murdered by..." and these two incidents where some among many that the Google search found) In other words, how does a very short life span demonstrate that life has a purpose? For even if life has a purpose of what Schopenhauer called the will to live, then everything would live at least long enough to procreate? However, my examples clearly shows everyone doesn't live long enough to reproduce. Is there a purpose to life? If there isn't does this mean, that life is meaningless? I know that I don't know.

The Big Whimper

I have been thinking about the meaning, purpose, and perhaps the function of my existence. Today, I read an article on the website The Universe Today, titled "The End of Everything" by Fraser Cain , and according to the website Dark Energy is constant, and based on the models the best estimate is that it will remain constant and this means the universe will, approximately 100 Trillion years from now, be one big lifeless, cold, and energy-free nothing, it is called the Big Freeze. In other words, the universe started with a bang but will end in a whimper. Therefore I ask; if the universe will end, why should I care of what I am doing now, it is all for nothing, as Ecclesiastes states in Ecclesiastes 1:2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” However whoever wrote this book concluded in Ecclesiastes 12:13 "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind" but how can this be our duty, how is this a point or give us a meaning? What if a person for instance, like when she was six years old a girl name Rosanna (now 11 years old) was shot by Charles Roberts IV when he shot 10 Amish girls at a school five years ago, in which five died. Rosanna survived but as her father Christ King states, "She cannot walk, talk or eat, yet Rosanna is aware of her surroundings and attends an Amish school" how can she fulfill her "duty" if she is in a vegetative state? Additionally, there are some kids who are born in vegetative states from the womb; how will they too fulfill their "duty"? I think the so-called teacher's conclusion is bullsh!t, a big whimper! How is god going to judge someone who has been in a vegetative state most of their lives through no fault of their own, she happen to be in the wrong f@cking place at the wrong f@cking time or this the way people are born, and there isn't a d@mn thing you can do about it! Yes, we can have improvements in science and have societies without guns, yet there will be people who are sociopaths and psychopaths who will kill and not everyone in the world will have access to these discoveries in science or live in a gun free society. Why should we care if it ends in nothing? I think the reply in the Power of the Myth by Joseph Campbell put it best when Bill Moyer stated Zorba says, "Trouble?" Life is Trouble" Campbell replied "Only death is no trouble. People ask me "Do you have optimism about the world?" And I say, "Yes, it's great just the way it is. And you are not going to fix it up. Nobody has ever made it any better. This is it, so take it or leave it. You are not going to correct it or improve it." Campbell goes on to state " It is joyful just as it is. I don't believe there was anybody who intended it, but this is the way it is. James Joyce has a memorable line: "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake," And the way to wake from it is not to be afraid, and to recognize that all of this, is a manifestation of the horrendous power that is of all creation. The ends of things are always painful. But pain is part of there being a world at all." To me it means, I care because this world as flawed as it is, it is all we have; take it or leave it, and my participation in life is my affirmation of it even though it ends in a whimper, it's my whimper. As meaningless as it is, it is still my meaning! Think about it! John D. Socrates a.k.a. The African Socrates.

The Fate of the Universe and the Meaning of Life

I came across a website www.askphilospher.com and I was wondering if anyone asked a question about Albert Camus and the Absurd and I found an interesting question and three answers. The question was "If every life results in death, then what is the meaning of life?" There were three replies, which were:
"Peter Lipton on November 23, 2005
The meaning of life comes from what you do in your life: your activities and achievements. These are real even though you die, and would be no more real if you lived forever (though admittedly you would have time for a lot more of them).
Alexander George on November 23, 2005
If your life now has no meaning, no value or point to it, then having a lot more of such a life isn't going to improve the situation. A whole lot of nothing doesn't amount to much.
Peter S. Fosl on December 30, 2005
This is a compelling question. I remember encountering it in a powerful way reading Albert Camus's essay, "Absurd Reasoning." Recently, a student of mine broached it during a discussion we were having about the condition the universe seems to be heading towards. It seems, I'm told, that everything in the universe will ultimately degenerate into a vast, endless, more-or-less uniform, horribly cold and dark field of low-level radiation. Some call this condition, the final destination of the universe, "entropic hell."

In light of this apparent fact, the relevant question concerning the meaning of life is this: since everything we accomplish will ultimately be destroyed and degenerate into "entropic hell," what meaning can anything have?

