Thread: Riddle me THIS! (philosophy at its core)

Look outside, look at the sky, look at the stars, look the trees, look at the world, tell me, isnt that one big miracle we witness here? Look at yourself, focus on your breathing, you are one, and are part of that miracle that is all.

When you start to become aware of all, you will see the purpose of life, yet you will not, because the purpose of life cannot be described with simple words, religion and spirituality cannot be put in words, its a feeling.
I dont need material/phsysical proof that there is more then what the eye sees. I wont tell you to believe in the christian god again, I dont do myself either, but it doesnt matter what you believe, believe in yourself, your soul and your heart, and that of everything around you.

But quite frankly my religious believes are quite irrelevant. I always tell myself that I will live by compassion and love, no matter what. No matter what happens I will continue doing so, so if life would indeed mean nothing I will have at least eased the suffering of others, if hell exist and I go there I will continue to live by what I stand for even then. The goal is to find peace with your own actions and goals, as long as you are at a complete state of peace and harmony nothing is going to break you.

Draw strength from the ones you live, from your wishes and your dreams. Do whatever you want, as long as you dont hurt others,yourself, or the planet.

Geez, you actually made me post for a change..and I probally just bs'ing =P

Dang Lucius, that was simply fabulous. I couldn't agree with you more, and I certainly couldn't have phrased it better so i won't even try.

Very enlightening for me, what do you think, insanejester?

I guess I would just add, questioning everything is ok. Never stop questioning the world around you. Just try to find peace and contentment in spite of the questions that go unanswered. Good advice for me as well.

believe it or not i got that exact reply from somone at the INTP forum...
and thank you for your reply.. it was very insightfull.

and i like what u said

"I always tell myself that I will live by compassion and love, no matter what. No matter what happens I will continue doing so, so if life would indeed mean nothing I will have at least eased the suffering of others."

Thats the way i see religions... a way to ease the suffering... we go through life wondering the exact question i posted above (for the inquisitive ones of us anyway)... or we are told our purpose from an early age what to believe in....or we find some other illogical explination to ease our yearning for a questions whos answer is unattainable.

I myself believe we are put here to live life and experiance and learn as much as possible while we are here... to me thats all life is... the accumulation of our experiances.

We are indeed here to learn, and to experience, thats what I believe, thats part of the reincarnation concept (which I believe) , but that doesnt mean that there isnt a greater purpose to life, but thats one of the things a person will learn, his/her own purpose of life, which will be diffirent for every life you live.

As for the higher purpose of everything as one, I cannot describe, like I said its a feeling. Taoists say(I sort of am one) that if you can describe a religion and a faith very detailed with simple words, then its not realy just that.

Some day, everybody will find it all out, be it this life or another.

Either way it's good. If there is a meaning then YAY! And if there isn't then it doesn't really matter what you do, so you have freedom that way. I agree with Lucius. It's a feeling thing.

[quote]Dang Lucius, that was simply fabulous. I couldn't agree with you more, and I certainly couldn't have phrased it better so i won't even try.
quote]

Indeed, what a great post Lucius! Thanks for sharing!

Blissful

I was reading John Paul Sartre's nausea last night.

If I had the ambition to walk upstairs, get the book, grab a cookie out of the kitchen, come back down here to the computer, I would have a great passage in response to the original post...

but alas, ambition does not appear to be one of my strengths.

although, that cookie does sound good...

lucius... again.. nothing i havent already heard....
ive read of every religion/philosophy/way of life there is from buddhism to christainity, toasim to catholisism, hindu to jewdisism.

these to me are nother more than just that... religions

and the reason taoists say that "if you can describe a religion and a faith very detailed with simple words, then its not realy just that."
is becouse you can never completely in detail discribe somthing that is constantly evolving and changing... the religions in todays society is put here simply to convieniance us.. to give us somthing to believe in, to commune in, to justify our existance, without ever going out and searching for it ourselfs.

taoism says its not a religion or philosophy but a way of life... but in fact a "way of life" truly is nothing more than a philosophy...

there are many good concepts in the religion as there are in many others.... but none of them completely tie it all together.

i am a realist.. i cant live on faith and believe alone... for someone to tell me i will find my purpose is as useless to me as somone telling me the things "loose id" did when he posted in this forum...

