the meaning of life

afro-elf · 05-07-2002, 05:14 PM

THE MEANING OF LIFE

(for Charleston Unitarian discussion circle - 10/15/00)

By James A. Haught

Young seekers of truth go through a phase of wondering whether life has any discernible meaning. Why are we here? Why is the universe here? Is there a purpose to it all? This is the ultimate question, overarching all others.

The seekers usually plunge into philosophy, and spend years sweating over "being" and "essence" - and quibbling over how the mind obtains knowledge - and how we determine reality - and how language shapes our comprehension. In the end, most of them emerge (as I did) with no better answer than when they began - and a feeling that they wasted a lot of time and effort. Omar Khayyam felt the same way 900 years ago:

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and saint, and heard great argument
About it and about, but evermore
Came out by the same door as in I went.

However, despite this futility, I think intelligent people can address the meaning-of-life question sensibly, without bogging down in philosophical stewing and hair-splitting. That's what I'd like to do today: just spell out what's knowable, as I see it. The following is my personal, amateur view.

First, 90 percent of humanity - the religious believers - don't need to ask the meaning of life. The church tells them the answer. Priests and scriptures say a magical, invisible god created the universe, and put people here to be tested - and set behavior rules for us to follow - and created a heaven to reward the rule-followers, after they die - and a hell to torture the rule-breakers - etc. This supernatural explanation, or some other mystical version, is accepted by the vast preponderance of the human species.

But some of us can't swallow it, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that people continue living after death. Nobody can prove that people are tortured or rewarded in an afterlife - or that there are any invisible spirits to do the torturing and rewarding.

Therefore, we unsure people are doomed to be seekers, always searching for a meaning to life, but never quite finding one. I've been going through it for half a century. Now, I think I can declare that there are two clear answers: (1) Life has no meaning. (2) Life has a thousand meanings.

First, the lack of meaning: As for an ultimate purpose or transcending moral order, all the great thinkers since ancient Greece have failed to find one. The best philosophical minds have dug into this for 25 centuries, without success. There have been endless theories, but no clear answer.

Martin Heidegger concluded that we are doomed to live our whole lives and die without ever knowing why we're here. That's existentialism: All we can really know is that we and the material world exist.

The universe contains awesome violence. Nature here on Earth can be the same way. Both seem utterly indifferent to humanity, and care not a whit whether we live or die. Earthquakes and hurricanes and volcanos, etc., don't give a damn whether they hit us or miss us.

As for morality, I don't think any exists, independent of people. It's merely rules that cultures evolve for themselves, in their attempt to make life workable.

Conservatives talk of "natural law" - but there really is none. If Ku Klux Klansmen lynch a black from a limb, the tree doesn't care. Neither do the squirrels and birds in the branches. Neither do the sun or moon above. Nature doesn't care. Only people care.

Take human rights. Thomas Jefferson said all people "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." But I think Jefferson was wrong. There's no evidence that any Creator endowed anyone with any God-given rights. What unalienable rights were enjoyed by African blacks who were sold into slavery - including those on Jefferson's Monticello plantation?

What God-given rights were assured the 6 million Jews sent to Nazi death camps? - or the 1 million middle-class Cambodians murdered by Pol Pot's peasant army? - or the 1 million tall Tutsis killed by short Hutus? - or Ulster children killed by Catholic and Protestant bombs? - or Hiroshima residents in 1945 - or around 1 million women burned as witches by the Inquisition?

What was the meaning of life to the millions dying of AIDS - and the millions who died in the 1918 flu epidemic, and in the Black Plague - and the 900 who gave cyanide to their children at Jonestown - or the 90 who burned with their children in the David Koresh compound? What meaning existed for thousands of Hondurans drowned in hurricane floods a couple of years ago? Or those 16 Scottish kindergarten tots who were massacred by a psycho with pistols? Or the 2,000 American women killed by their husbands or lovers every year? Or the 20,000 victims the Aztecs sacrificed annually to the invisible flying serpent? - or the 20,000 the Thugs strangled for the goddess Kali?

Meaningless, senseless, pointless - all these horrors have a grotesque absurdity about them. Words like purpose, rights and morals simply don't apply.

