Non-religious point of life.

All living organisms also metabolise, are you saying that the 'purpose' of life is to metabolise, as well? All living organisms also use energy, are you saying that using energy is the 'purpose' of life, as well?

Tell me, how many living organisms partake in sex recreationally?

I also don't think you can say that religion doesn't give a purpose of life. A simple survey can be done: ask as many religious people as you want whether what their purpose in life is - you'll be able to deduce the many religious based answers.



Quite simply, their is no purpose to life. If you think their is a purpose to life, please tell us - what is the purpose of a virus, bacteria, fungi, or emus existence? I'll assume we humans are being arrogant again and saying that only we have a purpose in life, how arbitrary.

 

Chimps do and it is fairly obvious that it is enjoyable for other species or hardwired for them to do because for spiders, the male almost always gets eaten afterwards.

 

It's hard-wired into them. Whether it's enjoyable is still scientifically debated. I agree that chimps do, and certainly other species do. But, certainly not all of them, certainly not a preponderance of them, and probably very few actually do partake in sex recreationally.

 

I would take this into a consciousness debate but that's too annoying. In all honesty, biological laws do not set any meaning of life... They just are and they are followed because they are logical.

 

The meaning of life is hardly a question that has the same answer for every person, and if you think its like that your obviously close minded. Everyone has their own views, own goals, ect, and if you ask me, lifes purpose is all that you make it to be. Whether it be to enjoy yourself, to be successful, or ect. To every man his own.

 

The problem with your argument though is that by definition of being living you must use energy and you get that energy through metabolism. It is not an action we have a choice in, moreover it is a requirement to live. Sex is not required to live at all.

Several species participate in recreation sex including many ape species, dolphins and such.

The purpose in religion is to serve their god, which is the vast majority of answers that you will get worded however they wish.

And the purpose of life is to reproduce, which all bacteria fungus and emus do this. Viruses aren't living creatures, but rather protein structures that use living cells to reproduce themselves, they are incapable of reproduction by themselves.

 

Put your argument in deductive form, it seems rather non-sequitur to me. How does the fact that all living organisms choosing to partake in a certain activity mean that said certain activity is the purpose of life?

There seems to be a bit of the problem. Choice implies a cognition, are you saying that all living organisms can choose?

Many more do not.

Religion gives many people a purpose in life, and that purpose is indeed mostly, to fulfil their God's will.

Top.

 

Is there suppose to be a point?

 

You know Annex is totally correct. It was painful to read your response.

 

Well the fact of the matter is that the purpose of life is an extremely poorly defined topic. If you mean the purpose of being alive (which is anything with a signalling and self sustaining process) it is clearly to reproduce, as it is essentially one thing that ALL living objects have in common, is that they are ALL biologically hardwired to reproduce.

If ALL living creatures by instinct reproduce, and not all of them share any other instinct then that MUST be the purpose of life. Reproduction is the only end behavior that all plants and animals share. Every other behavior is either allowing the specific creature to live or to attract a mate.

Choice doesn't imply cognition either, because animals (including singled cell ones) often choose simple things such as what way to go around an obstacle and would you say that an amoeba has cognition?

Lastly the point of life must AT THE VERY LEAST INCLUDE REPRODUCTION because if all life were to stop reproducing, in a few thousand years it would all cease to exist. Even the church encourages having children because they know that if you don't that their following would eventually die out (not to mention exploiting their young minds).

However if you meant the purpose of a specific persons life such as your own, it is what you make of it. If you want to be a prisoner to an archaic ideology then so be it, but please refrain from shoving your shackles in other peoples faces and telling them they should join you.

Lastly life does not have no purpose because nature is extremely good at removing things that have no purpose and life has existed for how many millions of years now?

It is not necessary for EVERY individual to have offspring, only necessary for the rate of birth to be greater than or equal to the rate of death on average, otherwise we would go extinct. The animal kingdom is the same way, plenty of offspring die before sexual maturity which is acceptable losses.

