Meaning of Life?

[Peter Lyons]

read this book.

[frank davis]

Some of the events in that book also seem to be lacking sufficient evidence. Remember, extraordinary claims should have extraordinary proof. Otherwise with all the crackpot ideas out there, we might eventaully regress back to ignorant superstitution.

[Peter Lyons]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:
Some of the events in that book also seem to be lacking sufficient evidence. Remember, extraordinary claims should have extraordinary proof. Otherwise with all the crackpot ideas out there, we might eventaully regress back to ignorant superstitution.

Of course, we should be cautious of "ignorant superstition" and not believe something just because a complete stranger says it's the truth. Of all the events in the Bible which you feel "lack sufficient evidence", go ahead and pick one or two the most extraordinary, and I'll see what, if any, extraordinary evidence I can find to support the claims.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by herb slocomb:
Regarding Stevenson and his anecdotal evidence :
Its been about 20 years since I've read Stevenson's book, but was it really that obvious from reading his book that the relatives were giving hints to the young boy about what to remember? Or was this follow up research done by a second researcher?

Actually that was the problem. It wasn't the least bit obvious and no one meant to give him help. But a later investigator talked to someone who remembered the original story that the child told which was different than the story Stevenson heard. Following that trail led to evidence that the child had been given information accidentally. Instead of neutral questions like, "How did the car crash?" the child was asked "Did the car crash into a tree?" which was how the accident occurred. If it had been intentional it probably would have been easier to discover the truth.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
[b]What the heck is it - to admire quote? I actually admire Thomas Paul!

My new signature!

[frank davis]

Originally posted by Peter Lyons:

Of course, we should be cautious of "ignorant superstition" and not believe something just because a complete stranger says it's the truth. Of all the events in the Bible which you feel "lack sufficient evidence", go ahead and pick one or two the most extraordinary, and I'll see what, if any, extraordinary evidence I can find to support the claims.

OK, for starters, there was this part where the sun stood still in sky.
Here's my reply to myself : Many of the events of the bible may have deep meaning but be purely symbolic.
[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: herb slocomb ]

[Anonymous]

Thomas Paul,
I think u r quite close-minded. U r just willing to reject the rebirth possibilities with no doubts.
Hundred years ago, when a scientist said that the Earth is not square shape, which is against the Bible, he was executed. At that time, people were not be able to prove the shape of the Earth..but they never carefully considered and examined the theory of that scientist..they rejected it blindly..
So i think if u r close minded..it's very difficult to persuade you to rethink : rebirth might be possible ..unless u experience some paranormal by yourself.
But about Dr Ian Stevenson, his reputation and itegrity are so respectful..even many skeptics carefully studied his research and praised his scientific research method..Some arguments are presented but so far no one can say that his research is fraud or not scientific..as u said .He used standard scientific process during his research.
Even some close-minded skeptics who presented arguments against Dr Stevenson later admited that although there are might gaps and doubts, his research are remarkable and outstanding!
If rebirth does exits, the number of peple can remember their past lives is very small..and the number of people to remember a huge amount of exact information of their past lives is even smaller..And if those cases do exits, scientiest come and verify and publish..but i think u also will not believe..just by those arguments like : those scientists are not reliable even they are famous for their integrity..the methods to discover the truth may be not reliable..So even if rebirth does exists..with close-minded, u will also believe nothing..
If u are pleased with ur belief, let it be..but i think u r quite subjective and not good to give bad comments on Dr Ian Stevenson and his research..Unitl now he is a honored scientist in the science community..
Many other scientists who supports paranormal are debated,debunked..Only Dr Ian Stevenson can attract serious attention of scientists all over the world without loosing his reputation.

[Anonymous]

Moreover, Dr Ian Stevenson not only collected thousands of Children Rembering Past Lives but also collected of cases of birthmarks..The person remembers the past life and also had 2 or 3 birthmarks..which later proved to fit exactly with the wounds of a deceased person.To prove it, the scientist required other scientists to examine the birthmark to ensure that is is natural..and he found files from the police stations to investigate the wound of the deceased person..
That means no one except the police stations knows the wound..