I think there's something misleading about his question, however, something that lurks in a hidden assumption that the question makes. The question and its force rely largely on the assumption that life has meaning only if it lasts forever. In my view, this is a dubious assumption, and indeed one that plagues a good deal of our culture's thinking about value.

Far from being a necessary condition for meaning, I think that immortality and endless existence would actually undermine the meaning of life.

Consider the issue this way: would life be as meaningful or even meaningful at all if it weren't finite? That is, if we lived forever would much or anything matter to us? Perhaps the avoidance of physical pain would still matter, but simply not being in pain seems to be a relatively meaningless affair. Don't many of our projects have meaning for us just because we know that one day we and they will come to an end?

The very fragility of things gives us reason to care what happens to them, to defend them and us against harm or diminishment. When you can just start over or always have a substitute, things don't really matter. Because, however, things are finite and we know we're going to die our actions count. We'd better get things right because we're not going to get another shot.

Consider an imaginary world I call "Plentos." In Plentos people live forever, or at least as long as they wish. There are no shortages of any kind in Plentos. Every kind of food is available in limitless supply. Land of every description is available to all. No one wants for speedy, effective medical care. Everyone is omniscient.

In Plentos, life could not be meaningful."

To piggyback on the Peter Fosl's reply I thought about another analogy as well, if life was like a book, as a book have a beginning, for it to be meaningful it must have an ending. However, if a book never ended; how could one get a meaning out of a never ending story? As Dr. Fosl brings out the finite reality of something gives it its meaning. This is why Nietzsche brings out the problem of "other worldliness" of religion especially Christianity and Islam, it devalues this life by creating the idea of an afterlife. As a result, if you are certain of an afterlife would you really value your health, loved-ones, time, the environment, blow-up yourself on a bus or in a market full of people, fly airplanes into building, etc? I think so because you're certain that you'll get a second chance or a continuance of some type of existence. However, would you do this if you knew this is the one and only life you'll ever live? Think about it...

Black Socrates

The Absurd

I have been studying existentialism, and I feel that what it means to me is that it is up to the individual to define the meaning of their own life via choice and take responsibility for those choices. In my research of existentialism, the author Albert Camus is often mention, as a result, I read The Stranger or the Outsider and The Plague. To get a better philosophical perspective of his thinking, I read the myth of Sisyphus over the Winter Solstice break and it is about the absurd (from reading his perspective he was critical of existentialism so I don't know why he's consider an existentialist). The Absurd is humanity's attempt to find meaning or to make sense of an indifferent universe. Albert Camus starts the book off with discussion on Absurdity and Suicide. Suicide is when the person agrees with the Absurd, that is, existence is truly meaningless and thus not worth living. Camus analyzes the absurd and the normal responses which he concludes is a leap of faith and suicide, for the leap of faith which he concludes Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Husserl, and even Kafka all took the leap because they still tried to find meaning in an indifferent universe. Yet Camus offers a third option of living with or facing the absurd through revolt (i.e. we should not accept any so-called answer or solution in our struggle), freedom (i.e. as Sartre stated we a force to be free), and passion or diversity (i.e. we should pursue a life of abundant and various experiences). He demonstrates absurd living using four examples Don Juanism or the Seducer, the Actor, the Conqueror, and the Artist. Camus shows how the Greek myth of Sisyphus is the absurd hero who was condemned by the gods to push the rock to the top of the hill just to see it role back down to role it up again. I think this means the innate drive of life is twofold that is, everything revolves around survival and passing on your genes to keep the game going. In other words, life keeps on evolving, the universe keeps on expanding because it does not have a meaning or a point it is trying to get to, the universe and the life within it is its own point! I know some feel that in order for life not to be absurd there must be a purpose beyond life itself, yet if you ask what is the point or purpose of whatever is beyond life itself that is heaven, hell, reincarnation, etc, would it really be a point or a purpose? Why this life; if the point is a life somewhere else? I think living this life to get somewhere else is really Absurd. Think about it....