I believe is my purpose... is to ask why.. to question and learn... i never said i didnt know my purpose.. i was asking you what yours was, and why you believe it is, i wasnt asking you to sell me a religion, or tell me the same useless information ive heard a thousand times over... i wanted to know FROM YOU! what makes you believe in reincarnation... what makes you think toaism isnt bullshit...

if i wanted your religion i could go through google.. and find anything i wanted to about it... but i wanted what was core... to YOU. not the multitude.

it makes me sick that people can live there lives in ignorence... so many people having this mindset that they know the meaning in everything.
the christains with "my god is real and i know it couse my mommy told me so"... everything else is evil to them... you ask them if they have ever read anything about buddha.. there first reaction is... "thats the devil!!"
they are just like the other thousand religions... believing they are right.. and everyone else is wrong... most people dont even look past what they have been raised to believe... and thats a sad thing indeed..

i was in yahoo and i went into a christain chat room just for kicks... i asked this young woman if she would tell me about jesus...
i told her god wasnt real and she totaly flipped out... "omg how can you not believe in god?.... look at the sky the earth the trees etc.. if god didnt create this then who the hell did?...
i was in shock of her ignorence... the young woman had never heard of darwinism.. buddhism, or any other religion or philosophys besides christainity, jewdism, and satanism...

we are programmed as children what to believe.. wars are fought over faiths.. unity spawns from these religions... but so does hatred for those that arent like you..

but in the end.. no one knows any more than the next person. its all just fairytales and pretty thoughts... we make the world what we want it to be... but no one... wants to discover the true truth in it all.... the truth that goes beyond our religion or purpose... the truth that goes beyond it all..

pardon me for not being so optimistic...

... the religions in todays society is put here simply to convieniance us.. to give us somthing to believe in, to commune in, to justify our existance, without ever going out and searching for it ourselfs.
[/b]

insanejester, wow...that's a good point. I wish more people would do more of this "searching", rather than taking for granted all they think they know to date.

As for "the other thousand religions... believing they are right.. and everyone else is wrong..." bit, unfortunately mankind is still a bit arrogant on the whole. Not everyone is as open-minded as you are. And that is unfortunate. Hopefully this post will reach a few more people here at DV. That may be the best you can hope for, which is not an entirely hopeless thought.

As I said in the "Conclusive theory and meaning of life, seriously" thread, although I am an organism and have desires and care about things, I intellectually believe that nothing matters. We are an insignificant fungus that grows on a spec of dust that floats around in infinite space. Because nothing matters and everything is meaningless, the collectivity of behavior on this planet is a theater of the absurd play that has no audience. However, I still love life, seek accomplishment, and have fun. It is my emotions that lead me there, not my intellectual analysis of meaning in the universe.

'Tis absurd. The whole lot of it. Life is a paradox, hence, the paradox is life.
[list]
-Fate or freewill is a choice, not an ultimate truth.

-I think that Bog (God) only exists if you want it to.

-Perception is reality, and reality affects perception.

-Just because you have a right to do something, doesn't mean its right to do something.[list]

I hope people understand what I'm getting at. And if I'm making no sense whatsoever, tough noogies, it makes sense to me.

loose ID i dunno what your on..... but i want some!

I think the main problem with Christianity is over the years it got so distorted by people...and we tell our children (or were told) or explain God in a way like "he" is a creature, staring down at us, judging as and watching our every move.

seperate from us

therefor a large majority of people reject the idea of god.

but what you guys were describing - the breath, us, animals, nature, the universe - as one - That is the true God, inseperateness.

We are all parts of God. God is within us, not seperatly without.

insanejester wrote:

it makes me sick that people can live there lives in ignorence... so many people having this mindset that they know the meaning in everything. [/b]

People who want to hand over responsibility for their lives and buy their world-view off the rack are a problem in every society, philosophy, and religion, as are leaders who manipulate those people to gain power. It's no better, though, to write off all religion as lazy and predatory on account of such people.

I see religion as an operating system for a human being. If an OS is the only software you've got, you can't do anything--we need input from other systems. To learn about the past, examine historical evidence. To see how a physical system works, experiment and collect data. To learn about life, live. When we need to organize and synthesize that data and apply it to new situations, that's where our OS comes in.

