Does the possibility that life has no meaning, bother you?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by wegs, Aug 13, 2019.

  1. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Take a look at the 4 noble truths of Buddhism:
    • The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
    • The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
    • The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
    • The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)
    Suffering can be moral and that's what Lucifer must have saw in hell.
     
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  3. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    referential pondering

    what is judgement ?
    what is self evaluation ?
    what is happiness ?

    do we find our-self attempting to judge the perception of others and then define their state as a value system only so we can have something external to value our inner self against ?


    self referential ...

    do we find some people attempting to assert their need for external judgment as a value of self esteem that we should live by ?

    do they have meaning without our ability for them to refer to us by as an external manifestation ?

    is the inner self an independent aspect of self realization ? (i think so but probably not without intellectual education[language, games, systems, mathematics etc...])
     
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  5. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    From an atheist perspective, life is all the more precious because this life is all we get. Since we can expect no Meaning being handed down from above, we must create our own Meaning.

    A lot of religious people live their lives as if this is some kind of trial run for the "real" life that they expect will come in heaven (or whatever other afterlife they are taught to expect). But if your only waiting for the afterlife, you really might as well kill yourself now and speed the process up. Wasting your life waiting for something that might never come strikes me as a poor use of time.

    As I get older, I'm coming around to the view that Meaning is to be found in our relations to other people, more than anything else. I believe that after we die, the only guaranteed "afterlife" we can expect is to live on in the memories of those others whose lives we have touched. Ultimately, the "stuff" we collect doesn't matter. It is the people we collect that matters.
     
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  7. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    And take our own responsibility. There will be no belated atonement, no second chance guided by an angel, no ransom through the suffering or prayers of others, no pardon. If you do not make restitution today, you may die guilty and stay forever guilty in the memory of those you have wronged.

    The RCC found it expedient to make suicide a mortal sin, because they had done such a good job of selling Heaven, and such a bad job of feeding Jesus' sheep, a lot of serfs would have taken the short-cut before all the work had been beaten out of them.
    And that's why we're still having to fight for the right to decide when our own suffering should end.
    They're not wasting it; they're trying to earn the golden key: you have to perfect your faith, deny pleasure, mortify and humble yourself, suffer and repent of all your impure acts and thoughts - and if you can squeeze in some good works, that'd might help.

    Whether people actually remember us the way we'd like them to really doesn't matter: we won't know it. But it's pleasant to think - now, while we're here - that the decent, kind, honorable, endearing, useful and generous things will form the image of us in other people's memory - that bolsters our resolve to do such things.
     
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  8. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Real problem vs existential problem...
     
  9. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Did that raccoon ...bark?

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    What are you tryin' to say, Seattle? That existential problems aren't real problems? Hmm?

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  10. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I was just looking for an excuse to post that video.

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  11. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    That's like saying hell is more grateful because it has less and suffers more.
     
  12. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    No. This ^^^^^ is nothing like this v v v v
    "From an atheist perspective, life is all the more precious because this life is all we get. Since we can expect no Meaning being handed down from above, we must create our own Meaning."

    Come to think of it, just wtf does "hell is more grateful" mean? More than who? To whom? For what?
    Last I heard, hell was a place: as such, it couldn't own, suffer or feel gratitude - even if it were not a fictional place.
    That statement strikes me as one of those content-free 21st century advertising slogans, designed to sound portentous to the inattentive.
     
  13. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    A Deepity.

    "A proposition that seems to be profound because it is actually logically ill-formed. A deepity balances precariously between multiple interpretations, at least one of which is obvious and trivial and at least one of which would be earth-shaking except that it is false."

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  14. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Hell is a demon.
     
  15. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Hell
    Hell is for Hell
    Hell is for Hell
    Hell is for Children
    - Pat Benatar
     
  16. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    ho-kay
    At least you're consistently nonsensical.
     
  17. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    this is a pet racoon and the man is playing with it

    what is the "real" problem in this video ?
     
  18. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    ...

    preaching hopelessness and fatalism to the young & the emotionally troubled ...

    some call it religion
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2019
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    What? Hell is a demon?
    For a "knowledgeable Christian, you are sure loose with your terms.
    DEMON,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon
    HELL
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell
     
  20. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    I wonder why Tolstoy let it bother him? Hmm.
     
  21. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Okay, i get it now.
    If you misbehave a lot, you get eaten by a daemon and spend eternity in his tummy; if you only misbehave a little, you get eaten by a daemon but are eventually expelled back into the light. After a thorough hosing-down, all fit to be eaten by an angel and go to heaven.
     
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  22. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Because he was a product of 19th century Russia - roughly equivalent to 16th century France.
     
  23. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    that card seems to be played soo often and sits like a moral back stop to all reason & fact that conflicts with the logical minds common sense appraisal.
     

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