the meaning of life

[miriam_e]

Met a nice old guy yesterday on the bus who started chatting to Margaret and me. He had decided to destroy a lot of his paintings that he'd made for his wife in retribution of the affair she was having with a younger man. Apparently his wife was a deeply religious woman so he couldn't understand what had gone wrong. He thought she needed to go to church more.

I gently pointed out that religion may be the problem, not the solution, and that everywhere in the world that religion is strongest, you'll find that violence, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, etc, are also strongest.

He acknowledged that much of the world's violence is religiously inspired, but asked, "If there is no god then what point is there?" I was trying to formulate a proper answer to this when I lost my opportunity as the conversation moved on.

It amazes me how many times I've heard religious people ask this question. They ignore the obvious answer, that life is for living. What else could it be for?

The weird thing is that although religion purports to give a meaning, when you lift the curtain of paradox and obfuscation you find nothing there. They will say that god has a purpose for us, but when you ask what that purpose is, after a few misleads and conjectures you generally find them happily stating that we can't know what god's purpose is. I don't understand how religious people are not unsettled by how lacking it is to say that if there is a god he has a purpose for us but we can't know what it is. What they are saying is that someone tells us that some unknowable being exists who has an unknowable purpose for us so that makes it all okay. That isn't a purpose. It is an absolute lack of reason dressed up to look like something meaningful might be lurking behind.

It seems to me that when you look at life with a clear eye you see that life itself has one major purpose: to perpetuate life. But we are subset of life that is intelligent, which has given us a second goal: to learn. Being part of a social species brings a third purpose: to care for one another.

Simple logic gives us the most noble triplet of reasons to exist:

• to be life-enhancing
  
• to learn about ourselves and the world around us
  
• to care for each other
  

Comments

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

I agree, it is so frustrating talking to overly religious people sometimes.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It certainly can be. Although I'm sure they find it equally frustrating to talk to me.

It would be nice to find a way to enhance communication. [sigh]
Oh well... maybe another 40 years and we'll have computer-mediated telepathy using stimulation and read out of the tiny voltages in the brain. We can already read the tiny voltages in a live mouse-sized animal's brain at the cellular level. We can't yet stimulate without sticking wires in, and sticking stuff into the brain is way too dangerous.

[cranky--crocus.livejournal.com]

There we go, I like that.

K

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think it is neat. :)

No need for scary religious stuff -- just be good to people and other living things, and learn. Seems so obvious too...

of course

[amberite2112.livejournal.com]

well, yes, yes, and yes.

my personal 3 are:
1-take care of each other,
2-love one another, and
3-be happy.
all else supports these and follow from these.

Re: of course

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Absolutely... if "each other" includes all other life as well as just humans or just our local social or ethnic group. One of our greatest problems is that we tend to narrow our definition of who or what is included in our group.

But yes, I like your list too. Be happy is an important one. Hopefully it usually follows from other things, but I've known a lot of self-sacrificing people who improve the lot of others at their own expense. Being happy yourself should be seen as a noble aim too.

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

I've been reading some humanist blogs, perhaps fearing that atheist blogs are focusing a bit more on the struggle against religious fascists than I need at the present moment in my unfolding. And there's a marvelous fairly recent aeries in the Humanist Symposium on what the purpose, the point, is in a life free of gods.

I've found it wonderfully comforting and nurturing and inspiring. Google "humanist symposium".


I recommend it to you and to anybody who might follow you and me on the path that leads to life and the celebration of life.


That's about as poetic as I get, but I wanted to affirm, even though it isn't needed, how much I admire you and think you've got a lot of the importsnt things right.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Thanks Bob. :)

I'll definitely check out the Humanist Symposium. I didn't know about it. It'll have to wait till I return to Australia though. Internet access is soooo expensive here in New Zealand.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Thanks heaps for the pointer to the Humanist Symposium, Bob. There is some wonderful stuff there. I have downloaded a lot of the pages and have spent ages reading it. Some of it is just beautiful. Probably my favorite is
http://aloadofbright.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/the-credit-we-deserve/

The symposium main page is at
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/04/the-humanist-symposium.html
for those who might be interested.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Where and how do you meet these people?