No, this is actually a terrible argument. Would you want to feel good for approximately 15 minutes to live ~3months of hell, and then on top of that 30 minutes -9+ hours of excruciating pain as you have your groin torn apart?

Sex feels good because its a biological trick for the simple minded animals to do it to fulfill their purpose. I also find it hard to believe that small organisms with small memories have sex just because it feels good.

I fail to see how you can call someones position on the non-religious point of life biased towards anything with the exception of those who say nothing because they are quite clearly brainwashed by their church. There is no exceptions. Its quite easy to call someone painfully oblivious when you have gotten a university degree and you understand biology thoroughly. Its quite simple the fact of the matter is that you don't understand what you are talking about but try to say so in an intelligent way so that others who don't necessarily understand all of what is being discussed will agree with you.

I am not a scholar of the bible, I don't wish to be, but I know enough about it to point out various inconsistencies.

Oh I'm sorry what way should I take this verse of the bible:

I'm fairly sure that is inciting that you commit a massacre on those worshipping other gods. Lets look at another example though:

If you are a prophet for a different sky daddy then you are to be killed as well. Jeeze he doesn't like to play nice at all. Speaking of daddy:

Burning a women to death for having sex that's just great! I'm sure the women's rights activists will jump right on that.

oh and here's the kicker

Sure we aren't going to see a verse on a sign outside a church to go murder a town believing in another god, but its still in the holy book and it calls for the followers to do it. So should you choose to follow the Lord's Will you cannot throw out these versus because he commanded that you do so. He also commanded you to never kill so good luck with that. Also if your purpose in life is to follow the Lords Will then you are casting aside your purpose by ignoring these.

 

You've yet to say why the fact that this common denominator implies not only that their IS a point in life, but also THAT being the point of life.

Why MUST it be the purpose of life? Also, all species do reproduce instinctively but not all those within the species, homosexual behaviour still persists however. Are you saying that homosexuals have no point to live on a species level?

Perhaps cognition isn't the best word, but a choice consists of a mental process. You are saying that every single living organism has a place where mental processes can occur?

Why must there be a point of life to begin with?

Typically when people ask this question it could also be rephrased to: why are we here? The question usually has more specific reference to human life as well, despite its omission.

So, everything that exists in the universe has a purpose?


What exactly are your premises?

 

There is a point or objective to life because it is inferred that you were biologically programmed to do specific tasks, doing the tasks is your point. Is there a point to this script? Yes there is a point because this script allows me to input data to be read by others. What you are saying is even though i have said that this is the point of life and everything is programmed to do it that it is not necessary the or part of the point of it. That is nonsensical circular arguments

It must be the purpose of life because you were programmed to do it, whether by natural selection or whatever may have caused us to. Also reproduction is not necessary in every individual to ensure that the species lives on. With all animals essentially every one of them who reaches sexual maturity produces offspring off of the need to have the survive for the survival of the species, where as with humans we are advanced and our culture is such that we do not need to have every single adult reproduce because there are families with 3 or more children per two adult parents. Gay people are of no use biologically except when they decide to take in a child who otherwise wouldn't have seen sexual maturity. This is not discriminatory at all but simple fact.

No you are the one inferring that again an amoeba has to pass an obstacle and chooses between left or right and it has no mental process.

There is a point to life whether or not you choose to accept it. If you have specific programming upon birth then you have a purpose and if you have a purpose then your life has a point. You could argue that keeping yourself alive is the point of life but that is only so that you can reproduce in 99.9% of the living world

Simple answer for why we are here as in this specific point in this specific universe with the expanded 3 dimensions we can sense is that we have no idea. Some people like to believe in fairy tales because they simply can't say that they don't know.

Nature is restricted to the boundaries of living things, that's not to say that everything in the universe doesn't have a purpose, but we are simply unaware of it. Everything in the natural world has a purpose that is defined by its programming.

Trying to refute something when you don't understand the premise of it is very foolish. My premise is that there is a point to non-religious life and the point to religious life is not actually followed despite what some people claim.

