Replying notes
i think i have written about the above topic somewhere in my blog but i can't be bothered to look for it.
but essentially... to answer the note from Emz...
does it matter that we "we were just plopped onto earth to merely exist for a few paltry years before dying and never ever existing again"? does that fact make our life meaningless? purposeless?
i don't see why it does. so what even if i were just to exist for a few paltry years? my life matters to those around me. my mother will probably die within the next a couple of decades. that will put her lifespan at 80 years. yes that might be paltry. but she has led a purposeful and meaningful life. i can attest to that. similarly, when i expire, i would have, i hope, touched some people, impacted some lives, created something, left some legacies.
so perhaps life deson't have an absolute meaning. but our interations, our relationship with one another, the intricate web of interdependencies that we weave as we journey through these few paltry years in life creates meaning for that journey relative to one another.
one of the issues that i might have with the afterlife is its implications on our motivations. if i believe in an afterlife and therefore strive to do good so that i can have an eternal time in heaven, then i am driven to do good not because i believe it is good, but because i am effectively selfish and egotistical. doesn't that make me no more than a dog, acting only to be rewarded?
further, without the afterlife, without having a pre-defined standard of judgement of the meaning/purpose foisted upon me, i am then free to create whatever purpose/meaning of my life. that freedom is what makes me human.
Cheng... i don't think he/she/it can be classified as an executive trannny (a la Eddie Izzard). but a battalion of those as paratroopers, heli-inserted deep behind enemy lines would most certainly win any war.
the enemies will die from a) shock, b) utterly grossed out, c) laughing to death.
posted by rench00 at 2:38 PM
3 Comments:
Okay, what I meant isn't that our lives won't be fulfilling or without purpose. It's just that why would we be here only to exist for a little while and then die? When you think about how intricate and how amazing the human body and mind are, and just about everything in the world too, wouldn't that be a serious waste to you? Just to have it all - go away?
The point is, you're right, to touch others' lives and uplift them as we go. But wouldn't you think that if a god, a supreme being or deity of sorts who reigned over heaven and earth, existed, he wouldn't have created us/brought about our existence, only to just wipe us out when we're done with our lives?
And you're right about a person's motivations for the afterlife too. It's true that one shouldn't do good because he wants to have eternal life. But take this if you will: our purpose of life is to come here and be tested so we can gain a body of flesh and blood. We were spirit children in the premortal existence, and we came down here to grow physically, mentally and spiritually. Earth life's only a blink of an eye in the endless realm of spirituality.
That's what I know. What do you think?
2:03 PM
your presumption is premised upon the existence of a God/supreme being and divine creation. a premise which i disagree with. (what created the supreme being then? if the supreme being can just exist without need of being created, why can't we extend the same principle to the rest of existence?)
further, why should existence be structured in such a way as to make sense to us? even if everything was indeed created by such a supreme being, there is no need for it to exist as to make sense to us.
your argument is, as i know (Cheng or XH can correct me), called the ghost in the shell argument, first put forth by Descartes. does the spirit exist? does the soul exist? while i can't prove that it doesn't, can you prove that it does? as such, we don't know. neither you nor i. hence we can only choose to believe. and i choose to believe that there is no such thing as the soul. that once we die, the cognitive abilities is the function of the sum total of the congregation of molecules are lost because the order that held these molecules in that particular organisation has broken down, just like how a computer breaks down once you destroy the CPU chip. except that our chip is a lot more complicated.
next, let's accept your arguments, there are loopholes. firstly, let's assume that existence must make sense to us. next, let us assume that we were once spirit and somehow have assumed this life of corporeality. my question is, why bother? why should such spirit beings want to gain a body of flesh and blood? how will it help such a being grow? why will such a being want to grow physically, mentally and spiritually? it doesn't make sense. so... unless we except that existence doesn't need to make sense to us, which violates the first assumption, or that we are not spirit to begin with.
2:30 PM
Ghost in the machine, comrade. As for souls, I've no reason to believe souls are a steaming pile of... excrement. Go see my blog for an extract from Pinker's Blank Slate pointing out the inanity of souls in embryology.
Also, skeptic.com should still have that lovely debate regarding souls in which Deepak Chopra shows himself for the obnoxious, babbling charlatan that he is.
9:44 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home