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No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
callmedubious comments on Aug 22, 2019:
your/our meaning & purpose is commensurate to a protozoa.
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
A protozoa has existence. We have existence. Same, Same in the sceme of things. What is is!!!
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
genessa comments on Aug 22, 2019:
everyone faces that dilemma, not necessarily in connection with losing religion. it is an individual matter. you find your own meaning and purpose in life, for we only have one, it is short in the grand scheme of things, and we live on only in the memories of others. g
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
I believe Comrade Lenin said, "Religion is the opiate of the people". The reason it is a drug is because it feeds people's addiction to myth & storytelling that provides meaning & purpose to their lives & numbs them to the terror of death. Hoping to live in the memory of others is a charade. Suppose you do something tremendous & are remembered thousands of years from now. What does that mean to a corpse that has long since rotted.
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
racocn8 comments on Aug 22, 2019:
That is the serenity of evolution, to give answer, or at least context to these great questions. You may not like the answers evolution gives; they are not wish-fulfillment happy stories. Still, the context is as eternal as it get, and probably Universal in scope. What religion can claim that with a...
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
Evolution has not pretty. It is the survival of the fittest. Sometimes the fittest is the most horrible and vicious, sometimes the most boring & nondescript from our human standpoint, sometimes when conditions change evolution goes backward & more primitive organisms survive. But it is not universal. Evolution is based on what appears to us to be accident, random selection among various possibilities.It is not eternal but very temporary and hyper local. Religion,too, has evolved. The evolution of myth & story telling.
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
Cast1es comments on Aug 22, 2019:
I've seen a lot of noted actors and actresses have died this year . There are those w ho died previously who have left interesting films behind . I still enjoy watching Heath Ledger in " The Knight's Tale ," for instance . We're here due to a tremendous long list of accidents . One celled animals , ...
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
Woody Allen said a great director like Ingemar Bergman, at the end of life, would give up all his great films for one more month of life in his apartment
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
MoonTigerII comments on Aug 22, 2019:
Why does our life HAVE to have meaning? Ego? A very strong possibility. Why should our lives have any more meaning than those of thousands of species of animals that also have consciousness?
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
@dare2dream To paraphrase Socrates, the unlived life is not worth examining
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
CuriosityExtant comments on Aug 22, 2019:
My first questions when someone reaches this point is: What makes you think anything happens AFTER we die? What makes you think there is conciousness AFTER death? Why do you persist in resisting the fact that death is simply the end of life?
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
If death is the end of life, what is life the end of?
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
wordywalt comments on Aug 22, 2019:
You face the existential dilemma. At first, it is frightening, almost overwhelming. Then, when we face the face that we all die and that is all there is, and that there is no inherent meaning in our lives, the fact is freeing, even exhilarating. It means that this life is all that we have, and we...
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
If this is the only life we have, & we believe the only meaning it has is the meaning we give it, that is freeing & exhilirating, but also terrifying. We are forced to make choices in every moment, & if we believe our choices define our being, & sometimes there is no right choice, then we face an endless dilemma, for there is no real right or wrong. Everything is "transactional", as Donald Trump appears to believe. There is a lot of truth in the old saying , "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". We wil lnever know if the choices we make are right or wrong, as there is no standard except our own. This concern is important in Existentialism.
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
MoonTigerII comments on Aug 22, 2019:
Why does our life HAVE to have meaning? Ego? A very strong possibility. Why should our lives have any more meaning than those of thousands of species of animals that also have consciousness?
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
Animals appear to have a form of consciousness. You can communicate with your dog or cat. But animals appear to live in the moment & don't reflect the way humans do. They seem to operate mainly on instinct & haven't developed the cerebral cortex the way human's have. Consciousness of our meaning & purpose & our impending death & the death of all we hold dear is our burden. We are conscious of the passing of time, which is a cause of terror, because we know how it all ends, at least in terms of the only life we have known
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
Kafirah comments on Aug 22, 2019:
To answer your questions, more or less... It is up to you to find meaning in life for yourself, in whatever capacity that means to you. This is a problem everyone faces, religious or not (but especially not). When we die, as best as science can tell, nothing happens. Literally nothing. We simply ...
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
No one really knows what happens to us when we die. There are so called "Near Death Experiences", but they may be the product of residual brain functioning & don't necessarily indicate anything real. We would like to believe our precious egos & experiences are somehow stored in some "Hard Drive" of the universe & can be restored like a Word document, but no one really knows. Maybe the credits roll, the screen goes blank, & our story is over, but I believe those who say that definitely may be wrong also. To be an "Agnostic" means to keep an open mind about what you don't know. Things that can't be proved or disproved. What I said is a "Big Question", which is why I am an agnostic & not an atheist. An agnostic has the humility & courage to admit they don't know anything with our feeble intellect & limited experience about these "Big Questions". Socrates was considered the wisest person in Athens because he admitted he knew nothing. If you say "god" doesn't exist, then you are pretending you know something you can't know. We can get into a long story about what is the definition of "god", from the jealous old tribal chieftan to the Spinozan-Einstinian version of the sum total of the laws of the universe. I like the Woody Allen joke about how he fell in love with a girl in college but couldn't marry her because of religious differences--she was an atheist & he was an agnostic. I also like his one --God, Give me a sign of your existence--like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank account.
