what is the purpose of man?
why do we Life?
after all, we grow, we learn, we die?
why? what's the purpose?
There is no purpose.
It's one of the heights of human arrogance to think we have a "reason" for being here. No. We don't. We are just the products of evolution and we are here to live out our lives. Now we can make our life devoted to one thing sure. But there isnt a pre-assigned purpose.
I agree with PoeticHeart. There is no purpose to our existence. If we were created with a purpose, we would surely know it, as we would be told by whoever created us. As I don't think anyone created us, we have no purpose.
interesting... you think we'd know our purpose.
a computer doesn't: we make them.
a television doesn't... etc...
needs sentience ... and, much more.
Us making inanimate objects for a specific purpose is a little different to creating things that can think for themselves like us.
apparently we are here to use up all the resources and destroy the planet....we must have been put here by terestial alians!!!
Put a group of robots on a planet and hide your existence from them, i guarantee you they will respond in the same way we have.
It's a little arrogant to say that because we don't know with certainty what purposes we might serve that we are completely bereft of any purpose whatsoever.
Like a robot on a mound of dirt with no creator to give me direction, my direction is whatever i please.
perhaps, I might suggest, the journey of Life, is purpose in itself...
what is the purpose of man?
why do we Life?
Age old question answerable in many ways from different schools of thought and personal feelings.
What is the purpose of Man?
In that question lies the mystery of life itself. Not just for man but for everything that exists. From the smallest particle to the Largest planet. What is the purpose of man?
Lets put God up on the shelf for a moment, we've all seen and read many posts over the years on VR about God and Angels and the Devil, so let's just concentrate on man for a minute without thinking about any Esoteric being.
Well that was interesting...it seems that the above void is self explanatory.
Everyone knows I try to look at all things through the eyes of science and cold facts. But I also believe that there is more to the world than just what we see or can understand.
I do believe in a god and I feel humanity was created for a reason. That reason is to be in communion with both god and each other. To experience life, to learn and grow for the sake of each other, and ourselves.
To me this life is just one step out of several but it's the most important one. We are required to engage other people and to grow in every aspect possible, always bettering ourselves and to not do that we fail ourselves and as human beings.
I am often harsh of "normality" and being "average" but only because I believe that no one is ever at their height, that potential is ever present and the act of growth is the most important aspect of being human. We learn, we love, we explore, we are ever growing.
The ultimate purpose for it may be up for debate but the reason itself of why we are here I feel is not up for debate and that we all must aim ever higher and for good of ourselves and our world.
Life is nothing but a test on the way to death. We make choices like answering a question and whether it's a bad choice (wrong answer) or a good choice (right answer) decides whether we have a good life and a bad one. Our purpose is different, some people's purpose is the help others, or to entertain others, or just to be examples (I'm sorry but some people are examples). Pretty much, life is just that....a test.
Nice one Fatal Attraction, I liked that.
I often think... it's just an opportunity to learn...
just seems such a waste that when we have...
...we die.
A baby is born and not one knows how to walk and talk, they must learn to by trying and failing until the are successful. A teenage goes through changes in social and sexual behaviors so they can learn to handle the emotional aspects of adulthood. And adults attempt to master the world around them.
The physical, the mental, and the emotional aspects of ourselves all have tests which we are expected to try, fail, and learn from... Why should the nature of your soul be any different??
Your purpose is the evolution of the soul!!
Your job, the size of your house, whether or not your good looking or kind to the environment doesn't matter one bit.
Whether or not you try, whether or not you even recognize this fact doesn't change the fact that this is your only purpose.
No point. Life just is a struggle. We fight and we work but in the end it makes no difference. Only the goddesses and gods can make an impact in the large sceame of things. So........... No point. Humans just think things because they cannot process or function without due cause, even of it happens to be a lie.
'to learn' and, 'no point'.
it does seem like there's no middle ground.
The purpose for life is the evolution of our DNA. Our lives are in insignificant except for the evolution of our DNA.
Wow...believe or not we are not different then Animals, just because we can use our brain in a different level. We, as Animal, are mutant bacteria created during the evolution of our planet. Yes, as bacteria, we are born, we grow and then, we stop to exist due to the deterioration of our body. For some, sound like a science fiction statement, but, stop, think and analyze every part of your body....strange but true.
