The meaning of life

Since the dawn of time, the ultimate question has been asked in a number of ways. Why do we exist? What is the meaning of life? Does God exist? What is the origin of the universe? How does the world exist, and what is its origin or source of creation? Why is there something rather than nothing?

This site offers you the possibility to discuss this fundamental metaphysical question with others. It also allows you to share your opinion and react to other people's points of view. What do you believe in? What do you think is the meaning of life?

Whether you are a believer, an atheist, an agnostic, or a clever mix of all three, you are welcome! Your point of view can be serious, absurd, even bordering on completely nuts. However, the following two things are essential to this dialogue: respect and an open mind.

Respect: you may defend your opinion and try to prove the falsity of another, but it is forbidden to attack its author directly. Fascism and generalisations are strictly verboten!

An open mind: if you can't handle having your convictions being put into question, this might not be the place for you. For this same reason, a sense of humour is highly recommended! If your beliefs forbid their being made fun of, you might not want to participate in this dialogue.

You don't have to register in order to be able to comment or to start a new thread. We do, however, highly recommend that you register. By doing this, you can easily look up everything you've posted and, if you like, modify it. You'll also be able to track new threads and new comments.

Please note that this site is neutral and does not promote any one religion or belief in particular. The opinions and texts that appear on the site are the sole responsibility of their authors.

The site reserves the right to refuse and delete any submitted content without notice.

You can contact us here.
Forum / For those who are addicted to beliefs and deny the truth
# Pathfinder - 2009-02-19 01:43 - 2009-02-19 02:01
I believe that there are people who do not deny. Yet, they're probalby not more than a dozen altogether, perhaps in each generation. The most of us denies a part of reality, either feelings, body, beliefs or the truth. Some say that feelings are indescribable with the words of science, and they are far too important to ignore, hence science may not be the way but feelings.

Let me quote for these people what one of the greatest minds of our time, the Nobel-prize winning physicist, Richard P. Feynman wrote in his course book, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. I hope this will open up the eyes of a few, and helps them realize that there is no reality and no truth, thus no worthwhile emotions within ignorance.

by: Richard P. Fenyman: The Feynman Lectures on Physics vol. 1.
How I'm rushing through this! How much each sentence in this brief story contains.
"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one small topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part — perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined!
Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?


And let me quote here another one, from the same book, just to see that it's life itself, with all its beauty and nature, what science is about.

by: Richard P. Fenyman: The Feynman Lectures on Physics vol. 1.
A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!
reply
If you don't want to reply to the current thread but want to start a new thread, click here
username:
comment:
captcha:
- copy the code in the input
captcha
 

Login