People are herd animals.
TomMcGiverin comments on Aug 22, 2019:
I hate sheeple. I will not even be friends with someone who is a sheeple because they are too frustrating to engage with intellectually, like a Trumper or most very religious folks. Just too frustrating. I know that makes me intolerant, but I would rather be that than frustrated with them. I hate ...
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
To be charitable, the majority of people are herd minded & cowardly. The history of humanity is a series of disasters because people refuse to think, except for us elitist scum who have our own prejudices, except they are more subtle & sophisticated than the common herd. Old cowboy saying, "Don't approach a bull from the front, a mule from the rear, or a fool from any direction"
If you were writing god's "To Do" list, assuming there is a "god", what would be on it?
AnneWimsey comments on Aug 22, 2019:
Stop ignoring all the suffering!
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
One of the main problems for theology is called theodisy. If god is all knowing, all loving, all powerful, then why is there so much suffering & injustice in the world. Why do good people get cancer & evil people become billionaires on Wall St.? Why have we seen industrial scale murder & maiming in wars in the last 100 years. Perhaps "god" is not all knowing, or he,she,it is not all loving & just doesn't care, or he, she it is not all powerful & has to share power with the Devil. Or perhaps in the grand scheme of things "god" is beyond good & evil & just not involved with our petty concerns. An earthquake or tornedo come along & kill many people. From our petty human prespective, we call this bad, but they are just natural events that happen without concern for human beings. Tevya sang in Fiddler on the Roof, "Would it hurt some vast eternal plan--if I were a wealthy man". Perhaps the universe really doesn't care about us, & if it squashes you like a bug or makes you fabulously wealthy--Same, Same
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
KKGator comments on Aug 22, 2019:
Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay. Your life has whatever "meaning" you feel like giving it. The biggest thing to remember is that it doesn't HAVE to have any meaning at all. Or that the meaning can change from day to day.
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
Life doesn't have to have a meaning. It may be as Shakespeare said, "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, signifying nothing". But if life has no meaning, except the one our feeble intellects & experience give it, or it has "transactional" meaning, which changes from day to day or even minute to minute, then, as Dosteyevsky"s Grand Inquisitor said , "All things are permitted". Think about this matter
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
Triphid comments on Aug 22, 2019:
We are ALL here simply because at some time the sperm from your biological father entered the vagina of your soon to be biological mother, squeezed through the narrow opening of the cervix, up through her uterus, on into her Fallopian tube/s to meet up with her ovum, they connected and, VOILA, her ...
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
That is how at least a part of it happens but not why it happens & the meaning & purpose of our lives. I believe we must think more deeply. Not that we will ever arrive at a real understanding, most likely, but the journey is more interesting then the conventional beliefs. The struggle, I believe, will build our strength & develop real authenticity. But the outcome will not necessarily be comfort. It may involve suffering.
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
linxminx comments on Aug 22, 2019:
The meaning and purpose of your life is what you determine it to be. LIfe your life, your way, be good and kind to others, be a contributor and not a contaminator, and the rest doesn't matter.
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
Our lives are determined by billions of years of universal development & untold millions of years of evolution, By huge & small events from history,by the roulette wheel of biology & genetics, & by many other factors over which we have no control. Perhaps our decisions have an impact, but that is philosophically debatable (Determinism vs. Free Will).. The notion that our meaning & purpose is whatever we want them to be is, tomy mind, pure wishful thinking. Like the Bob Dylan song says, "Something is going on here, Mr. Jones, but you don't know what it is
No one can tell me why I am here in this mystery.
Tomfoolery33 comments on Aug 22, 2019:
Your meaning and purpose is whatever you decide you want it to be. Meaning is not "out there" somewhere, it's within you. Plants and animals don't care or need meaning. Only humans. We decide what our meaning is. When we die, we are dead, end of story. But we all have lasting affects on other ...
Remiforce replies on Aug 22, 2019:
Our lives are determined by billions of years of universal development & untold millions of years of evolution, By huge & small events from history,by the roulette wheel of biology & genetics, & by many other factors over which we have no control. Perhaps our decisions have an impact, but that is philosophically debatable (Determinism vs. Free Will).. The notion that our meaning & purpose is whatever we want them to be is, tomy mind, pure wishful thinking. Like the Bob Dylan song says, "Something is going on here, Mr. Jones, but you don't know what it is
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