I have always wondered why we are here on this earth, what is the reason we are alive, we have understanding, reasoning power, we are creative, sensitive, capable of love, loyalty, kindness, but also, cruelty, barbarity, murder, hate, is it some thing we have inherited from the animals, self preservation, or the violent universe of which we are a part? The carbon atoms of which our bodies are made, were manufactured in the centre of stars like our sun at a temperature of millions of degrees centigrade, we are part and parcel of this universe, we literaly came from the stars. What is the purpose of our existence, why were we made, or evolved from animals ( take your pick ) are we part of some unfathomable gigantic experiment which spans eons of time, billions and billions of years, for what, by whom and why? Has anyone else any ideas? :roll: :oops: :P :x 8)

what is our purpose??
when we die we are dead for eternity...is there an afterlife?? if not..why were we born in the first place?? life is a mystery & so is death..wish i knew the answer :?

I'd like to think that something does happen. I mean, why do some people just give their whole life to helping others?

Originally posted by Lickszz
I'd like to think that something does happen. I mean, why do some people just give their whole life to helping others?

Guilt?

Ssssshhhh it's the Mice.

Once you become self aware, you get everything else you described as part of the bargain - love, hate, loyalty, kindness etc are all inventions of humans, not universal absolutes. Why should being self-aware been we have to have a purpose?

to develop loving relationships.

that's it

Originally posted by halevan
I have always wondered why we are here on this earth, what is the reason we are alive, we have understanding, reasoning power, we are creative, sensitive, capable of love, loyalty, kindness, but also, cruelty, barbarity, murder, hate, is it some thing we have inherited from the animals, self preservation, or the violent universe of which we are a part? The carbon atoms of which our bodies are made, were manufactured in the centre of stars like our sun at a temperature of millions of degrees centigrade, we are part and parcel of this universe, we literaly came from the stars. What is the purpose of our existence, why were we made, or evolved from animals ( take your pick ) are we part of some unfathomable gigantic experiment which spans eons of time, billions and billions of years, for what, by whom and why? Has anyone else any ideas? :roll: :oops: :P :x 8) Why do you need to find answers to questions like this when you don't even know yourself?
Those who do not court death can never experience life:| Life is a challenge death is an even better one.

I like the Gaia idea.

Don't think of us as humans living on a rock.

Instead the 'rock' is life. We are the Earth, it's elements and atoms alive and dancing... and trying to figure itself out.

Our consciousness is that of the Earth's. I know it's hard to conceive but every thought we have is the planet thinking.

Here we are, spinning in the void, wondering about it.

WOW.


(Just going to lie down in a dark room for half an hour).

Originally posted by pete_fcs
to develop loving relationships.

that's it

I believe our current life on earth is one step on our soul's journey towards spiritual enlightenment and ultimate return to God.

StarSparkle

Even before "why" is the fact that "we are"!

One of the greatest problems that faces society today is the fact that a large number of people are no longer prepared to recognise some basic "laws" that are needed to be obeyed for a civilised society.

Enforcement of such laws can be difficult and history has shown that enforcement by violence was superceded in our "civilised" communities by enforcement by acceptance under the threat of damnation in the afterlife.

I do suggest that much of current religious prescription is nothing more than a historical means of enforcing civil peace.

e.g. most pork in those days was full of worms and unfit to eat.
having sex outside marriage will lead to major problems inside a small village community

The forum seems to be engaged in deep philosophical thought and reflection this evening. Threads on death and transplants and now this old thread on the meaning of life itself has been resurrected.

I do not think we are on this earth for a purpose, or that our mere existence has a purpose. We are just here.

Originally posted by redrobbo

I do not think we are on this earth for a purpose, or that our mere existence has a purpose. We are just here.

Unfortunately for me, I am just there!:confused:

Originally posted by redrobbo
I do not think we are on this earth for a purpose, or that our mere existence has a purpose. We are just here.


Awww, come on Redrobbo! That's an ok viewpoint for someone who has waited too long for a 60 to Fullwood.

We are better than 'just here'.

Originally posted by StarSparkle
I believe our current life on earth is one step on our soul's journey towards spiritual enlightenment and ultimate return to God.


i think that's the same as "to develop loving relationships":)

Originally posted by redrobbo
I do not think we are on this earth for a purpose, or that our mere existence has a purpose. We are just here.

I think it's sad to think that, Redrobbo :(

To live thinking everything that happens is totally random and without ultimate purpose?

I simply don't believe life's like that.

StarSparkle

Originally posted by pete_fcs
i think that's the same as "to develop loving relationships":)

I think they're very much on the same lines :)

StarSparkle

Anyway, never mind life on Earth; what about life on Google Earth?

