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Morwen Oronor Profile
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The meaning of Life?


Here is an essay that makes quite a good read:

Click here.

Of course there are really two questions:
What is the meaning of my life? and
What gives my life meaning?

As regards the first question: Religion tells us, and here I mean most mainstream religion, that our purpose is the spread the 'word' and to eventually gain some form of reward in eternal life.
This directly plays on our perfectly natural fear of death and the idea that we cannot imagine a world without us in it.
The idea gives us a form of comfort that death is not the end but rather the beginning, and is what suicide bombers believe when they spark off the explosion and it helps frightened people deal with a fatal illness.
As we develop out of the selfishness of childhood, we become aware of our place in the world and that other people experience their lives and see themselves in the same way we do. This helps us begin to deal with mortality to a degree, but not entirely and this is why having faith can help to make death less frightening.
But if you don't believe in a hereafter, and you are fully aware that there will be an end to your life, how do you deal with knowing that there is no real purpose other than to try to pass on your DNA.
You deal with it by employing the second part of the question: by giving your life meaning.
If you take control of your life and look to making what you do important to humanity or even just to your family so that when you die you will be remembered as more than just someone's mother or father, then it's up to you to do something more than just raise a family.
But not only that, giving meaning to your life makes you feel better about the life you are living, even if that meaning is wrapped around the family you raise. helping your children to be the best they can be, to support their endeavours to improve themselves by encouraging education or contributing to their society in some way, if that is what gives your life meaning, then there will have been some purpose to your own life.
Even if you believe in God and support some form of ritualistic religious faith, you can still find things that aren't religious to give meaning to your life.
These are just a few initial thoughts to start the conversation, please add your own ideas.

I didn't want to quote long copies of the words of philosophers, I think that sometimes what we feel within ourselves makes philosophy a bit more personal and appropriate to the individual, and of course it helps people who don't know complex philosophical theories to join in the discussion.
10/4/2009, 2:18 am Link to this post Send PM to Morwen Oronor Blog
 
Morwen Oronor Profile
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Re: The meaning of Life?


I've just finished reading the first part of a book about the earth and how it all came about, you can see my long summary essay here.

Reading this and now today having watched some documentaries on TV, I am even more convinced that even though we are really just another rung on the ladder of evolution and especially in view of the brief time that we've been in the chain, that the only meaning humankind is going to have is what effect our having been here will make on the life of the planet itself and the universe in general.

Apart from that, no matter what we build and how we advance technologically, unless we find a way to leave the planet to go out into space to despoil another one, in a few million years, when the continents have drifted into another shape, and another long winter or disaster has destroyed everything we've left behind, even our most advanced technology will only have had the effect of shortening the life of this planet.

If this sounds negative, then that's what I'm trying to say. No other animal has done as much harm to this planet as we have. Seeing pictures of the rubbish we spew into the atmosphere while we burn the fossils of billions of years of planetary evolution has only made me more negatively about how getting down out of the trees and learning to use our opposable thumbs was the worst thing that any animal ever did.
10/8/2009, 11:37 am Link to this post Send PM to Morwen Oronor Blog
 
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Re: The meaning of Life?


Over on the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) religion and philosophy forum there's a thread about a fundamentalist who committed suicide. This reminded me of how devastating the death of Joy Davidman was to the great twentieth century Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis. One would have thought that, of all people , Lewis would have found solace in his religion. Yet, that was not the case.

It would be interesting to see if there really is any appreciable difference between believers and unbelievers as to the liklihood of their committing suicied and the degree of solace they find from their beliefs. The latter situation would work two ways: how much solace the terminally ill find in their philosophical / religious beliefs and how much solace their survivors take from their beliefs. I suspect we would find there isn't a great deal of difference between believers and unbelievers.

The comfort one does or soes not take from their beliefs regarding death may say a lot aobut what gives meaning to one's life.
10/8/2009, 11:47 am Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 
Morwen Oronor Profile
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Re: The meaning of Life?


I agree it would be interesting.

I found, when I was a child and my parents used to make me do the nightly prayer thing, that I used to be terrified of going to sleep because i was so afraid of dying.
I've come across adults, in fact I once knew one who used to wake up in tears during the night, having had a nightmare about dying.
having lost of people who were very close to me, dying is very real and also because of my own ill healthy I do have thoughts about it from time to time.
But I don't fear it. And certainly now with my new knowledge of the universe and my place in it, I know that I'm merely part of the circle of life.

Suicide is a whole other subject, one I would be interested to discuss.
But I really see no reason to fear death, it's the only certainty we have.
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Re: The meaning of Life?


I can see three basic conditions under which one might fear death, and possibly a fourth. One of these is premature death. I would think that the prospect of having one's life cut off in ones twenties, thirties or even forties could inspire fear, the greater fear the yunger one is. Under this category I would also include any sort of violent death, whcih, by its nature, would cut off life prematurely. Of course the threat of violent death will also impact us on a visceral level: It will be a matter more of adrenalin than philosophy.

Another cause of fear would be the porspect of death at the end of protracted suffering, such as in the case of cancer. A neighbor of mine took his own life, seemingly inexplicitly, when he was only n his late forties. A responsibl family man, he left behind a wife, a cokege age son and a daughter in middle school. Later, I found that he had terminal stomach cancer. My father had such a dread of cancer that he wouldnt deal with a set of symptoms until it was too late and died, needlessly and ironically of colon cancer.