I think these evils make it obvious, by simple logic, that there is no all-loving, all-merciful, all-compassionate, father god. How could a kindly father watch idly while thousands of children die of leukemia, ignoring the desperate prayers of their families? Why would a kindly creator design nature so that lions slaughter antelopes, and pythons crush pigs, and sharks rip seals apart - and women die of breast cancer? Only a monster would arrange such monstrosities, and do nothing to save the victims. Therefore, common sense proves that the beneficent modern god is a fantasy who doesn't actually exist.

In his book, Consilience, the great Harvard socio-biologist E.O. Wilson pointed out that there are two fundamental ways of looking at reality: Empiricism, believing only what evidence tells you - and Transcendentalism, believing that a divine or cosmic moral order exists, independent of humanity. If any proof ever upholds the latter, he said, "the discovery would be quite simply the most consequential in human history."

So much for meaninglessness. Now for the many meanings:

Obviously, the reality of physics, chemistry, biology, atoms, cells, matter, radiation and all the rest of nature imposes a physical order upon us. We can't escape the laws of nature that govern animals on an orbiting planet. And the inevitability of death is a force stronger than we are. We can't prevent it. Therefore, whatever meanings exist must apply to the temporary period while we live.

Clearly, there's a physical and psychological purpose to life. Our bodies need food, and clothing, and shelter, and health, and affectionate comfort, and security from violence and theft, and so forth. We also need gregarious social reaction with people around us. And we need democratic freedoms, so we can speak honestly without fear of punishment - and justice, so we won't be treated cruelly. These are the humanist purposes of life: to provide better nutrition, medicine, housing, transportation, education, safety, human rights, and all the other needs of people.

To attain this humanist "good life," the species has a strong need to raise intelligent, healthy, affectionate, responsible children. Sometimes I think the single biggest purpose in life is raising good kids.

I think we all endorse this biological/psychological meaning of life. We believe in preventing war, curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, averting famines, and taking all the other steps that make life pleasant - until death takes us.

However, aside from this "housekeeping" type of purpose, is there any greater meaning that transcends our human needs?

I don't think so. At least, I've never been able to find any proof of it. We simply must try to make life as good as possible, and avoid horrors, and care about people, and have fun, even though we know that oblivion is coming.

Make hay while the sun shines - because darkness is on its way. Carpe diem - seize the day for now; live fully while you can. Omar Khayyam saw the folly of aggrandizing oneself, because ill fortune or sickness and death soon wipe it out. And praying for heaven after death is even greater folly: "Fools, your reward is neither here nor there." So Omar's solution was to take comfort in verses, wine and his lover "beside me singing in the wilderness - and wilderness is paradise enough." About 1,400 years before him, the great Greek skeptic Epicurus felt the same way.

So there you have it: We who are not orthodox religious believers can't find any underlying reason for existence. And we know that death looms ahead. So we must make the interval as enjoyable as possible, while we're here. This view of life's purpose was summed up a few years ago by the title of a Unitarian seminar: "Dancing over the dark abyss." And Zorba the Greek said: "What is life, but to dance?"

StrawberryIcecream · 05-07-2002, 05:22 PM

Afro elf? are you going for a new thread record???!!!

can't all that be summed up as 42?

so much simpler!

emplynx · 05-07-2002, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by StrawberryIcecream

can't all that be summed up as 42?

That depends. What is the question?

Rána Eressëa · 05-07-2002, 10:34 PM

The meaning of life is simple. The meaning of life is . . . life.

aldesign · 05-08-2002, 05:00 AM

im not gonna read that, untill im really bored, or im drunk.
to this thread... "laterz!"

andy

***Earniel*** · 05-09-2002, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rána Eressëa
The meaning of life is simple. The meaning of life is . . . life.

I agree.

StrawberryIcecream · 05-09-2002, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by emplynx
That depends. What is the question?

Who knows! the earth was destroyed by the vogons 5 minutes too early!

Glorious Glorfindel · 05-09-2002, 02:04 PM

i agree strawberry.
42.
that is the meaning of life, the universe and everything. it did take a few million years to discover this of course, but that is besides the point. i think vogon poetry, however, is quite the opposite to the meaning of life. it is the meaning of quite simply...
arrrgggghhhhh...no...evil...vogon.....poetry...

Andúril · 05-10-2002, 06:08 AM

What is the meaning of life?

If someone asks me this question, I must ask certain questions of my own:

1) Define "life". What exactly do you mean by the word?
2) Define "meaning". What is meaning?
3) Can you show that it is necessary that "life" has or involves "meaning"?

afro-elf · 05-10-2002, 06:50 AM

did you just post or did you read the first entry also so?