[Alan Labout]

Originally posted by <Wasabe King>:
[QB]I think the reason why the Human Race try desperately to justify the existence of an after-life (thru Religion, Philosophy.. etc.) is the
FEAR of mortality. That life BEGINS and ENDS, no more no less. That we have only ONE LIFE to live.
QB]

I think that people are so interested in establishing some sort of "meaning" in life not because they fear the idea of death--I actually don't know anybody who is afraid of mortality--but because they fear the idea that they have lived their life in vain.
The meaning of life is curiosity.

[John Smith]

The meaning of life is to understand the meaning of life.

[paul wheaton]

42!
Oh wait, that's something else.
Didn't Monty Python do a documentary on this topic? I learned that a wafer thin mint can do more for you than freshen your breath.

[Jeroen Wenting]

The only meaning of life is to perpetuate and increase the species.
In primitive societies this means raising children, the more complex the society becomes the more distant from that primary goal the concept becomes until you get positions like politicians and software engineers who are not meant to bear children but to enable others to do so more easily.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by <nada>:
Hundred years ago, when a scientist said that the Earth is not square shape, which is against the Bible, he was executed.

Which scientist was this? Hundred years ago? Are you sure? The ancient Greeks had determined the Earth was round.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Copernicus was hassled by the Church for positing that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe. He most definitely was not executed.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
Copernicus was hassled by the Church for positing that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe. He most definitely was not executed.

I think that was more than a hundred years ago, though. Anyway, even Galileo was punished for making the Pope look like a fool, not for supporting the Copernican system. And if you keep in mind that the Pope was a ruler just like a King at the time (he ruled the Papal States), one could easily understand why he might not like being made out to look like a fool.

[basha khan]

i believe in destiny.our life script is predefined.
destiny is customizable at certain extent.but never can be changed.mean some areas in destiny can be customized.for eg,destiny of a person named 'X' is like,
X have a date of birth,place of birth,a dad,a mom,a family,color,gender,genetics ...all these datas in destiny cannot be changed.mean X cannot have any right to change these values in his destiny.
X can change his way of life at certain extent.if X have knowledge on specific area at given time,and makes a decision to change his life according to that knowledge,he can do it.but he is not sure about his belief even.coz he may change his decision later.
X hav no certain belief(power/hold) in even his beliefs.coz he may change it later.the things once X believed 'right' can be be believed as 'wrong' by himself at later time.
the only one part a humen can cherish himself for is his 'willpower to be good/rightous'.a person with willpower can make a slight change in some areas in his lifescript.negatively or positively.
god-devil theory is the best theory currently availeable for good social life than any other theory including socialism,capitalism..etc.god-devil theory suites well with humen mind.
happiness of a soul is directly propotional to his commitment towards good things(there is common standards for good and bad for eg:jasmine smells good for 99.5% of people).doing a rightous life(doing good things)will lead to happiness.
unhappiness of a soul is directly propotional to his commitment towards bad things(there are common standards).all humens are animals basically.but humens lives better becoz of his commitment towards good things than his brain ability(there is something in humen mind than animals.that should be energized to be happy/successfull).all humens get a certain happiness by doing good things.or living rightous life.
live..live..live..improve ur willpower by doing good things.ur success/happiness is measured by that willpower.means a person with more willpower is more successfull than a person with less.
this is the meaning of life.
---
basha

[Mapraputa Is]

Two experts, to explicate Meaning,
Penned a text called "The Meaning of Meaning",
But the world was perplexed,
So three experts penned next
"The Meaning of Meaning of Meaning".

I think, this is from Hofstadter's "Le Ton beau de Marot" book.

[Frank Silbermann]

If you examine life with the same mindset with which an atheist evaluates religion, it seems to me that there is no such thing as life -- there are just some chemical reactions that are more complex than others. From the atheist / materialist perspective, killing a man is no different than extinguishing a match.

[Ashok Mash]

Meaning of WHAT?

[Jim Yingst]

[Fred]: From the atheist / materialist perspective, killing a man is no different than extinguishing a match.
Except that most atheists would recognize that it's not in their interest to live in a society which considers randomly killing a person to be acceptable behavior. It doesn't require belief in God to see the merits of the Golden Rule.

[Mapraputa Is]

Yeah, I remember reading about people who believed diseases are sent on us by God to punish us, and thus are sacred. All attempts of curing are anti-God, dangerous for the patient, and ultimately anti-human.

[Frank Silbermann]

me:

If you examine life with the same mindset with which an atheist evaluates religion, it seems to me that there is no such thing as life -- there are just some chemical reactions that are more complex than others. From the atheist / materialist perspective, killing a man is no different than extinguishing a match.

