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?

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# wing90 - 2009-03-30 18:58
I think that the meaning of life can very person to person based on experiences, depression, and or from a "normal" persons point of view. For a long time I have been asking myself why things don't just get better? Why are people crooked? Why do we need all these unnecessary material items to make us happy? Why do people of high authority tell us they want to make our world a better place, and the next day they are in the paper for being arrested for stealing or assault or something that seems very hypocritical to what they want us to believe. Why are people drug addicts or alcoholics? PEOPLE synthesized drugs and fermented veggies and fruits for alcohol. Not to offend anyone, this is strictly my opinion, but why are there so many different religions telling us what to do out of a book that people made thousands of years ago, BEFORE people were all literate? Personally, I think it is about control. Someone has to lead the way. But what way are we led too? No matter what, no human is perfect. It just a shame that with they way our ancestors led us to today. Violence is still out there, but what will it take for us to all just relax and live off of what the earth gives us, and not factory made products. Life is not hard for animals, since they do the basic things, and don't have to worry if they will have their rent money. They don't have to make computers to make their lives easier, or print money so they can go and buy the latest clothes. But they are just animals, and not "evolved" enough, although we are. We got here they same way they did, but we just happened to open the door to our other 90% of our brains, and look where we are today.
Point is, many people think that we are doing well for the human race, and other people got the Sh*t end of the stick, and know that there is a lot of wrong for a life were supposed to live happily. What is the meaning of life? I don't know, but I want to stop living by other people, since no other species has leaders.
We have come too far now as humans to make life as simple as it once was long ago, but will we ever get back to that state again. God forbid anymore wrong.
I'm sorry if this may have offended anyone, but there are different opinions, and thanks to the leaders of our societies, we have the right to express them.
# Pathfinder - 2009-03-30 22:21
God for sure did not forbid anything, since he's not involved in our fights. Just imagine the power of God. Imagine how huge it is. Do you really think that such a powerful being would be angry of us, tiny little pieces of mud? Would you be angry of an ant?

The reason why the world is as it is, is that we create it this way. It is not God who made the world like this, it was us. The difference between animals and human brain is that the human brain's frontal cortex - which is responsible for matching patterns, creating connections, responds, and to make decisions - is much larger according to the other parts of the brain than in animals.

Why do we need a leader? Because we are addicted. It's not just the drug user or the alcoholic who is addicted, basically it's all humanity who is addicted. The difference is just the object of the addiction. Most people are addicted to stress, or different kinds of emotions, which are basically caused by hormones or peptides, which are simply molecules in our body. These chemicals are assimilated in the same way as we use heroin, morphine, alcohol or nicotine. The process through which these things get inside our cells, and the way our cells respond to the absorption of these is the same process that happens with the hormones produced by the body itself. So as far as we can get addicted to drugs, we can also get addicted to our own emotional chemicals.

What happens when someone is addicted? The object of the addiction takes over the life of the person. In an extreme state, the person practically thinks of nothing else but fulfilling the need of the object of his addiction, even if this may risk his own life. Because the chemical withdrawal is so powerful above a limit that he simply can't control anything else. So the way the world is, is actually a result of the addiction of people in the last couple of thousand of years.

Why do we not create better addictions? Because there is no such thing as good addiction. The absence of addiction is the only solution for this, but what does this mean? It means that if someone has no addictions then that person never does anything habitually. He has no habit, he follows no traditions, he doesn't think in any sense of anything what the rest of humanity does. This is the seed of perfect individuality. And in a world where our already created society is based on hierarchy, individuality is not a value.

An individuality has no need to follow the rules, neither the ones from the state, nor the ones from the church. An individuality can only get frighten from itself, if ever, but never from the state or the church. There can be no power in no person's hand ever in a world of 6.5 billion individualities.

It may seem to be a beautiful thing that there would be no control over us if everyone would be an individuality. But look at it from the other side. Look at the so-called enlightened monks. They do nothing.
Now, this nothing can be understood as an inner evolution which has no effect on the outside world, but it's still something valuable. But the fact is that these monks live from the food what other people (who obey the laws and rules of the society) create with their hard work. And if everyone would be an individuality, then the manufacturing of things would be radically cut back. And this would be essentially the raise of a powerful fear: a fear of starvation and lack of everything we got used to in the civilization. And what happens when such fear emerges? War happens.

We can say, of course, that individualities wouldn't go to war, or they wouldn't fear of such things, or they would surely continue manufacturing things and everything would be nice and dandy. But the fact is that there was a thing called socialism, which was essentially about the same thing, and everyone knows that although it's very beautiful, humanity is simply too selfish to make it work.

We can also say that if no one would do anything habitually then no one would have a need for the things of civilization. But the fact is that we do have a need for lots of things. We have a need for food, for medicines, for entertainment, for social connections, for journeys in some sort, and so on. All these are made better, and are continually getting better by civilization. By technological improvements.
Of course there are stupid things in this improvement. Like there are thousands of standards, and they are basically good for nothing, they're really just making someone upset instead of making his life better. But this is the result of the same thing: someone finds out something to become more powerful than others, because he is addicted to power.

Most of our lives we spend with reacting to our chemical needs according to our addictions. Really. Even if you're a founder and owner of a multi billion dollar company, or if you're a leader of your neighborhood, or whatever you may be, you always do things because you're addicted to that particular thing what you try to achieve. Did you ever imagine what kind of life you'd live if there would be no more addiction? No more things to achieve? No more inner need to do something?
# AlbertM - 2011-11-26 17:53
This is VERY interesting, i'm going to start thinking about all this.

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