Ahem, I think I said that... we are a colony.
BUT many, well, are greater than the sum of our parts.
And many on VR know Sum of us can do weird Shit !
Quite how strong these few are remains to be seen, but I have a feeling, that if this Planet were genuinely threatened...
Then a flew gifted individuals would step forward, even if it meant burning themselves out.
Life is for living, experiencing, and affecting lives around us-either in a good way or bad. I have often asked myself the same question, but no matter how much I twisted things around looking for an answer there isn't one. Unless you want to die, life is to be alive.
That is my answer when I disregard all things beyond being human.
If I start to regard "afterlife" in the vast philosophy that I follow, life is an opportunity to gain access to the upper spheres of the universe by knowledge & practice and to ultimately become as "God".
I think existence having meaning comes down to whether or not you believe there is some sort of higher or spiritual power dictating what "purpose" should be.
'Life is for living, experiencing, and affecting lives around us-either in a good way or bad.'
I do like that... a lot.
Tho... in essence, existence itself doesn't require purpose. We find purpose through existence.
* Point up at your last statment *
And as I stated earlier Angelus, the experience of life is the only reason you are here.
You just answered your own question!!
but I'm not interested in what I think. I know what I think. It's the opinions of others and, whether I can validate my arguments ... that fascinates me.
We can live and grow and change. But in the end nothing we do ever matters or truely makes a difference. Humans think they have a purpose so as not to end there lives out of depression or madness.
we grow, we learn, we die... IF that's purpose, we have it... YET many, like myself... believe there is something, even if we cannot quite define what.
hence the question.
...still...perhaps the inability to find one so far might suggest that none exists?
guess that remark could apply to anything.
thing is.. just 'coz I haven't seen the deepest trecnch at the bottom og the sea, doesn't mean it doesn't exiist.
and...
follow that line of thought a moment, please...
We all have a purpose I believe; I do not believe there is one general purpose of life. We where created perhaps to supply the Gods with something they need? We must have been created for some reason; some say just to amuse them, lol
what is the purpose of man?
why do we Live?
well. we live to exist, survive struggle...
but what else???
Personally I cannot believe, this is it.
You are the one ultimately in control of your purpose. You make the choices.
Evidence, one should always follow the trail of evidence, discounting that which cannot be.
All things told, we are here for one of two reasons, to entertain higher beings ?
Or perhaps as Douglas Adams concluded, as some far greater experiment directed by a greater species.
I only hope they have a sense of humour ...the giggling and Party antics of those taken indicates they do indeed enjoy our human antics.
life has one purpose to give it all youve got and enjoy ur time while you are alive
that presupposes thast the people giving evidence are truthing???
Nah...
never been ANY evidenceof it... and I read of that subject, a lot.
Hmmmm.
Perhaps... Creation & Adaption
Being Pragmatic in our learning.
humanity as biological organisms have the same purpose as anything else...to survive and reproduce.
humanity as thinking beings however choose their own purpose.
~W~
well phrased Sir.
but humanity I fear, does not have a collective purpose, too selfish as individuals, for that.
The problem some people have is that their viewpoints usually think all people are the same. This is not true.
Only we can determine our own purposes with what we are the most skilled at. There really doesn't have to be a grand design. Life is a gift, just not everybody is good at knowing HOW to live it.
It really is all about one's own perception of things. There is nothing wrong with people wanting some kind of purpose to make their lives more fullfilling is there?
Who's to say that we don't have one?
The one's that say we really don't have one, well, to be quite blunt about it...are merely humans who choose to believe that way but that doesn't make it necessarily TRUE either.
It may sound the most logical to believe we are creatures with no purpose but when something happens in YOUR lives that changes you, trust me those viewpoints can change on a dime depending on the forces at work.
There are many many stories of how a person is a non-believer one day, and a changed person the next. Purpose is no different. We may have no purpose today, but that doesn't mean you will have no purpose in the future or tomorrow.
Succinct, LordWolf. I'd add that the word "purpose" in this context presupposes a great deal: that we were created divinely; that this purpose resides in a soul with which we are also endowed.