Jim Yingst:

Except that most atheists would recognize that it's not in their interest to live in a society which considers randomly killing a person to be acceptable behavior.

That is because of their irrational (religious-like) faith that their own life has value. They want to live, but they have no philosophical support for their desire.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Except that most atheists would recognize that it's not in their interest to live in a society which considers randomly killing a person to be acceptable behavior. It doesn't require belief in God to see the merits of the Golden Rule.

It is all pointless though, isn't it. 1,000 years from now it isn't going to make one bit of difference if you died by a random killing while young or if you lived to a ripe old age. In the end we are nothing but worm food.

[Mapraputa Is]

Frank: That is because of their irrational (religious-like) faith that their own life has value. They want to live, but they have no philosophical support for their desire.
If I want to pee, do I need philosophical support for my desire?
Tom: It is all pointless though, isn't it.
Not necessarily. I may believe that how I lived my life affects the society including those who will live after me, so I may want to contribute as much as I can just out of love to my fellow human beings.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

In the end we are nothing but worm food.

I'm actually about as atheistic as they come. But a few days ago, I was buying two bottles of wine for Thanksgiving, and the clerk asked me for six dollars and change, much less than the wine cost; she had obviously keyed something in incorrectly. I pointed this out, and paid the new total when she figured it out. I didn't do this because of any fear of God or Man; just a simple belief in doing what's right because it makes me feel good.
In the end, our bodies are worm food. But I'm not especially proud of my body -- I don't consider it to be one of the more significant features of what makes me "me". We all have a legacy. For me, the meaning of life, simply, is to make one's legacy what one wants it to be. Children, family, life accomplishments, are all part of that legacy. I teach my children, also, to do what's right, because by doing so, I potentially benefit all of mankind, for thousands of generations into the future. That's the meaning of life.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
I teach my children, also, to do what's right, because by doing so, I potentially benefit all of mankind, for thousands of generations into the future. That's the meaning of life.

So what's the point? A million years, a billion years, a trillion years... eventually entropic doom will end it all and it will all have meant nothing. The meaning of life is that there is no meaning of life and ultimately even the worms will be gone.

[Mark Fletcher]

Entropic doom is one end for the universe.
I'll wait until physicists come up with the Grand Unified Theory and how it explains how the universe ends. Even then... it might not be wise to cast your opinion with that camp. God if he/she/it exists, may be a gambler. Or at worst, a joker
Mark

[HS Thomas]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
So what's the point?

We hope to live a life that will leave a tradition behind us plagiarised by many.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

eventually entropic doom will end it all and it will all have meant nothing.

Meaning isn't the endpoint, it's the integral under the curve.
Joy and love have intrinsic value.

[Joe Pluta]

eventually entropic doom will end it all and it will all have meant nothing.
I actually had problems with this when I was younger. Even (or perhaps especially?) when reading novels with truly epic timespans like the Foundation series, I worried about the eventual heat death of the Universe, and how it trivialized everything. I thought I was soooooooo cool, with my insouciance - "it doesn't matter what I do, the heat death will take everything in the end."
And THEN I read the Manifold books: Manifold Space and Manifold Time by Stephen Baxter. And I realized that maybe it's not as cut and dried as all that.
There's another story, whose name and author I cannot remember, in which people were able to outlive the end of the Universe by creating their own little bubble Universes. They were each the seed of a new cosmos. Wish I could remember the name of that one.
Joe

[Mapraputa Is]

EFH: I'm actually about as atheistic as they come. But a few days ago...
Where is my favorite quote... Here:
"Bertrand Russell tells a story that helps me interpret the point Gandhi is making. When Russell was imprisoned in WWI for his pacifist activities, the jailer asked him his religious belief, and Russell replied that he was an agnostic. The jailer replied that he had never heard of that religion but that although people have many different religions, they all worship the same God. Russell did not correct the jailer, for had thought there was a wisdom in what had been said. For we can find a common ideal in both the religious believer and the agnostic. They both tell us that belief in God is and should be primarily belief in one's own conscience, that is, belief in living according to the truth."
William O'Meara. Gandhi’s Commitment to the Ideal of Self-Knowledge.
--------------------
"Meaning isn't the endpoint, it's the integral under the curve." -- Ernest Friedman-Hill