What I'm saying is, any religion or philosophy can work as long as we constantly reverify it against experience, debug the system, and tailor it to our present needs. A common Buddhist saying goes, \"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha.\" Partly, that means if you ever feel you have everything figured out, destroy that paradigm--it has become an obstacle.

insanejester also wrote:

i wanted what was core... to YOU.[/b]

Well, I find meditation useful for detecting errors in the system--it also spawns LDs as a side effect . As for purpose...there are reasons why I'm here, myriad causes of which I and my activities are effects, and there are opportunities here leading to a variety of futures. If you really consider that what's best for everyone including you is also, by default, what's best for you, then you can plan pretty far ahead (at least a lifetime or so).

So yeah, I agree there are a lot of people making stupid decisions that fuck up their lives and ours, sometimes in the name of religion, but the only way to improve the situation is to do everything possible to improve the situation.

The only absolute I see is absolutely everything, just as it is, and we can't say or feel or judge anything about that, because it includes us and what we say and feel and judge. As soon as we seperate "I" from the whole and try to look at it, we aren't dealing with the whole anymore, just parts.

Hey, you asked.

thanx for the replie... and i really like the buddhist saying..... "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha."

thas pretty much exactly what i said...

You got what you wanted, I was describing a part of my believes and I am in no way saying that it is the one true one, if you've read alot of my previous post in this philosphy board you will notice that I keep repeating that there is no true religion and that he absolute truth does not exist. What I do say is that there is a personal truth and a personal right religion for every person out there. I am sorry if it seemed I was selling you my religion/spiritual believes, thats by no means at all my intention.

What I always say is that religion is but a guide to a soul to help him evolve and learn. As I said "frankly my religious/spiritual believes are quite irrelevant", and they are. I dont care one bit what exactly your spiritual believe is, as long as you dont hurt yourself, others, or the planet. Like I said, my religion is compassion and love, and the other stuff such as taoism is really..secundaire.Its just something seems to find my liking and that I choose to identify myself with. But basicly I dont care if its the truth or not. Its the truth for me and it helps me live by greater religion: Compassion.

Again, Im sorry if I apear to be selling some sort of religion, not my intention. I gues my point is, believe whatever you think is right, and besides that do whatever you can to help others(humans,animals and the planet itself) then you are doing the right thing in my eyes

THat might sound like a retarded something "I dont really care if my religious believes are even true", but thats how I think, I know as long as I have my compassion, my love and my free will I will continue to help others and I dont care if the god(s) or whomever is out there doesnt like it, I try to ease the suffering of others.

I believe reincarnation for several reasons..some of them personal, and because it makes most sense to me..life cannot be learned in one simple life, we cannot know all we must in one life..and also, my wish is to, strangely for a buddhistic sort of person, to never leave this plane when I reach enlightment and stay here forever to help others.( forever bodhisatva ), as long as I that, and the thing that always empowers me I will keep going. And if it happens to be that there is nothing out there at all, may I rest in peace knowing that I did all I can. ^_^

I also dont believe we shall be punished for "incorrect" religious or spiritual believes. I feel bad that I ever made you feel Im "selling" the relgiion(my apologies, sorry)..I gues what I was jsut trying to tell you, is to find peace with whatever religion you choose, or make a mix of several, or none at all.. and then do whatever makes you feel right, but yet again dont hurt other things.

I gues thats what I forgot to include, this is my opinion and is by no means the absolute truth. =)

Originally posted by Nebulae
I think the main problem with Christianity is over the years it got so distorted by people...and we tell our children (or were told) or explain God in a way like \"he\" is a creature, staring down at us, judging as and watching our every move.

seperate from us

therefor a large majority of people reject the idea of god.

but what you guys were describing - the breath, us, animals, nature, the universe - as one - That is the true God, inseperateness.

We are all parts of God. God is within us, not seperatly without.

The teaching that God is a conscious entity who has extreme emotions, including outrageous anger, and judges our every move scared me out of my mind when I was a kid. Even though I talk about meaninglessness, the freaky teachings of God I was given by way too many adults who had ultimate credibility with me have stuck with me to some extent on an emotional level. My intellectual analysis has not completely gotten me past my horrifying fear of being tortured forever for not being able to make sense of Christianity. I wish that instead of growing up in the Bible Belt I had grown up in the Buddhist Belt or the Enlightenment Belt.