 

To do specific tasks, or want to do specific tasks. You did say sex was a choice after all.

This script was created with the intention to service that function. To draw a comparison relevant to your example would mean the life was (intelligently) created to reproduce. Unless of course life came about spontaneously through abiogenesis.

Huh?

Are you sure this is not just a characteristic of life? Companies strive to make money, this is their purpose. The fact that companies also need to employ people in order to make money however is not a purpose, rather, a characteristic. You also say that we are programmed to reproduce yet say that we have the choice to reproduce. Could it be that instead, we are programmed to WANT to reproduce, and have that choice?

Agree, though the last point is a bit contentious.

I couldn't find where it says amoeba could make choices like that, where'd you find it? The best I could find is amoeba having rudimentary associative memory.

This programming would be a characteristic of life, that doesn't imply purpose.

That just expands it to surviving to reproduce. Surviving is really quite an odd purpose, ones purpose cannot be to exist, that's like saying you exist to exist.

Why are we here? To reproduce! I thought that was our point/purpose - the reason for our existence, right?

Nature is not restricted just to living things - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature

I wanted you to prepare an argument in proper deductive form. I know what your premises are, I just want to give you the liberty to prepare the argument in an argumentative form yourself. It's much easier that way that having to sift through walls of text as there's a fixated foundation to work on.

 

We're born, we work hard, we die.
Life is just a dream in my perspective.
No purpose to be honest.
Just live it. See what happens.

 

I personaly think theres no point to life.
After all if there was a purpose wouldnt we have figured it out?
I also think the bible intergrades "prespectives" into people to civilize them.
^^ anyone disagree?

EDIT: so theres no confusion by bible i mean all religious books. Sorry i dont know all of them.

 

Watch this guys videos http://www.youtube.com/user/philhellenes?blend=1&ob=4 , Will give you a whole lot to think about

 

I'm sick of this question, it's just an obnoxious bit of sophistry. The question stems from a lack of definition; you're conflating several different ideas into one. The word "point" applied to vegetables is different when applied to animals. Sentience renders purpose subject to change, and the use of "point" to refer to both eventualities (photosynthesis) and conscious intentions (building a rollercoaster) is only an inadequacy of language.

A tree doesn't consciously determine its path, but it certainly has a purpose inasmuch as its biological processes lead it to a certain end. Though humans have similar processes, the goals we choose don't relate to photosynthesis. The implication that life has a single "point" is asinine; the "point" of plants is to grow and the (very different) "point" of each person's life is subject to their individual desires.

In summary, wondering about the "point of life" as if it's a single, demonstrable purpose in every single organism is akin to trying to label a rainbow with a single color. To say that "reproduction" is the purpose of life is similar to saying that a rainbow is simply "red." It's an understandable mistake, as the question itself is flawed.

If blowing yourself up in a crowded place would further the cause of Allah, would you do it? If you wouldn't, you don't really believe what you're saying.

 

I have nothing to add, due to tyros comment, great comment and really made sense loved the comment 'A tree doesn't consciously determine its path, but it certainly has a purpose inasmuch as its biological processes lead it to a certain end.' So true. Great reply.


Edit: I didn't mean 'So true' as to that comment, that was fact but the entire post was 'So true'. Just sounded wrong when I read it back, Slightly tired and can't focus so just going to end there, but really liked your comment.

 

I believe that there is a purpose to life, yet we have to find out what it is ourselves..

 

For something to have a purpose, it has to matter. If everyone stopped reproducing this instant, and all life on this planet seized to exist, would it matter?

The answer to that question is no.

/enddiscussion.

Also, Annex, please stop quoting the Bible. If you want to quote a verse, put the ACTUAL verse in, and not your summary of it. Also, if you want to try to pick apart the Bible, I'd suggest you do a little more research. Just to start off, if you ask any educated Christian, killing, in the Bible, does not equal murder. The six commandment states do not MURDER. Killing, throughout the Bible, and as seen by God, can be justifyable.