All that zooming in and out would make me sick.
tsk, tsk.

I don't like the idea of there being a general reason for being alive. I prefer to find my own reasons for being alive. I find my own reasons far more enjoyable than a reason that I'll never know about. :)

are we really living on earth or are we just a particle in the air of a larger vaster universe'.

Originally posted by Deavon
I like the Gaia idea.

Don't think of us as humans living on a rock.

Instead the 'rock' is life. We are the Earth, it's elements and atoms alive and dancing... and trying to figure itself out.

Our consciousness is that of the Earth's. I know it's hard to conceive but every thought we have is the planet thinking.

Here we are, spinning in the void, wondering about it.

WOW.


(Just going to lie down in a dark room for half an hour).

I'd take that even further and say that planets like ours are commonplace and wherever conditions permit life arises. Why? no idea. But notice how hard we are trying to get off the planet, and find somewhere else.

Could this be part of interplanetary sex?

Other planets evolved gigantic fungi whose spores blew off into space, or burrowing worms who detonated their planet and flew off in all directions.

Spiders are obviously from another planet, that much is clear.

My purpose? Progeny. Having achieved that, I can sit back and relax. Chin Chin!

Nice idea Phan, but I can't quite get into it.

I'm not convinced that there's a species-wide urge to seek out other-worldly life and have their babies. Generally I find the world's attitute towards space exploration to be luke warm, and considered a waste of money. If we are the spores of the earth, we seem reluctant to leave the pod.

Originally posted by Ant
Nice idea Phan, but I can't quite get into it.

I'm not convinced that there's a species-wide urge to seek out other-worldly life and have their babies. Generally I find the world's attitute towards space exploration to be luke warm, and considered a waste of money. If we are the spores of the earth, we seem reluctant to leave the pod.

not species wide, species are unimportant.

this earth might simply be adolescent at present.

Originally posted by StarSparkle
I think it's sad to think that, Redrobbo :(

To live thinking everything that happens is totally random and without ultimate purpose?

I simply don't believe life's like that.

StarSparkle

I can well understand, and appreciate, that you don't believe that life on earth is random StarSparkle. You earlier posted -
Originally posted by StarSparkle
I believe our current life on earth is one step on our soul's journey towards spiritual enlightenment and ultimate return to God.

StarSparkle

For myself, I no longer believe in a God, and thus do not accept that life on earth has anything at all to do with a journey of the soul towards any kind of spiritual enlightenment. Your spiritual beliefs must bring you comfort. But I do not believe in a soul. Does a stillborn baby have a soul? Does a tree? Does a worm? Did Hitler or Pol Pot?

I do not know how we came to be living beings. I only know that we are here. Life is random, and that includes when I'm waiting for the no. 51 bus - which fortunately seems to provide a more frequent service than the no. 60 service!

Planet Earth, my home, my place
A capricious anomaly in the sea of space
Planet Earth are you just
Floating by, a cloud of dust
A minor globe, about to bust
A piece of metal bound to rust
A speck of matter in a mindless void
A lonely spacship, a large asteroid

Cold as a rock without a hue
Held together with a bit of glue
Something tells me this isn't true
You are my sweetheart soft and blue
Do you care, have you a part
In the deepest emotions of my own heart
Tender with breezes caressing and whole
Alive with music, haunting my soul.

In my veins I've felt the mystery
Of corridors of time, books of hisotry
Life songs of ages throbbing in my blood
Have danced the rhythm of the tide and flood
Your misty clouds, your electric storm
Were turbulent tempests in my own form
I've licked the salt, the bitter, the sweet
Of every encounter, of passion, of heat
Your riotous color, your fragrance, your taste
Have thrilled my senses beyond all haste
In your beuaty, I've known the how
Of timeless bliss, this moment of now

Planet Earth are you just
Floating by, a cloud of dust
A minor globe, about to bust
A piece of metal bound to rust
A speck of matter in a mindless void
A lonely spacship, a large asteroid
Cold as a rock without a hue
Held together with a bit of glue
Something tells me this isn't true
You are my sweetheart gentle and blue
Do you care, have you a part
In the deepest emotions of my own heart
Tender with breezes caressing and whole
Alive with music, haunting my soul.
Planet Earth, gentle and blue
With all my heart, I love you

Originally posted by Deavon
Instead the 'rock' is life. We are the Earth, it's elements and atoms alive and dancing... and trying to figure itself out.

Our consciousness is that of the Earth's. I know it's hard to conceive but every thought we have is the planet thinking.