A third cause for fear of death would be altruisticly based, the fear that one might leave behind dependents who would not be adequately cared for.

Finally, there is the spiritually induced fear of death, the fear of hell and damnation. One would think this would be disipated by belief in God. However, certain religions, particularly those with a Calvinist theology, can use the constant worry over whether one is among the elect as a means of bahavioral control.

For myself, approaching my sixty-sixth birthday and having no reason to fear violent death, I have no anxieties on this issue. I would be interested to hear from Elim 10 if she's still with us, for he different perspective based on both youth and religious belief.
10/9/2009, 12:12 pm Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 
Morwen Oronor Profile
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Re: The meaning of Life?


Yes, all of what you've said is true.
Violent death is very much a reality in South Africa. No matter how old you are, without taking reasonable precautions for your safety, the chance that someone will not think twice about killing you for a cellphone is very real.
Even though people understand the finality of death, I still find the ease with which people talk about taking another life, even that of an animal without thinking about it, a bit disconcerting.
I was in a discussion on the Runboard Directory about guns and whether people would be able to use them, and seemingly rational people say they would if their loved ones were threatened.
I had a situation this morning where a wild boar was cornered in my garden. Everyone who stood at the gate talking about what to do with it, all suggested killing it.
They just imagine that death is the best way to remove something that's in the wrong place. It's this arrogance that humans think they are better or more important than animals and yet on the earth's clock humans have only been around for about a minute. That's just pure conceit.
I told them to leave the animal alone and get animal control to deal with it. They take this sort of animal to a nature preserve but the animal himself figured out to break through the gate and escape back into the sugar cane fields, where they live.
Of course I got, "look what he did to the gates" I don't care, gates can be replaced, a life can't.
As I approach my golden years, I accept that my life will end sooner rather than later and it doesn't bother in the sense that I don't want to die, I just want to live a bit more before I do.
But if I was told I had a limited time to live, I'd accept it, not much else I can do is there.
As for more than this, how can there be? What could possibly be better than what we have right now?
10/9/2009, 12:26 pm Link to this post Send PM to Morwen Oronor Blog
 
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Re: The meaning of Life?


You and I are in accord here. I have a few stories that somewhat parallel your tale of the wild boar.

A few summers ago a bear showed up in our neighborhood, which lies on the edge of the Angeles National Forest. Fortunately, we kept this knowledge to ourselves, though it was common knowledge on the listserve. Unfortunately, the Sheriff's Department, if they receive a call that either a bear or a couger has wandered into local neighborhoods, will just shoot the animal, rather than call in someone who will use a tranquilizer dart. Anyway, the only problem caused by the bear was that it raided unsecured trash cans. Some people drove it away using air horns. Eventually some of my neighbors, many of whom work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, decided to name the beast "Our Bear Juan" or for short, O. B. Juan (get it?).

Along with the black bear, O. B. Juan, our neighborhood is frequently visited by local bob-cats (Lynx rufus). Fortunately, they are small enough that they don't excite the interest of law enforcement.

Another story, not so pleasant, involves deer. We frequently see deer in our yard, a four-point buck is our most frequent visitor. I've had to relocate the Transvaal disies I planted in one part of the garden, because he kept eating the flowers. A few years ago, a woman living in near by Sierra Madre was so upset about the deer coming in and eating her flowers that she put a high metal fence around her yard, topped with spikes. (I intend to put up a sort of cage of chicken wire around a vegetable garden I intend to grow; but the barrier won't involve spikes.) The deer can leap ovr fences that are 6' high and attempted to leap over this one, with the result that several of them were impaled on the spikes. Eventually, under pressure from her neighbors - and, I believe the city government, who wasn't too pleased by the publicity the city was geeting - the woman removed the spiked fence, though she was a bit put out over having to do so.

10/13/2009, 4:05 pm Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 
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Re: The meaning of Life?


Following up on the treatment of wild animals that stray into our neighdorhoods, it occurred to me that human treatment of animals, whether wild or pets, says a lot about one's feeling about life in general, as you noted in your post, Morwen.

One would think that believers of the Abrahamic religions, particularly those who reject evolution - holding, as they do, the view that every life form is the result of a special, supernatural act of creation on the part of a supreme deity - would be the most vehement of environmentalists. Certainly, we would expect them to at least refrain from cruelty to animals.

However, when the Talaban took over the city of Kabul, their soldiers mistreated the animals in the city zoo, eventually killing most of them. The threw a hand granade into a lion's cage blinding it in one eye, after it killed one of its tormantors.

While fundalmentalist Christians haven't, to my knowledge, done anything quite that eggregious, they have intensely fought just about every meaningful act of environmental legislation. Locally, they ridicule attempts to save the endangered California condor from extinction, saying rather callously that if it's too stupid to survive, it ought to be allowed to become extinct.

Apparently, to many of the religious, the only life that's meaningful is human.
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Re: The meaning of Life?


I don't know if we've lost Elim 10 or if either Free or Mel are lurking, but I would be interested in hearing, not only from them buth from others, what it is that makes their lives meaningful.
10/14/2009, 1:23 pm Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 


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