Did you save any paintings?

"If there is no god then what point is there?" I was trying to formulate a proper answer to this when I lost my opportunity as the conversation moved on.

As an aside, I have been asked that question, but as "If I can't have kids, what's the point of life?".
I usuall give the Buffy answer:" The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it, and you have to keep on living".

I'm not sure those two questions are so terribly removed from each other.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Where and how do you meet these people?

Heheheh :) Just lucky I guess.

Did you save any paintings?

Well, that really is the test isn't it. Did any good come of it? No. [sigh]

Yes the question about having kids is definitely a part it. It is part of the enhancing life thing. I don't have any kids. It is waaayyy too late for me. I do what I can for my family's kids and for any other kids I meet. The world probably has many more humans than it needs anyway without adding more. We should be enhancing the lives of those already here. We can do that best by fixing up the ecosystems we depend upon and improving our knowledge and technology. A side-benefit of that is that a high standard of living is the best, most reliable contraceptive of all. We just need to do that with less instead of more energy and raw materials. I am certain it can be done.

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Tennyson's Ulysses is a pretty good answeer to the meaning of life. The imperialism that Victorians sometimes thought they saw in the poem may be excused by the strong likelihood that Odysseus is about to get his ass kicked.


Sure he is. Do you want to go with him?

Hell yes. Aren't we already going with him.

[sbarret.livejournal.com]

ah but to twist your simple logic, in a liberal religous sense, you get God's purpose right there in your noble triplet, though I'd flip the order (assuming order equates to importance):

- Care for each other (aka love thy neighbor etc)
- learn about outselves and the world around us (seek wisdom thru the Holy Spirit)
- be life-enhancing (procreate, go yee forth and multiply)

;-)

ps - i sent u a separate email. if u didn't get it, lemme know here and i'll repeat. dunno if I have the right email addy

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

If that is the message you take away from religion then I couldn't argue with it.

The trouble is that other people look at exactly the same religious teachings as you do and quite honestly come away with an entirely different set of morals. It is not that those people are inherently bad. Their received morals are quite honest as far as religion is concerned. Unfortunately religion is just as concerned with killing and hurting other people as it is with getting along with people. Just as one person can point to a text in the bible exhorting people to be tolerant and nice to one another, another can point to other texts instilling intolerance and hatred. Sadly, it simply isn't a reliable guide to modern morality. It wasn't even a reliable guide to Bronze Age morality.

And that's just in the bible, which has given rise to hundreds of forms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

But it gets much worse when you consider the around 1,000 major religions that mankind is buffetted by.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions

Even Jesus, one of the nicest guys in religion, considered slavery to be natural and proper. We know now that it is utterly immoral for one person to enslave another.

The simple fact that atheists and agnostics can be good people shows that religion is not needed for that. Morality is independent of religion.

I got your email Sandra. Yippee! Thanks for the thought. I'm grateful and rapt.

Nice guy?

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Even Jesus, one of the nicest guys in religion

You're talking about the guy who invented Hell and sentenced every man, woman and child ever born or ever to be born to an eternity of torment in it. -- unless they go through the precise mumbo jumbo jumbo his church orders.

If Jesus really is more than a syncretic mashup pulled off by 2nd century church fathers who loved nothing more than their own power and he really did exist, then he was a right bastard and our modern-day James Dobsons and Ralph Reeds are apples who didn't fall very far from the tree.

Re: Nice guy?

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Damn it, I'm getting bolshy again. That's stupid, and I'm sorry.


So atupid and so un-alive that I forgot to ask about NZ and how you're doing. Are you happy? You deserve it, and it's what I (and a bunch of other people)wish for you.

Re: Nice guy?

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

heheheheh :)
No not stupid. No apology needed.
And you are absolutely right about the Council of Nicea. What a bunch of bureaucratic hypocrites they must have been! As an example, leaving the warning about agriculture destroying ecology out of the bible -- that's what the whole expulsion from the garden of Eden by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is about. They left out the bit that makes it clear it is about growing crops and livestock, because it was inconvenient. A friend of mine was researching the excluded books and was appalled to find that.