Quote:

However, despite this futility, I think intelligent people can address the meaning-of-life question sensibly, without bogging down in philosophical stewing and hair-splitting. That's what I'd like to do today: just spell out what's knowable, as I see it. The following is my personal, amateur view.

I thread could have been named what do you think about the author's view

Andúril · 05-10-2002, 08:46 AM

Quote:

First, 90 percent of humanity - the religious believers - don't need to ask the meaning of life. The church tells them the answer.

Nobody needs to ask that question. But most of us do. Religion exists as a tool to answer certain fundamental questions, and this is certainly a fundamental question. So it isn't that the religious don't need to ask the question - they already have, which promotes the continued existence of religion. Others ask the same question, but they don't accept the theological answers. My opinion, ofcourse.

Quote:

Now, I think I can declare that there are two clear answers: (1) Life has no meaning. (2) Life has a thousand meanings.

Well, (1) can't be an answer, because what it states implies that the original question, is meaningless. Therefore, it is not a question, and no more should be said.

As for (2), one cannot answer the question What is the meaning of life? by saying there are multiple meanings. The question has already implied that there is only one answer, by "is the meaning".

Quote:

To attain this humanist "good life...

Appealing to a moral guidline. Subjective.

Quote:

We believe in preventing war, curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, averting famines, and taking all the other steps that make life pleasant - until death takes us.

Assumption. I don't believe in any of these things. Still appealing to a certain set of moral codes.

Quote:

We simply must try to make life as good as possible, and avoid horrors, and care about people, and have fun, even though we know that oblivion is coming.

Still appealing. It is clear that the author has an opinion on what "ought" to be done. In my opinion, which Bertrand Russell also seems to hold, the notion of "ought" is a concept created through fear of a type of disaproval of ones actions, by a perceived higher authority. Whatever authority it is, it seems the author has assumed it's existence. Whatever validity it may have, he does not support this assertion.

Quote:

So we must make the interval as enjoyable as possible, while we're here.

Why?

afro-elf · 05-10-2002, 10:50 AM

We believe in preventing war, curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, averting famines, and taking all the other steps that make life pleasant - until death takes us.

Quote:

I don't believe in any of these things

do you any views on those statements?

Andúril · 05-10-2002, 11:10 AM

Yes, I know, it sounds harsh.

I couldn't care less if war was prevented, or if war was provoked.
I couldn't care less if all diseases were cured, or if every disease was uncurable.
I couldn't care less if literacy was improved, or if it dwindled into non-existence.
I couldn't care less crime occurred more, or less than it does now, or even not at all.
I couldn't care less if famines were averted or if we all eventually died of hunger.
I couldn't care less if my life was pleasant or unpleasant.

Read the first line of this post.

These reactions are all emotional. I am almost completely emotionally stunted. Sometimes I might get a laugh out of you, but that doesn't mean I am a jolly, happy person.

Yes, I know, the scenarios mentioned would have a physical effect on me in one way or another. Great. Cause and effect. It just seems that my emotions aren't really effected by such things.