If you take dogma out of the picture, we still can't keep spirituality out, cause whether you're fortunate or unfortunate on earth, humans experience Wonder.
Because we're creatures with words we assign them to Wonder, and dogma follows. You know the rest.
As for the people who experience deathbed conversions - they're sell-outs as far as I'm concerned.
From wonder into wonder, existence opens Laotse
Lol Angelus. First off, long time no type. I know.
Why debate existentialism? One will find a great deal of difficulty deriving any sense of meaning from random whimsical meanderings posted by strangers.
"What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing."
Soren Kirkegaard- 1835
There is no true purpose save what we make for ourselves, just as in all likelihood there is nothing after death to look forward to. Don't make me go into "I ___, therefore I exist." mode. :)
I think we all have purpose,we have free will. Life is what you make it. No one pulls our strings but ourselves. To me this is like asking what are we living for,I live for my daughter and granddaughter
I think it's individual and it changes all the time, depending on the situation and life stages.
Soren Kirkegaard- 1835
There is no true purpose save what we make for ourselves...
there is a truth here... but, not the whole truth.
simply, we exist.
I wondered 'why?'
And, maybe there is a someone, or something with a greater purpose, for us; till we learn that... our own individual purpose... is our own reality.
In my opinion, to think life has a predetermined purpose is to make the make the assumption that someone or something assigned our lives, placed us on this planet, and programed us to do what we do.
(Disclaimer: I claim to know nothing. There may or may not be a higher power.)
I agree most with PoeticHeart. Perhaps, life has no purpose.
I also like the theory that purpose of life is to live, as mentioned previously by NikkiAidyn.
we began in primeveal soup.
and we go to where we are.
there is a design.
but, whether it's abeneficial happenstance or Divine purpose, I know not.
but as to our own purpose here, it's simple.
to learn, survive and Live.
"Everything has always been the same."
"You can not lose another life than the one you're living now... nor live another life than the one you're losing."
"The longest life is the same as the shortest."
"Some things are rushing into existence... others out of it. That is because time is a river: a violent current of events, glimpsed once, already past us and is gone... but only for the immortal, never to be forgotten."
- Marcus Aurelius,
Dictates of a Warrior.
Indeed, i believe each one of us feels that man's purpose is different on a case by case basis
perhaps it is to take us to a point of evolution wherein the next Big Bang takes place?
If that true I defiantly paid to much for my carpet.
I think that are purpose here is to grow as a collective, like angelus said at one time we where soup now look at use meat and potatoes. We work we live we die we passion the knowledge we learn to the next generation and they use that to learn more. Just a little over a 100 yrs ago if I told you we'd be flying back and forth from one country to another I'd be lock away in a nut house now we have a space station flying above the planet. The first phones where huge now there so small you can put them in your wallet,and get any information you need off them ,whereas befor the only reliable information was the encyclopedia britanica.everything we learn is used and grown aponfor the collective. Were here to grow and learn maybe it was planned ,maybe it's evolution but that's how I see it .
to grow, as a collective...
I like that.
tho, it presupposes we will work together, for a common goal...
Heck, would we spend a lot of money on an anti meteor system??? [[Just in case, of emergency.]]
I don't think so.
though, Kaine puts forward an excellent scenario.
We might not consciously work at one goal but in the long run everything we do helps the collective,when rockets where first made they where made as weapons and now there used to send people into space. We might not have an anti-meteor protection thingy now but you don't think it hasn't been thought about ex specially after that one that hit Jupiter and anyway who's to say we don't all the stuff they shoot into space they just wouldn't tell us cause of the thought of enough rockets to destroy a meteor floating over our head might make use a little edgy.
... a little?
Hell... I'm still moaning 'bout the Hadron Collider.
THAT... I supposed, might opemn a worm hole on Eartyh and, throw us in it... but, I digress.
I am curious, as to whether this is it... a man's Life is for three score and ten and then, he's gone.
Man may live, but without thought may bomb...
Such is the way of the precarious existence of ours.
I like how Baba Ramm Das Said it. "Be Here Now."
I simply say Vita est iam or Life is now.
I like what Dabs just said. Why isn't it enough of a purpose just to be?
