Thoughts and ideas about existence.

[DwayneEMTP]

Why we're here, as humans, seems to be tied, for me at least to how we got here.

As the universe is 'something' then it seems logical to assume that it came from something else. But my little pea brain insists that if there is something, then there must have been a time 'before something', which would seem to be nothing. How does something come to be from nothing?

The religious folks often say that you can make something from nothing if God does it. I get that, and am not making fun of it, but again there seems like there should have been a time before God, which should preclude the possibility of a God, or a universe, but yet the first is arguably here, and the second provably so. So what the hell? (Heh..Sort of a religious funny right there.)

Why do we do what we do? Why do many of us take our moral and ethical responsibilities so seriously? My behavioral science bent would argue that our behavior today is the sum of our lifelong reinforced and punished behaviors. Yet still I 'feel' that there is something more than that. Something bigger, though a single behavior being performed as the sum of a lifetime of behaviors is pretty huge to me.

Again, some would say that we do those things based on an innate understanding of right and wrong bestowed upon us by a Creator, but that doesn't work for me because as we all know some of the most morally horrendous things have been done by religious leaders and their followers.

What I do know is that doing what I consider to be morally sound things washes me a a 'good' feeling. For example when treating the drunk kindly on the third time I've treated him in one night, when I really want to poke him in the eye with a 10g catheter. I feel good when it's done, and right. Yet when I tell the same drunk what a waste of resources he is and explain that grandma may be dying because I'm wasting my time on him, I feel like a shithead.

What I don't know, is why I feel either of these things.

I love the idea that 'good' and 'bad' most often should be used to describe the status of milk and not people. God is good, yet for many he also created a hell, one of the most sinister, evil fucking ideas ever conceived. So should I ever commit myself to a religion, it certainly won't be to a God that could create a hell. Volcanos are bad, yet every now and then they resupply the world with the micro-substance necessary to sustain life on earth.

And as ak stated somewhere, though I don't pledge my allegiance to any particular religion, I still feel the desire to be morally and ethical sound. I don't do that for a promise of glory, nor to avoid the torment of eternal punishment, so why then do I do it? I'm not sure. Was I born biologically superior to the person that doesn't share these desires? Was my moral cortex somehow more defined simply by an abnormal cell devision at just the right moment? Nah, I don't think so, as I've done some pretty shitty things...

But then again, in the Beginning...No, not that Beginning, I mean the BEGINNING Beginning, there was nothing, and from nothing comes nothing, so we can't possibly be here at all making this whole exercise ridiculous. (Damn it! I can't believe I just wasted an hour of my non existence creating a moot post...)

No answers here Matty, but I hope this was in keeping with the spirit of your thread.

Dwayne

[spenac]

Not joining discussion only providing link showing that hell is actually misconstrued by many in modern christianity since someone wrongly said God created it to be cruel, but based on many churches teachings I see how they got that wrong ideal. I do not agree with everything on link but he does show what the original meaning and understanding of the word was.

http://www.what-the-hell-is-hell.com/HellStats/hell.htm

[DwayneEMTP]

Not joining discussion only providing link showing that hell is actually misconstrued by many in modern christianity since someone wrongly said God created it to be cruel, but based on many churches teachings I see how they got that wrong ideal. I do not agree with everything on link but he does show what the original meaning and understanding of the word was.

http://www.what-the-...lStats/hell.htm

That was a helpful, and really cool link man, thanks for posting it.

And, in a peripheral way, I do believe it belongs in this conversation. As seen by my post above, I don't believe Matty disallowed religion, only asked for an intelligent discussion surrounding it when used. Obviously my comments regarding it are far from intelligent, but they are what I have, and part of the attitude and thoughts I use on those rare occasions that I ponder such things.

Dwayne

[Just Plain Ruff]

Damn Dwayne, no wonder why you haven't answered my PM, what with your sexual fetish with Goth Barbie and rafters and then you providing a really good post above, I can see where all your energy has gone.

But seriously, I'm in agreement with most of your thoughts but they are your thoughts so who am I to disagree with any of them.

I have never thought about what came before the beginning? Makes me think a little harder.

Maybe before the beginning which my bible clearly says "In the beginning God created" and so on, maybe before that beginning of US, humanity, God was working on another project? Who am I to say. I do know one thing, I will ask him that very question when I see him.

But remember, God created the act of free will. You can say you do something in God's name yet are you really doing it for God? Without the act of free will you would be fulfilling God's actions, not your own. Put free will into it and you can do anything in anyone's name.