05-07-2002, 05:14 PM	#1
afro-elf Hoplite Nomad Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 3,931	the meaning of life THE MEANING OF LIFE (for Charleston Unitarian discussion circle - 10/15/00) By James A. Haught Young seekers of truth go through a phase of wondering whether life has any discernible meaning. Why are we here? Why is the universe here? Is there a purpose to it all? This is the ultimate question, overarching all others. The seekers usually plunge into philosophy, and spend years sweating over "being" and "essence" - and quibbling over how the mind obtains knowledge - and how we determine reality - and how language shapes our comprehension. In the end, most of them emerge (as I did) with no better answer than when they began - and a feeling that they wasted a lot of time and effort. Omar Khayyam felt the same way 900 years ago: Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and saint, and heard great argument About it and about, but evermore Came out by the same door as in I went. However, despite this futility, I think intelligent people can address the meaning-of-life question sensibly, without bogging down in philosophical stewing and hair-splitting. That's what I'd like to do today: just spell out what's knowable, as I see it. The following is my personal, amateur view. First, 90 percent of humanity - the religious believers - don't need to ask the meaning of life. The church tells them the answer. Priests and scriptures say a magical, invisible god created the universe, and put people here to be tested - and set behavior rules for us to follow - and created a heaven to reward the rule-followers, after they die - and a hell to torture the rule-breakers - etc. This supernatural explanation, or some other mystical version, is accepted by the vast preponderance of the human species. But some of us can't swallow it, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that people continue living after death. Nobody can prove that people are tortured or rewarded in an afterlife - or that there are any invisible spirits to do the torturing and rewarding. Therefore, we unsure people are doomed to be seekers, always searching for a meaning to life, but never quite finding one. I've been going through it for half a century. Now, I think I can declare that there are two clear answers: (1) Life has no meaning. (2) Life has a thousand meanings. First, the lack of meaning: As for an ultimate purpose or transcending moral order, all the great thinkers since ancient Greece have failed to find one. The best philosophical minds have dug into this for 25 centuries, without success. There have been endless theories, but no clear answer. Martin Heidegger concluded that we are doomed to live our whole lives and die without ever knowing why we're here. That's existentialism: All we can really know is that we and the material world exist. The universe contains awesome violence. Nature here on Earth can be the same way. Both seem utterly indifferent to humanity, and care not a whit whether we live or die. Earthquakes and hurricanes and volcanos, etc., don't give a damn whether they hit us or miss us. As for morality, I don't think any exists, independent of people. It's merely rules that cultures evolve for themselves, in their attempt to make life workable. Conservatives talk of "natural law" - but there really is none. If Ku Klux Klansmen lynch a black from a limb, the tree doesn't care. Neither do the squirrels and birds in the branches. Neither do the sun or moon above. Nature doesn't care. Only people care. Take human rights. Thomas Jefferson said all people "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." But I think Jefferson was wrong. There's no evidence that any Creator endowed anyone with any God-given rights. What unalienable rights were enjoyed by African blacks who were sold into slavery - including those on Jefferson's Monticello plantation? What God-given rights were assured the 6 million Jews sent to Nazi death camps? - or the 1 million middle-class Cambodians murdered by Pol Pot's peasant army? - or the 1 million tall Tutsis killed by short Hutus? - or Ulster children killed by Catholic and Protestant bombs? - or Hiroshima residents in 1945 - or around 1 million women burned as witches by the Inquisition? What was the meaning of life to the millions dying of AIDS - and the millions who died in the 1918 flu epidemic, and in the Black Plague - and the 900 who gave cyanide to their children at Jonestown - or the 90 who burned with their children in the David Koresh compound? What meaning existed for thousands of Hondurans drowned in hurricane floods a couple of years ago? Or those 16 Scottish kindergarten tots who were massacred by a psycho with pistols? Or the 2,000 American women killed by their husbands or lovers every year? Or the 20,000 victims the Aztecs sacrificed annually to the invisible flying serpent? - or the 20,000 the Thugs strangled for the goddess Kali? Meaningless, senseless, pointless - all these horrors have a grotesque absurdity about them. Words like purpose, rights and morals simply don't apply. I think these evils make it obvious, by simple logic, that there is no all-loving, all-merciful, all-compassionate, father god. How could a kindly father watch idly while thousands of children die of leukemia, ignoring the desperate prayers of their families? Why would a kindly creator design nature so that lions slaughter antelopes, and pythons crush pigs, and sharks rip seals apart - and women die of breast cancer? Only a monster would arrange such monstrosities, and do nothing to save the victims. Therefore, common sense proves that the beneficent modern god is a fantasy who doesn't actually exist. In his book, Consilience, the great Harvard socio-biologist E.O. Wilson pointed out that there are two fundamental ways of looking at reality: Empiricism, believing only what evidence tells you - and Transcendentalism, believing that a divine or cosmic moral order exists, independent of humanity. If any proof ever upholds the latter, he said, "the discovery would be quite simply the most consequential in human history." So much for meaninglessness. Now for the many meanings: Obviously, the reality of physics, chemistry, biology, atoms, cells, matter, radiation and all the rest of nature imposes a physical order upon us. We can't escape the laws of nature that govern animals on an orbiting planet. And the inevitability of death is a force stronger than we are. We can't prevent it. Therefore, whatever meanings exist must apply to the temporary period while we live. Clearly, there's a physical and psychological purpose to life. Our bodies need food, and clothing, and shelter, and health, and affectionate comfort, and security from violence and theft, and so forth. We also need gregarious social reaction with people around us. And we need democratic freedoms, so we can speak honestly without fear of punishment - and justice, so we won't be treated cruelly. These are the humanist purposes of life: to provide better nutrition, medicine, housing, transportation, education, safety, human rights, and all the other needs of people. To attain this humanist "good life," the species has a strong need to raise intelligent, healthy, affectionate, responsible children. Sometimes I think the single biggest purpose in life is raising good kids. I think we all endorse this biological/psychological meaning of life. We believe in preventing war, curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, averting famines, and taking all the other steps that make life pleasant - until death takes us. However, aside from this "housekeeping" type of purpose, is there any greater meaning that transcends our human needs? I don't think so. At least, I've never been able to find any proof of it. We simply must try to make life as good as possible, and avoid horrors, and care about people, and have fun, even though we know that oblivion is coming. Make hay while the sun shines - because darkness is on its way. Carpe diem - seize the day for now; live fully while you can. Omar Khayyam saw the folly of aggrandizing oneself, because ill fortune or sickness and death soon wipe it out. And praying for heaven after death is even greater folly: "Fools, your reward is neither here nor there." So Omar's solution was to take comfort in verses, wine and his lover "beside me singing in the wilderness - and wilderness is paradise enough." About 1,400 years before him, the great Greek skeptic Epicurus felt the same way. So there you have it: We who are not orthodox religious believers can't find any underlying reason for existence. And we know that death looms ahead. So we must make the interval as enjoyable as possible, while we're here. This view of life's purpose was summed up a few years ago by the title of a Unitarian seminar: "Dancing over the dark abyss." And Zorba the Greek said: "What is life, but to dance?" __________________ About Eowyn, Does anyone know what her alias Dernhelm means? She was kown as dernhelm because of her exclaimation when she realized that the rider's headgear was heavy and obscured her sight. 'Dern Helm" Culled from Entmoot From Kirinski 57 and Wayfarer.