Let me assure you, the LHC ain't gonna make a black hole! And even if it did it would take 400 years for it to eat the Earth, plenty of time to pack for Mars & the Moon.
I really do stand by my "answer" to life, that we were created by God for us to experience life, learn/teach, love each other and to commune with God our existence and learn about his.
Someone earlier said ~in the long run what we do as individuals tends to benefit society as a whole~ and I'd agree with that fully. We may not have a collective purpose that we know of but each of us has the same purpose and desires out of life, put that together and eventually you end up with a UN instead of continental-wide wars every generation or so. (nevermind the Agenda 21 stuff, the UN has done some good! lmao)
So often people sit back and think "is this it?" when they've forgotten all that's come before. 100 years ago, ok that's 1.25 lifetimes..not much, there was no smallpox cure, broadly speaking no electricity, lights, tv, radio, cars, MRI's or X-Rays, computers, space flight, flight of any sort, etc. And now look where we are? We've done more in 150 years than the past 5,000 combined. To ever assume the way things are now is how they'll be tomorrow is beyond simple minded.
Having a firm footing to ask proper questions is of the utmost importance especially when they deal with these sort of things. Thankfully the question asker at least has such a footing.
Silks, one reason goes to morality. If I just want to be, and that's all that mattered, what I want, then a whole lot of bad could be done. Think of the genocide in Rwanda, wasn't a lot of disciplined men going around shooting other soldiers, they were a wild mob doing what they wanted out of simple delight. In the end some 800,000 innocent people were slaughtered, in less than a year.
Humans with no purpose other than what we make would drive us into chaos, pure animalistic intent. Not everyone is as peaceful as say you & I. And I promise you, something bad happens and we no longer have electricity for example, you're gonna want to start killing me for my can of beans and bottle of water within 12 days.
It takes purpose, or at the least the illusion of purpose and the belief/illusion of something more than us to keep us "civilized". For the time being at least, humanity is far to young to remain civilized without such hope.
To find true love. Im a hopeless romantic. sorry. lol.
Xzavier, hope is a good thing. If it weren't for that, we would drift along aimlessly through life. However, it doesn't mean that is our purpose.
The way I see it, I am happy just to exist, anything else that comes my way is a huge bonus. And, perhaps, there is a certain kind of purpose in that - perhaps the purpose is to be happy with my lot :)
To understand the purpose you have to go beyond "Organized Religion"
To understand the purpose you have to begin to accept that which you cannot explain.
To understand the purpose you have to forget what you've bee taught by those who have learned to accept simplicity as a way of self acceptance.
To understand the purpose you have to Ask the right questions knowing that what you learn may not be what you want to hear.
To understand the purpose you have to Seek the meaning of the smallest particle and be able to accept it's intention.
To understand the purpose you have to Knock on the doors of the unknown and hope that they will be opened.
To understand the purpose you have to live each day in the shadow of your own humanity walk in the shoes of no one other than yourself, observe the ways of those things which survive off of their own instincts without the intervention of man.
To understand the purpose you must first seek that which has not been written, spoken, or even hinted to.
You can ask WHY all of your life and never get and answer. Maybe WHY is not what you should be asking.
I'm not sure anyone mentioned organized religion, although they do provide purpose to billions of individuals.
So your answer to our purpose is to simply hope it comes, exist, and not wonder why? Sounds fun. "Why" gave us every benefit of the last 200 years, it's an important question.
Learning to live and be itself are a part of finding purpose, I don't believe it is the purpose.
as ever Xzavier gets to the essence of the argument, finding time to qualify that damned HLC.
And yes, 'the illusion of purose'... that gave me pause to think.
so that 'explains' purpose', but not why...?
I mean, of all animals that have had dominion over this Earth, why do we seem to think we're so special.
that only we have a soul... and, a right to determine our path?
[[It's cold: do forgive the typo...]]
Well if you ask PETA animals have rights to
But I think this goes to the collective thing again, let's face it one on one with most animals on this plant man would have his ass handed to him in a basket, even the smallest insect could mess you up ie: the flea could give you the plague. But as a group man is unstoppable they might pick of a andful here and there but if they get to out of hand we just say they taste like chicken and bam there on the next endangered list. They might have a consciousness or a soul but that's never stopped us before against ourselves . The thing is that the animals won't get together and improve there lives where as man will cross barriers if he thinks it will help him in the long run. To put it another way ,if one man has sticks,and another has wood and another has a source of fire together they can improve there lives by working together as a collective then apart as separate individuals.