If the thoughts we have are the planet thinking, then the actions we perform are actually the planet acting. In that case it appears that the Earth has a problem with self-harm, and ought to seek a planetary counsellor at the earliest opportunity.

Originally posted by StarSparkle
I believe our current life on earth is one step on our soul's journey towards spiritual enlightenment and ultimate return to God.

StarSparkle

Amen to that Starsparkle, going to church does give a sense of belonging but not everyone is going to believe.
One verse of the Bible says that
"We must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling"
but how many do?

our purpose in life is to destroy each other and the planet until we are all destroyed.

We are given religion as a purpose and as soon as this purpose dies we will all die.

We are all the pawns in a game/experiment at a higher level.

There is no afterlife. There is no reincarnation.

this is it

Originally posted by Deavon
I like the Gaia idea.

Don't think of us as humans living on a rock.

Instead the 'rock' is life. We are the Earth, it's elements and atoms alive and dancing... and trying to figure itself out.

Our consciousness is that of the Earth's. I know it's hard to conceive but every thought we have is the planet thinking.

Here we are, spinning in the void, wondering about it.

WOW.


(Just going to lie down in a dark room for half an hour).

I like James Lovelock's Gaia Theory too Deavon. I tend to think that way naturally........

There is loads of stuff on the web about it. This was the first thing that came up when I googled....

http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/what_is_Gaia.html

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
If the thoughts we have are the planet thinking, then the actions we perform are actually the planet acting. In that case it appears that the Earth has a problem with self-harm, and ought to seek a planetary counsellor at the earliest opportunity.

We're travelling on a time bomb, - and we call it home ;)

Life on Earth is very precarious. Scientists estimate that a supervolcano will erupt somewhere at least once eevry 100,000 years and possibly more frequently. They reckon the last one, in Sumatra 74,000 ago, wiped out all but a few thousand people over the entire planet.

The next one could blow tomorrow, - but probably not.

Maybe sometime next year ? :thumbsup:

My problem with "god" or whatever you want to call it, is that it doesn't solve any of the mysteries at all. The argument seems to be that life on Earth is too complicated to have evolved by chance so it must have been created by some intelligence. OK, so how did this interlligence (which is presumably even more complex) come to be. What is its purpose?

Is faith what happens when people stop asking difficult questions? I understand the need to part of something meaningful, but for me this isn't it.

Originally posted by Greybeard
We're travelling on a time bomb, - and we call it home ;)

Life on Earth is very precarious. Scientists estimate that a supervolcano will erupt somewhere at least once eevry 100,000 years and possibly more frequently. They reckon the last one, in Sumatra 74,000 ago, wiped out all but a few thousand people over the entire planet.

The next one could blow tomorrow, - but probably not.

Maybe sometime next year ? :thumbsup:

Think this topic is going over the same ground but from a slightly different angle to http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55437.

there are more questions than answers

Originally posted by redrobbo
I do not think we are on this earth for a purpose, or that our mere existence has a purpose. We are just here.

I'm with Redrobbo and tslog on this one. I think we came about by luck. A quick trawl through the internet reveals that modern astrophysics and related sciences suggest that an incredible number and variety of coincidences came together to enable intelligent life to exist on Earth. Indeed, it seems we overcame odds that would make winning the Euromillions several times on the trot a cinch.

Today's thinking suggests there are between 10 to the power of 22 and 10 to the power of 24 stars in the universe. Check this out using a scientific calculator and there seems a lot of twinklies out there. Multiply that figure by ten and we have a somewhat inaccurate but workable estimate of the number of the planets in the universe. But first consider what it took for life to exist on Earth at all.

Well, first we needed a source of energy, a sun. And a single sun at that. A binary system would not have done because the deviations in orbit, temperatures and gravity would have been too imprecise. And that sun had to be the correct mass and at the correct stage of its life cycle. Too old and Supernova might happen before life evolves.

Next, our planet needed the correct mass and to have a molten iron core so that its magnetic field could reflect harmful radiation.

Next, the Earth must be within a fixed window of distances from its energy source, the sun. Too close or too far away and it's curtains for us.

Next, there must be a sufficient source of water. Life is mostly water and water is required to make an atmosphere.

Of course, I could go on and on and on for eternity and include other scientific coincidences: chemistry, biology, evolution. And what about other mass extinctions allowing our species to multiply and evolve. You get the idea.

Multiply the chances of all these coincidences coming together and divide that total into the number of planets in the universe and we see that the odds of intelligent life occurring anywhere else in this particular universe is slim indeed.

And what do we do with this miraculous oasis that we are so privileged to exist upon? Well that's a subject for another post.

By the why, Lestat; great poem. Is it yours?