I could go out, kill 20 women or men and say I did it in Ronald Reagans name and it makes me no less culpable than the people who do what they do in the name of religion. But I digress.

Why am I here? I have no freaking Idea other than my thoughts which I shared the other day. Do I have a clue? Nope but I can assume some things of why I'm here. Are they right, nope or maybe yep. Don't know.

This is a very good thread and one with great answers.

I do apologize for any pulpit banging that I did in an earlier thread but I don't apologize for my belief system. I would not expect anyone else to apologize for theirs.

That's the great thing about both the USA and this forum. We can share our beliefs and thoughts while they may provide arguments and disagreements, they are free to share and we are able to share them. In some countries this discussion as well as the Internet that hosts this forum would not be allowed and we would be forced to meet in private or not at all.

[Mateo_1387]

Forum, I am sorry for a late reply to the thread. These last few weeks have been busy. Thanks all for your replies, here is mine…

Okay, I will start.

I think we are here to learn lessons we need to, which didn't take or we didn't learn in previous lives. As in, themes for your life--like hero, builder, analyzer, controller, healer, humanitarian, etc,,,, And we return until we complete these. From there, who knows? We go onto to something further. I think many on this board are these themes. There are others, but I think I am done for now...........

Hmmm, these define us, I agree, how do you think this ties into the meaning or purpose of our existence?

We are here because some simple self-replicating nucleic acid formed on earth some time ago, and through Darwinian evolution an incredible amount of biodiversity arouse. Our purpose in life should be to maximize well-being and foster a rich, peaceful, and advanced human culture and spread well beyond the earth to ensure our eggs are in more then one basket, in order for survival of the human race. Otherwise our demise is rapidly approaching from human war and religious intolerance, asteroids, a pulsar star destroying the ozone, global warming, climate altering volcanic activity, etc.

A majority of answers I am finding are saying that we are here to better our world. That does seem noble. I think it was Ruff who said it was stupid to think we can all change the world, although some may reach that mark, we have a better chance to enrich our own corner. I can agree with that.

I think one of the most ridiculous things we do is ask questions like this. It's just so anthropocentric. The centipede and the tree don't ask what the meaning of life is. That being said, I love the discussion.

I think our job is to exist, evolve, and most importantly, obey the laws of nature. Every other species does, but somehow we think we are special and can reproduce indefinitely and manipulate our environment to an infinite extent. All creatures affect their environment, but not like we do. We are destroying the biodiversity of this planet while we continue to devolve. *Getting off soapbox.*

One of the most important things I think we can all do is stop defining good and bad. We are so preoccupied with this inane activity, and hell, I do it too sometimes. But recently, when my grandma died, people expressed to me that they were sorry and how it was so "awful." I wasn't sure how to take it. I'll miss her, but she was 92 years old and suffering from late stage dementia. It wasn't GOOD, but neither can I say it was really bad. It just...is. Take a traffic jam as another example. If you sit there and think about how "bad" it is, you will miss seeing it for what it truly is and also miss the opportunity for either introspection, conversation, listening to music, or a million other things. There are so many things in life that we could take so much advantage of if we weren't so caught up in how abstractly good or bad they were. They are.

Tom, I thought getting smacked with a goth Barbie hanging from the rafters was a bit more ridiculous than this discussion, but, then again, you might get more pleasure from goth Barbie…

Interesting though that we are here solely to exist and evolve. So, when we get better at surviving, and evolve becoming greater and greater, isn’t manipulation of nature just another step of it? What are the so called laws of nature we must or should obey?

I agree and disagree with you to an extent about defining good and bad. I am probably not going to be able to explain myself well, but I hope you get my point. Without being able to define good or bad, we are left with neutral. Neutral does not give much of a reaction in response to an event.

A bear charges at you… neutral, it just is.

Your child is screaming in pain from being in a car wreck…neutral, it just is

You just had the best goth Barbie beating from the rafters… neutral, no point in relishing this moment

I guess what I am getting at is there is has to be good and bad in order to extract feelings. Seem that without good or bad, we will not have much of a driving force to make change.

So, I guess that is where I disagree with your opinion that we should not define good and bad. I do agree that we should not occupy ourselves with the definitions though. Much time can be wasted with the practice. For sure.

Here's the rub- God is all powerful, omnipotent, and far more complex than humanity can ever understand. Therefore, God speaks to each individual as they need to be spoken to, sometimes overtly, sometimes not so much. Therefore, the way that you conceptualize God may be wholly different from the way that I conceptualize God... and it is very arrogant of me to assume that I can tell YOU how to communicate with God. That my definition is somehow better or more complete than yours. Without the grace of God, as I conceptualize Him, I would not be alive at this moment. (There are many levels to that statement; if you know me, you already know some of the levels.)