If you had the answer to that question: what would it bring to your life?
There are those that believe that there are higher intelligences (gods to some) who created man to serve them; when the gods' planet's orbital path shifted these intelligences left us never to return; we are the survivors of the creatures genetically created to serve. There is no heaven or hell; just life and death.
Isn't it enough that you are the universe experiencing itself??
I forget where that quote came from, it's certainly not mine but it sums it sums up my opinion beautifully.
Sagan said it, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
And no, it isn't enough. I don't care what the universe knows or experiences, I want to know why and what I experience. If we are the sole projection of universal thought, why? Should we be nothing more than the expression of a cold, otherwise lifeless, universe then we're still left without a single reason for being except that random chance happened upon us.
aw sweet, proper debate. Thanks.
Reading this a thought strikes me.
Early man knew enough to revere something....
was that instinctual?
That aside. We are here. We Live. We think...
...and yet, it isn't enough, for many.
That is not what I mean.
We are a collective conscious, all of us are part of the same living organism called Earth. We all are connected on some level to each other. What we experience, someone else experiences also. However people no longer talk to each other or feel like they are a part of a bigger world.. everyone stuck in their own head. If someone wants to find a deeper meaning all they need to do is look at the closest relationships they have with family, friends, neighbours co-workers, strangers etc...
We all make up the world, when one thing happens somehow it effects the rest of us.
True people no longer talk to each other like we used to but the fact remains we did used to talk. The search for meaning is one that goes back beyond written history, it's universal. It has little to do with a personal sense of loneliness because we didn't chat with our grandma today.
It's much more than that.
Angelus, I think we are born with that desire and I think we are because we were created for a specific purpose and part of that purpose is to search it out. Like I said before, without the need to know why we're here, how we came to be and where we're going then most religions, most sciences, most everything that is uniquely human would never have existed. It is that search that drives us forward.
I feel that God gave us such a desire to search it out, instead of just telling us, because he wanted us to become more than mindless and careless little things running about the planet. If we were made in the image AND likeness of God (be it God, gods, aliens etc) and if God is something inquisitive, intelligent, then wouldn't we be also?
You have a child not because you want another mouth to feed but because you want to create something that can commune with you, that you can teach and that one day can share and add to you and the rest of the world.
some might call it God; some a gestadlt entity, or The One. Perhaps... ? Perhaps??? It was instinctual Xzavier.
The age old question and that my friend- each man to his own. For no two person's are exactly alike therefore no two paths are the same either- everyone has a calling but they are all different. Some are here to help, other's protect, still so on and so fourth- it's a matter of your calling.
yes there is a purpose or should I say many purposes but it's matter of acceptence, opening your eyes, and listening up not just what other people say. For the record no I am not talking about religion=)
I wish I could figure that one out. All we do is die a little more each day and suffer in the end.
our purpose to me is to be.. if you dont want to have a purpose.. you can end it at any time for sure.. but wanting to know why your put here or even why you exist can be a form of purpose. true we dont know why we are put here.. maybe our purpose is dictated by those that raise us.. i cant believe that we dont have one or why would we be here?
i think i make my own purpose clear and simple. or else why be here.
to be, yes... to accept, yes... but Live... and, Live well.
"...but Live well."
But how do you define if you do, or do not live well?
by understanding self.
by being a person of honor.
by valueing what is of this Now.
by caring.
by creating.
I think.
That makes sense to me.
Very well said.
I would add...By having fun.
This all is anyway one major cosmic joke.
I believe we create our own purpose by the random (or maybe not random) choices we make.
"humans on the universe, or vice versa?"
Actually both, as if:
if you write universe with U (Universe) meaning God,
then it is a Gods play, Lila.
Cosmic joke told by God.
On the other hand though,
they say that it is our Mind that creates this universe,
so it is OUR joke on the universe.
.big smile.
To most of us, the purpose of life is death...