05-07-2002, 05:22 PM	#2
StrawberryIcecream Elf Lord Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: In my jeans Posts: 915	Afro elf? are you going for a new thread record???!!! can't all that be summed up as 42? so much simpler! __________________ www.foolofatook.com for all you pippin's out there.

05-08-2002, 05:00 AM	#5
aldesign Elven Warrior Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Uk Posts: 447	im not gonna read that, untill im really bored, or im drunk. to this thread... "laterz!" andy __________________ The funniest story on the net, made by entmoot fanatics, visit it @ FOTMB.com FRODO LIVES!! GET FREE AVATARS HERE!

05-09-2002, 02:04 PM	#8
Glorious Glorfindel Elven Warrior Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: im too doped up to remember Posts: 371	i agree strawberry. 42. that is the meaning of life, the universe and everything. it did take a few million years to discover this of course, but that is besides the point. i think vogon poetry, however, is quite the opposite to the meaning of life. it is the meaning of quite simply... arrrgggghhhhh...no...evil...vogon.....poetry... __________________ A Elbereth Gilthonial Silivren penna miriel o menal aglar elenath Na-chaered palan-diriel o galadhremmin ennorath Fanuilos, le linnathon nef aear, si nef aearon! add a drop of lavander to milk. leave town with an orange and pretend you're laughing at it.

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05-07-2002, 10:34 PM	#4
Rána Eressëa The Rogue Elf Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,722	The meaning of life is simple. The meaning of life is . . . life.

05-10-2002, 06:08 AM	#9
Andúril The Original Corruptor Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 2,881	What is the meaning of life? If someone asks me this question, I must ask certain questions of my own: 1) Define "life". What exactly do you mean by the word? 2) Define "meaning". What is meaning? 3) Can you show that it is necessary that "life" has or involves "meaning"?

05-10-2002, 11:10 AM	#13
Andúril The Original Corruptor Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 2,881	Yes, I know, it sounds harsh. I couldn't care less if war was prevented, or if war was provoked. I couldn't care less if all diseases were cured, or if every disease was uncurable. I couldn't care less if literacy was improved, or if it dwindled into non-existence. I couldn't care less crime occurred more, or less than it does now, or even not at all. I couldn't care less if famines were averted or if we all eventually died of hunger. I couldn't care less if my life was pleasant or unpleasant. Read the first line of this post. These reactions are all emotional. I am almost completely emotionally stunted. Sometimes I might get a laugh out of you, but that doesn't mean I am a jolly, happy person. Yes, I know, the scenarios mentioned would have a physical effect on me in one way or another. Great. Cause and effect. It just seems that my emotions aren't really effected by such things.