Sense of Nonsense

I think life is its own point, if there’s a point to life at all. What do I mean by point? A point is defined as a significant or essential thing or a sense or purpose. (Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus American Edition). In other words, our existence is a significant or essential thing in and of itself and does not gives a sense or purpose to something else. For example, if there was a god how would our existence make his existence significant or add anything to a god, therefore if there was a god our existence would be insignificant to this being, I feel no greater than a piece of grass in the scheme of things, if the predictions of science is correct this universe will continue to expand, eventually cool and become empty space with subatomic quarks and leptons being the remnant of the big bang. I breathe a sigh of relief because Christianity, Islam, and all religions are just distractions to take people attention away from these facts, because if they were true, what is the point of an afterlife, if it’s a reward for this one, then why do infants die at birth or are strangled by the umbilical cord in the placenta. To give you analogy, the Turkana boy was 8 to 10 years old when he died, what had he accomplished in such a short time span to be punished or rewarded for. Also, his lineage Homo erectus or ergaster are extinct, in fact we are the only homo lineage left. This should tell us that everyone prior to us are no longer here and evolution does not have an end in mind. All evolution and natural selection cares about is passing on the genes or gene replication and variation and if we are not successful then our individual lineage dies out and if we are not adaptive as a species to change in climate, environment, and/or lucky when it comes to asteroids and other natural disasters then we as a species will die out. This planet has existed billions of years before we came on the scene and will continue to exist if we are not. This is truly a humbling experience. Our existence is a means to its own end and it points directly to itself, which means I am responsible for the meaning life has for me (period) and as Joseph Campbell said in the Power of Myth, this is the way it is, take it or leave it. Think about it...

History

What is history moving us towards or what is the meaning of history? My question implies that there is a point that history is moving towards something significant that is a point, a reason, a purpose, or an end to the story. I was recently watching Countdown to Armageddon on the History Channel International as I watched it, the thought came to me the idea of the end of the world is this innate desire for this life to point toward something that is an end to a story. However, maybe that’s what the bible is a story with an ending that has nothing to do with reality. If I wrote a book and some events in real life happens that was written in the book, this does not make my book a book of prophecy, it was a book written to entertain, to tell a story, I feel the bible is the same, it is a collection of books that some people have mistaken for reality. In Christianity the point is to either be in heaven with Jesus or to return to a new Earth with Jesus. There is suppose to be a new Heaven as well; where God, his angels, and those who were righteous but not a part of the body of Christ will live. From my understanding the bride of Christ who is the Church of God will be the ones who will rule with Christ on Earth. My question is; then what or what is the point of that? Is nothing else going to happen? We want an end, but an end means a stop in evolution or change, no more development. When a book end there may be a sequence but eventually the story should end. Analogy would be Harry Potter will grow up and the story will get stale, in other words, there are only so many plots you can write before you have to come up with something new. J. K. Rowling must feel like she is stuck writing Harry Potter books. If she writes something other than Harry Potter whatever she writes will be compared to Harry Potter, sometimes success is not what it seems. Back to my point, the problem of accepting a story or a series of stories as a point of our existence is that there is nothing that you can do to convince a believer that another story is possible or in other words, religious believers accept that their myths are reality when it is not, it's just a story people used to explain the unknown, nothing more. Therefore, does history have an end? I hope not, this means we no longer exist. Furthermore, with our species still evolving and changing who knows where we will go, in other words, an open-ended history, our potential is unlimited and thus history is not a story it is reality and it can be whatever we want it to be. Think about it...

Meaning of Life Part 2

I think one of the best quotes I have every read came from a debate between William Lane Craig and Dr. Ray Bradley in 1994. In the Q and A section of the debate an audience member asked Dr. Bradley if there's no God then what's the meaning of life. Dr. Bradley answered "The quickest way I can answer is to invite you to consider the following analogy. You open a book, a good novel perhaps or a history. You read it. What do you read? You find all sorts of sentences that in the book have meaning. The book comes to an end. There's a period at the last page. There's nothing more thereafter. Does this mean that because the book--your life by away of analogy--has come to end, there is no meaning in life? On the contrary, I want to suggest the meaning of life lies in the little things that we do for each other in life. It lies in the texture of everyday existence. It does not lie in yearning for something in an afterlife. If it lay in the latter, if this life had meaning only by virtue of there being another life afterwards which gave it meaning, then what is the meaning of that life? It would have to be followed by a still a third, and so on." The entire debate with the exception of the Question and Answer section can be heard on Common Sense Atheism , this site have over 400 plus debates.