I'm not really here in NZ for a holiday, but to help a friend who is having problems. I must admit I'll be glad to get home. I miss the peace of living alone way out in the country. Being continuously around other humans is surprisingly stressful.

Re: Nice guy?

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... you've got me there. Did he invent heaven and hell? Or was it already around? Or were the words put in his mouth by that hateful nut Paul of Tarsus? (He wrote more than half of the new testament.)

Most of the truly horrible Christians are not really Christian at all, but Paulian and don't realise they are followers of someone who I'm sure Jesus would been freaked out by.

Being a faulty human I'm sure Jesus had plenty of failings. I seem to recall it being reported in the bible that he cursed an entire town to hell... or was that that nasty worm Paul again? But in all, with his philosophy of non-violence and tolerance, Jesus (I actually prefer his real name: Joshua) was a pretty nice guy. Especially when you compare him with the norm of that day. Unlike most people back then he actually valued human life, which was an amazing step forward. If he was somehow teleported to the present I suspect he'd seem a little morally backward. The human race has become a far more moral and good bunch over the last 2,000 years.

Re: Nice guy?

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Even if I'm not entirely sold on the proposition that Jesus was a nice person, I've always known you were. I need a T-shirt with "WWMD" on it.

During your visit to NZ, even when the pressuress from being with the people around you are getting to be too much, be alive to those people (for them) and with those people (for you).


As if you'd ever do anything else.

More purposes for life

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

To grow and change as much as I can.

To share unselfish love with people around me.

[chrysb.livejournal.com]

I met a womyn at the airport and she was talking about her religion. She asked me mine and I said I don't believe in any God. She then asked "What do you believe in?"

M reply, "people and life"

The conversation went quiet after that. Oh well.

Re: More purposes for life

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yay! Chrys! Hi! :)

Nice answer. :)

I think I've decided I'll greet all other religious people as fellow atheists. When they object that they aren't, I'll say, "Sure you are. You don't believe in Thor, Poseidon, all the Hindu gods, the multitude of gods of various tribal people around the world. You are an atheist. I just disbelieve in one more too."

I got the idea from a talk by Richard Dawkins.

So kiddo, how the heck are ya? I hope you are having lots of fun and enjoying life.

Re: More purposes for life

[chrysb.livejournal.com]

Hi Miriam,

I am very good thank you? Having a ball being very busy with art, Di, family & etc. I had been going through all my old internet sites today and I also got a card from Margarat. I have printed off a pic which I will turn into a card for her and send on Monday.

Both of you turned up on the same day :o

I really should be doing assignments for Uni but I am very good at procrastinating. That is a long word that you can dilly dally around by the time you get to the end of it;)

Casey, Kyoko and Reiji are expecting another baby. They don't know what it is yet but they are hoping for a girl to balance the family out. They don't really mind though. It's due in August.

The womyn who I was house sharing with moved out. I am here trying to survive on my own. I think I can manage. Time will tell.

Di is putting on a Gilbert & Sullivan show in England in August. I am supposed to be building a prop but I can't seem to find where you get large blocks of polystyrene foam. I will keep trying.

Anyway what have you been up to? I had a quick look on lj and still like your stuff. Casey had used one of your stories as inspiration for teaching english to one of his classes.

I am off into the bush tomorrow to collect some clay to test for ceramics. I will go to the old gold digs around Creswick . I can't possibly do any more damage than what has already been done. I only need little bits to test. There is a very white powdery clay there which intrigues me.

Nauty is still bouncing around like a kangaroo. He never stops. He asks to go outside by coming up to me and then walking to the door with me following behind like a good little humyn that I am. He then stands still while I put his lead on.

There's no creek here as I am in Ballarat Suburbia but he still likes to go out and pretend to stalk the birds. He is hilarious to watch while he shadow boxes the insects. The insects usually win.

Bye for now and I will in touch again.

take care
Chrys