We are here to live life to its fullest and to help each other through the journey called life. Each of us has different strengths, a different purpose in life. To ignore that which we are is the ultimate dishonesty.

Existence, no matter how short, is a precious gift that should not be taken for granted or wasted. Live your life as fully as possible, live in an upright fashion that allows you to help others to reach their full potential, and never forget that there is a greater plan, even when you can't see the blueprint lines.

--Wendy

Wendy, I always love to see your comments, but as we have discussed before, you know I am going to disagree. I get the impression that your argument is that God exists, and that no matter how you view existence, except the denial that God exists, that your relationship with God is just too complicated to truly understand? Please correct me, I’m probably wrong.

The thing is religion is based on faith. I have faith that goth barbies are going to take over the world and kill all of human kind, doesn’t mean it is going to happen, just like a greater plan is not guaranteed.

I have never thought about what came before the beginning? Makes me think a little harder.

But remember, God created the act of free will. You can say you do something in God's name yet are you really doing it for God? Without the act of free will you would be fulfilling God's actions, not your own. Put free will into it and you can do anything in anyone's name.

I could go out, kill 20 women or men and say I did it in Ronald Reagans name and it makes me no less culpable than the people who do what they do in the name of religion. But I digress.

To the bold statement, this is what I think the answer is to define our existence. I have no clue what it is, I just find it interesting to think about. I try not to spend all my time thinking about it, as it could become pathologic, but I find it interesting none the less.

To the rest of your post, which I edited how much was quoted, did you just give points to the non-religious argument?

…………………………………………………………………

I am not certain why we are here. I do feel the desire to make changes for the better in life, to be a moral and ethical person, but I have no clue why. I wanted to see where other stood on this discussion. I love you all for the responses. I apologize that I don’t really have an opinion, but, should I think of one, I will do my best to share it with you folks.

Matty

[Chief1C]

About nine years ago, I ran a really bad call that kinda got to me. I had some trouble sleeping for a good while, and I was prescibed a moderate dose of Ambien to help me get through the night. I took one. Wow. It caused me to hallucinate, slightly. I was seeing colors, and hearing things, like people talking to me, music. It was all so vivid. Someone came to stay w/ me till I went to sleep, and claimed that during my diatribe, I proclaimed I had discovered the meaning of life. I said "Life is who you are, and there's nothing more to it than that". Apparently. Maybe it's true.

If there was no reason for our existance, we'd have ceased to be, long ago. Anything that lives and thrives, has a purpose. What is that purpose? Exactly. Maybe we're better off not knowing.

[chbare]

Thought this would be a relevant addition to the discussion:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/thenatureofexistence/

Take care,

chbare.

[DwayneEMTP]

...I agree and disagree with you to an extent about defining good and bad. I am probably not going to be able to explain myself well, but I hope you get my point. Without being able to define good or bad, we are left with neutral. Neutral does not give much of a reaction in response to an event.

I think that perhaps you misunderstood, (and I'm going to speak for both of us, though of course that may be in error) when you take our comments to believe that there is no such thing as a difference in situations, that all is neutral if we eliminate 'good' and 'bad.'

I proposed that the words themselves have gained a power that is unproductive. About a gazillion years ago B. F. Skinner proposed that we would never come to a point where we would blame environmental factors for an entities behavior instead of an inherent quality. He believed that to solve our crime/prison issues we'd have to come to understand that 'bad' people weren't born bad, but were made bad. We would never do so because then the inverse is obviously true, that 'good' people are not inherently good, but also created by their environment and no 'good' people were ever going to admit that there is not something mentally, spiritually, biologically better about them, thus explaining their success and giving them the right to be scornful of those in the opposite group.

I believe that it's it's more productive to label behaviors, not people, but behaviors as productive or not. When a kid steals a candy bar at the local gas station, that behavior is not only labeled bad, but also the child, as only a 'bad' child would even consider stealing, right? That bad label now needs to be punished if the 'good' people are to feel satisfied that justice is to be done. During that punishment we've not only punished the behavior, but as only bad people are punished now explained to this child that he's been moved from the 'good' category to the 'bad' category, and the new label will shadow much of how he feels about himself in the future as well as likely tarnish much of his future behaviors secondary to a self fulfilled prophecy that he's been taught, against his will. See?

If we instead look at this behavior as unproductive, and understand that all kids are going to steal at some point (at least the vast majority) and attempt to educate this problem away, then we end up with non of the above negative fallout. Does that make sense?

