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This again is incorrect. The world will be different. A tree that falls in the forest makes a sound even if no one hears it. And what is more... even if there is no one at all to observe it, if the universe is exterminated... it will have been a different universe than one where I never existed.Once your family and friends dies and there is nobody left to remember you, the world would be no different than had you never existed at all.
Not a fitting analogy. The man spends his whole life building a house that gets washed away every day, and every day he builds it anew. He found his meaning in life building a house. The day he dies and the house gets washed away is the day he no longer needs a house.
So now you take a man who spends one day to build a house that stands for the rest of his life. What now is his meaning?
The reason they are important to me isn't always clear but it involves my genetic need to survive and my wellbeing, the survival and wellbeing of my family and friends plays a large role in my sense of wellbeing and security.
Edit: apparently there is some confusion on what the word "meaningless" means. The Hebrew word used for meaningless is הָ֫בֶל "hebel" which means futility, pointlessness, or fruitlessness. It has nothing to do with the purpose of something but rather what the end result of something.
An example would be a man trying to build a house next to the ocean and every day for the rest of his life the tide came in and swept his work away. The purpose of his work is to build a house. However, what does he have to show for all his labor in the end?
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Taking care of our offspring concerns the genetic need to survive and reproduce.
Why do you need to survive if all that will happen when you die is cease to exist?
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You presented an analogy while talking about the "meaning" or "purpose" or "point" of life. I am not aware that you were asking a question there.I am asking you what would you call the labor of the man not the life of the man.
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Why do we need to survive and reproduce?
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This again is incorrect. The world will be different. A tree that falls in the forest makes a sound even if no one hears it. And what is more... even if there is no one at all to observe it, if the universe is exterminated... it will have been a different universe than one where I never existed.
Since hitting the button that takes you to the first post is too difficult for you, here it is.Sorry, this is a kind of behaviour in a debate like this that I absolutely cannot stand.
You made some kind of assertion. We spend days debating this assertion, the follow-ups, the conclusions and consequences.
And now you think we will go back to the OP - trying to sift through everything to find out what you "clarified"... and then start the whole process again.
No, thank you. If you have something to clarify, just add it to the discussion. If you want to play the "edit" version, I could very well edit one of my posts here to "clarify" something that no-one will ever take notice of.
If meaning is created by "other sources" - and this is what you agreed to here- there each source must be an original true source.
Else it isn't a source, but just a medium. Make up your mind.
If an atheist really "gives his own life meaning", then he doesn't only think that he is the original true source... he is the original true source. Same for a theist who gives his own life meaning by believing that it is God who gives him meaning, just to mention it.
You keep admitting that... meaning is created by other sources, atheists give their own life meaning... but you fail to draw the logical conclusion from it.
When you make a statement like "an atheis thinks he is the original true source of meaning", you still see "meaning" as an independent entity: there is "something" and there is one "meaning of something".
But if, as you admitted, meaning can originate from different sources, this is, ehm - obviously - false. There is "something", and there are as many different "meanings of something" as there are sources.
Exactly. So if you stop existing and ascribing meaning to "life" (which, BTW, necessarily includes your views, opinions and observations of everything else you can see or imagine), there are "others who exist" who ascribe meaning to life.
Nowhere did I ever state or imply that "you" need to be the one and only source of "all" meaning that exists. The sum of "all meaning" (if you could phrase it as such) is created my the sum of "all sources".
All sources create all meaning. God doesn't.
Moving the goalposts. We are talking about where meaning comes from, not where the ability to create meaning comes from.
So we have come from "without God, everything is meaningless" to "even with God, some things are meaningless"
Are there things that are not meaningful?
Do you really think God created meaningless things?
So could God not create meaningless lifes?
So the basic purpose of your life is "to exist"? Why?"Atheism" says no such thing. That is a straw man.
Life is the purpose of life. More specifically, the actualization of a living entity's potentials, such as through growth and maturation. Life is a self-sustaining process. It aims at more of itself, as far as its biological potentials and circumstances allow. It is the living thing's existence that is life's most basic purpose.
eudaimonia,
Mark
What does he have to show for all his labour in the end? Well, in what end?An example would be a man trying to build a house next to the ocean and every day for the rest of his life the tide came in and swept his work away. The purpose of his work is to build a house. However, what does he have to show for all his labor in the end?
If the first "atheist" (why atheist?) is the source of his own meaning, then, being the first, he is also the source of all meaning. As soon as another "atheist" (why not a theist? Are theists unable to create meaning?) "comes into existence", the meaning the first atheist created will not be "all meaning" any more.Let's simplify.
If the first atheist is the first source of all meaning then his parents who are not the first atheists are also the first source of all meaning, this we have a contradiction.
If the first atheist is not the first source of all meaning, but only the source of his own meaning, then there was meaning before the atheist came into existence. Can he explain where this meaning came from that was there before he was?
No, I will have lived a human life. That will be true for the rest of eternity.
eudaimonia,
Mark
I don't necessarily desire it to be meaningful, if that is what you mean by "need". It just happens automatically.
So the basic purpose of your life is "to exist"? Why?
What makes human life different from a bacterium?
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