My 2 cents

[DevilsCabanaBoy]

I don't get this reality, I don't get where we are all headed. What's the fucking point of living in a universe that defies an answer. Am I supposed to live according to what? Exactly what? Morality is bullshit, it's just a bunch of social norms. Does the universe give a shit about what our morality is? It didn't tell me ahead of time how it wants me to act. 

 

Death to Christianity!

 

 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I approach it by looking at the other animals. Every other species spends their days looking for food, avoiding predators, competing to find a mate, making more of the same species. Wash, rinse, repeat. All the other animals have way better sense of sight, smell, hearing, and built-in weaponry. Humans edge on that reality is abstract thinking which lets us develop tools, weapons, strategies, math, language, technology, and it gives us an imagination that looks for patterns. Early humans looked at nature and wondered if there might be someone in charge of things that they could appeal to to get and edge on sickness, predators, other tribes raiding them so we invented gods and religions to go with our tribal taboos and rules. Eventually we developed philosophies examining politics and morality, and like every generation we wonder if there is some overarching purpose or meaning, or perhaps a better place we can go after death where it all makes sense. That makes us unique as a species (so far as we can discern).

 

My hunch is that life is just life, and it is our choices that give it any meaning. I can choose to be an asshole to people and try to take what I want, or I can do with less and see how well I can help others live. I can find joy in little things like gardening (a good connection back to the nature that spawned us), singing, music, some kinds of tech, beer, sex and flirting, and examining ways to use my life experiences in three decades of Christianity to help inoculate others against religion. Some days are dull mundane get up and go to work doing mundane shit days. Those are the days I have to make a conscious choice to focus on things that I like. Connecting with other living things and re-connecting to nature make me feel most alive.

 

I've read about brilliant people seeing that death is inevitable, and they decide to shortcut to the end. Others dwell on philosophy that sees life as a cruel joke, and promotes self-death as the truest expression. I see that as a flaw in the programming, short-circuiting all of the things that can be enjoyed and learned in the process of life. One day we will die, and all other days we will not. Use those days to become what you want to become rather than rolling in the pathos of death and meaningless existence.  Some days are better than others for me, and I have pondered death at times. But then I'll go do a gig and have fun interacting with other humans doing things unique to our species and I glow for a while. Then I start planning another gig and get weighed down by the work it takes, then face yet another day of mundane get-a-paycheck work day that sucks my life dry, but then refocus on things that I like. So it is always a choice. I try to choose what makes life better for me and others. When we thrive together, we do better as a species than we do when trying to take as much as possible from others. Pull back from the planet and view it as a ball of dirt in space, and all the kings and saviors of mankind, celebrities and politicians are reduced to tiny things crawling around on the dirt with the rest of life here. I do that for perspective also.

[ConsiderTheSource]

On 3/27/2019 at 6:41 AM, Fuego said:

life is just life, and it is our choices that give it any meaning

 

We are so on the same page.  

[disillusioned]

There are a lot of questions in the OP, but the underlying theme seems to be "what's the point?". The only honest answer I've ever been able to find to this question is "there ultimately isn't one". But that's not the end of the story. 

 

I agree with Fuego that life has meaning only inasmuch as we give it meaning. But that is to say that it does have meaning. It means something to us. I think that's as far as it goes, but that isn't nothing. Similarly, I think there's a significant difference between saying "morality is bullshit" and saying "morality reduces to social norms". I think morality is something that humans create so that we can live with each other. It helps us to give life meaning. It isn't objective, or absolute, or ultimate, but it is real.

 

So my answer to the question "what's the point?" is "there ultimately isn't one", but to this I would add that we can give life meaning. Also, sometimes life is good of its own accord, and even when it isn't, it's not like I've got anything better to do...

[♦ Fuego ♦]

5 hours ago, disillusioned said:

But that is to say that it does have meaning. It means something to us. I think that's as far as it goes, but that isn't nothing.

Very much so. That is why philosophies are important, because humans are observing our own behaviors and outcomes, as well as purposefully adapting our own thoughts and emotions towards a more planned outcome. That is very powerful. Far more powerful than subjecting our passions and plans to a religion that can't and won't adapt (and that is based on fear of an angry insane daddy figure).

 

For example, I look at the concept of "ubuntu" where the concept of consistently working together for our common good has the goal of creating an environment where we all thrive, not by grabbing what I can to the exclusion of others, but going together and working together to achieve mutual success, and sharing what I have with others. It isn't squashing the initiative or creativity of individual for the sake of the collective, but promoting the concept of mutual caring and then leaving it up to the person to choose. That is something seen in the teachings of Jesus, but which the church today tends to ignore in favor of rules and exclusion because those were taught alongside his teachings and tended to be emphasized by the church leaders (again angry daddy figures intent on control). The balance then becomes not shaming others for choosing differently, but continuing to make our own choices to embody that which makes us thrive together. I find some meaning and wholeness in this approach.

[wellnamed]

11 hours ago, disillusioned said:

I agree with Fuego that life has meaning only inasmuch as we give it meaning. But that is to say that it does have meaning. It means something to us. I think that's as far as it goes, but that isn't nothing. Similarly, I think there's a significant difference between saying "morality is bullshit" and saying "morality reduces to social norms". I think morality is something that humans create so that we can live with each other. It helps us to give life meaning. It isn't objective, or absolute, or ultimate, but it is real.

 

I think these are all profoundly important realizations for any kind of secular humanism.

[LogicalFallacy]

On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 10:11 PM, DevilsCabanaBoy said:

I don't get this reality, I don't get where we are all headed. What's the fucking point of living in a universe that defies an answer. Am I supposed to live according to what? Exactly what? Morality is bullshit, it's just a bunch of social norms. Does the universe give a shit about what our morality is? It didn't tell me ahead of time how it wants me to act. 

 

Death to Christianity!

 

Not entirely sure what Christianity has to do with your paragraph above because in my opinion life has less meaning as a religious person because life here is just a test, and if we pass we get to live forevermore. Whoopie. Also this fate is entirely out of my control because every decision I could make is already decided, apparently before the foundation of the world was laid.

 

On morality - it's not bullshit. It's an evolutionary adaption that helps a social species live and work together. It's just far more complex and advanced than other animals morality systems.

 

As for the point of living. Meaning of life is whatever meaning we give it. There is no external 'point' as such. You are right, the universe doesn't give a shit, and we shouldn't give a shit that the universe doesn't give a shit. We still enjoy the things we do. Life and meaning is whatever you make it.

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Shouldn't the title be "My 2p"?