A bear charges at you… neutral, it just is.

Yes, it's neither good, not bad. It depends on perspective.

Your child is screaming in pain from being in a car wreck…neutral, it just is

Not bad, but certainly undesirable, and punishing to the parent, which is a good thing as it predicts less chance of this behavior happening again in the future.

You just had the best goth Barbie beating from the rafters… neutral, no point in relishing this moment

I think we can all agree that this is desirable.

I guess what I am getting at is there is has to be good and bad in order to extract feelings. Seem that without good or bad, we will not have much of a driving force to make change.

Again, I think we probably agree more than disagree, but look at the power of words differently in this instance. I would replace 'good' with reinforcing or desirable, and 'bad' with punishing or undesirable as these label behaviors and not people. And I think that that is much more productive.

As well, I do believe that my way of thinking fits more into the evolution mold then the religious, as becoming more kind, intuitive, insightful, and 'aware' would seem to be a likely evolutionary step. But how then to explain akflightmedic? He's one of the kindest, progressive thinking people I know, yet lives in the body of an ape? Some thing we may just never understand...

Dwayne

[akflightmedic]

Funny.

I get what you are saying Dwayne and ironically, it seems I have been unknowingly applying similar concepts with my children. There are those who may roll their eyes as none of us have perfect children(me either), but when I listen to others talk about their kids and everyone readily agrees, it gives me great satisfaction knowing I have not yet been part of the "normal" child raising experience. I do hope this lasts...

Intuitively? Magazines I do not recall? Books? I am not sure how I came to know what I know but I do know this...we took everything we could which we thought was wrong and attempted to change that when raising our own children. We used logic and reason to educate and inform. We explained why things could not be a certain way or why a certain behavior was unacceptable. We taught morals and values (it is true you do not have to actually have them to teach them). We taught respect, kindness, charity,good citizenry and the kids are capable of empathy.

All of these things are/were taught without the use of religiosity. The children do things because it is the right thing to do. There is no threat to their lives or soul for not complying, nor do they have an innate desire to go out and be destructive cause they are not saved or do not know a certain belief. They value today and they value the person/s who is in their lives. They know joy and happiness. They know there are bad people in the world and they know bad things happen. They know they have the choice in how their life goes, they have control.

For example, when one of them is rude or snappy in the morning, they are asked if they want a good day or a bad day? They take pause, look at you and then do what needs to be done. They either continue where they are or apologize and turn around, go back to their room and reemerge with a better attitude. This is their reset button and I encourage its use. It shows them they have the control/choice and I do not/will not hold a grudge against their temporary behavior shift provided they make the proper corrections. I do my damnedest to lead by example which is the hardest part of being a parent and far too many fail or do not even try because we insist others are responsible for certain elements of our child's rearing.

I applied the behavior concept Dwayne mentioned late last year to a close family member of mine. Someone who I had not interacted with in years and vowed to never speak to again. I had already explained to my children the situation and they were aware (dont want to say understanding) as they really couldn't especially since it is not what I taught them. I decided to treat this person as a person and separate past misdeeds to see if the person had changed, if they had grown over the years. Apparently so far so good and the children have since been able to enjoy this person's company and are very happy with it.

I know I have gone on a tangent but it has some relevance to the topic at hand. From the biological aspect, we are here to survive as long as possible while making babies or doing the deed which brings babies. Those are the two goals of any living creature, plain and simple. However, we as humans evolved quite a bit in our thinking and some of us shed more hair than others, but those goals are still unchanged. How many of you do not want to live? How many of you do not want to have a family? Exactly my point...we could forgo many things in life, but those two are almost universal. Do not confuse wanting a family as being able to have or support a family (cause some dont want all what that entails), basically I am referring to sex. The sex drive and living, we all have those basic needs.

We are here to exist and are now smart enough to make the place better than the way we found it, through design, invention, or its people. It is when we start to tag ourselves as being more supreme than others, when we tag our "evolved" brains into something mighty, that we lose focus on family, community (globally speaking), and simply co existing and enjoying life. It is when we introduce all these other superfluous ideas of existence that the world actually becomes a darker, less enjoyable, more unfulfilling life. When you live for today, you enjoy every minute of it and appreciate and respect all it has to offer you. When you spend too much time planning your "next life" you are only missing out on all the great and wonderful things right here, right now in this life. A very sad state indeed...

[DwayneEMTP]

Thought this would be a relevant addition to the discussion:

http://trailers.appl...ureofexistence/

Take care,

chbare.

That link is cool as hell! I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary.

Dwayne