Buy let me quote Jon Irenicus:
"Life... is strength. That is not to be contested; it seems logical enough. You live; you affect your world. But is it what you want? You are... different inside. This woman lives and has strength of a sort. She lost her parents to plague, her husband to war, but she persevered. Her farm prospered, her children are well-fed, and her name respected throughout her land. She lived as she thought she should. And now she is dead. Her land will be divided, her children will move on, and she will be forgotten. She lived a good life, but she had no real power; she was a slave to death. I wonder if YOU are destined to be forgotten as she was. Will your life fade in the shadow of greater beings?"
Yet knowing we are to die, does nothing for how many people choose to live today.
These are where our defining moments are. What we do that broadens and expands not only our personal sphere, but has effect on those spheres around us. Looking at us from a scientific stand point we are a social creature. This means we require interactions with others to function within scientific "norms".
Yet we act here, in a manner that breaks those norms, as there is not face to face contact, or verbal ques to go off of. Still it is a choice we have made.
Previously it was said life is a test. True. Still I will ask, do you take a test to pass and then forget the answers, or do you take it and then apply it? This is where our answers will differ and where as Professor X stated, we will rise above, or fall below the potential we are capable of achieving.
Unless one has something to prove to another, one 'takes the test' to prove something to onesself.
'tis the same in Life.
You are your destiny.
Perhaps it is merely to exist in a different state of being and if we truly are a collective of souls, maybe what we call death is the primary state of being. When we come into the flesh we experience all the senses beyond thought. Most people having an NDE describe when out of the body that they moved from place to place by thought. Here we are restricted by certain laws. Since we are born and are small and have to develop and grow maybe it is a place to experience individuality and the physical senses for a limited time unknown after birth. Somewhere along the line we return and that is why I believe it is necessary to dream because it takes us to the closest we can get to our original state of being while in the physical. It may even be a memory jog that we are not alone and we are here together. Man has made death a sinister thing and maybe that is because we don’t remember and rightfully so because if you remembered you most likely would be complacent waiting to go back because it’s not easy here. This is often seen in various religious groups who dwell on what they consider the better side of life, which is crossing over to whatever place or term they use, more commonly heaven.
Butterfly is death for a catterpillar...
In Tibetan Buddhism death is one of 6 Bardos.
Bardo means intermediate state.
They are:
1) Bardo of birth and life
2)Bardo of Dreams
3)Bardo of Meditation or Concentration
4)Moment of Death
5)Bardo of luminosity of true nature that shows after the last inner breath at the moment of death
6)Bardo of Transmigration (path to a new incarnation after death)
They also say that Death is of an utmost importance as our true nature shines out and we have an opportunity to stay in it.
Thus become fully enlightened.
.smiles.
If I understand it right full enlightenment is Awareness itself.
Awareness, Being, Bliss
perhaps ... I just haven't got that far yet, as I still know nothing.
The circle of life, It's what the planet gives us (in theory) take advantage of it go out and have hell of fun.
I call it the green
if you see what I mean
yet the circle of life
works well, for me...
Well the most simple answer I can think of is simply, just to see how well we can do with what we are given. Kinda cheap i know but, that's ultimately all we can truly do, isnt it?
aye. issa truism.
BUT, if'n that's all we did, there'd be llittle need for aspiration.
My purpose is to enjoy as many days and nights as I can, with as many people as I can, for as long as I can.
laudible, but whilst doing so, personally I would still want more... to Learn more... while I'm still here.
Our purpose is to experience the temptations that a physical body provides unlike a spiritual being which lacks the ability to be physical.
42 is the answer of course- the meaning to life, the universe and everything.
But to get serious, I do agree with deep thought. That isn't a real question. Only when you know the question can you have the answer.
Things like this have a different meaning to everyone therefore you shouldn't be so quick to put a blanket answer on the meaning of life. Which, as I said before, isn't really a question.
To conclude: Here is "An Ode to a lump of green putty I found in my armpit one midsummer morning":
Putty. Putty. Putty.
Green Putty - Grutty Peen.
Grarmpitutty - Morning!
Pridsummer - Grorning Utty!
Discovery..... Oh.
Putty?..... Armpit?
Armpit..... Putty.
Not even a particularly
Nice shade of green