As for the oneness principle, I was at the Memphis Zoo in 1991 right after being initiated as a transcendental meditator under the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The idea of the oneness of everything was heavy on my mind, and I at the time believed that I was on the path to Nirvana. I suddenly had an experience of "Nirvana" that lasted about three hours. I had a perception that all of the fish in an aquarium were the same consciousness in multiple forms. I saw the same thing in all of the other aquariums. I then had also the perception that the rocks and plants were the same being that was the fish, and that matter is infinitely complex, but principally composed of nothingness. I had come across that idea before, but this time, I "saw" it. Everything seemed extremely beautiful, and I saw things as though the one being that is everything is nothingness, but also on a level that is even higher than consciousness. It was not conscious, but "better" or "higher" than conscious. I walked around the zoo and had this perception almost until the time I left. It slowly faded away in the last hour. I really believed then and for a while after that that I had seen the secret of the universe. At this point, I think it might have been an acid flashback. Either way, I say that existence has no meaning, but it might be infinitely beautiful, better than conscious, and immortal in its core essence. I don't think the two concepts have to contradict each other. Whatever the case is, I don't believe that a conscious being with irrational desires and an outrageous temper is judging my behavior constantly and waiting to let me be tortured forever for not believing he exists. I know I wouldn't want anybody to be tortured forever for not believing that I exist. I especially wouldn't allow it if I were infinitely powerful and infinitely loving.

Bill Hicks, my favorite stand up comedian of all time, summed up Christianity this way: "Eternal suffering for questioning God's infinite love." I have a very hard time seeing even the slightest trace of logic in that idea. It still freaks me out because of my childhood brainwashing.

Insane Jester, here are my thoughts.

Consider yourself lucky that you are intelligent and honest enough to ask these difficult questions. Many people hide behind indoctrinated dogmatic religions, and try to pretend that they believe, when deep down in their psyche, they feel the same emptiness you describe.

I think Buddhism has alot going for it, in that it teaches us that God cannot come from any external place. God, or peace, or whatever you would call it, comes from within.

I also recommend you read up on existentialism.

Existentialism basically says that there are no real answers to these questions. There is no fatherly God looking over us, deciding our fates. Our fate is in our own hands, and it is up to US to take responsibility for every facet of our lives. We choose what we want to be and what we want to live for.

That is the essence of life: Choice.

My signature says that the "individual creates everything." I believe this, and this is what I live by. But it is up to you to decide what to do, and what to believe, and what to live.

I might come back and post a little bit of stuff about Zen Buddhism later on. Zen isn't actually as unapproachable as you might think. Its actually more of a lifestyle.

Good luck in your search 8) .

This I pasted from another messageboard but it really hit home for me. If you are patient and looking for answers, please read this stuff:


__________________________________________________ ___

What is required to understand this proposition is to abandon the classical binary logic assumption that for any proposition it is either true or false.

This seems intuitively accurate; however consider the case of the unproved theorem.

I have just written a new theorem x, it attempts to show the relationship between the orbit of the earth and the processes of the brain.

Now is proposition x, true or false? Well it is unproved, so we don’t yet know, so within this system of logic one is forced either to presume all unknown statements true until shown to be false or false until shown to be true.

But then what do we mean when we say that something is true? Supposing that theorem x is accepted we could regard it as ‘true’ yet information might be found at some point in time which renders it false. Thus the value of truth is a fluid one, things are true for the moment.

When we regard something as true what we are in fact suggesting is that is ‘fits’. That it compliments our other information. Consider that the vast majority of so-called ‘truths’ are completely subjective in that it is entirely dependent on the content of the other information we are seeking to complement . So it is true that the sun rises in the east if we are talking from the point of having a direction of east and west and having above and below and having these rise and fall. If we are aboard the international space station orbiting the earth however the statement, “The sun rises in the east” ceases to be true.

The class of truths that are self-evident, are tautologies, that is true by definition. “All bachelors are single”. For these truths the information that is being complemented is contained within the truth itself.

We may regard the surrounding information as the context. Propositions may be considered true or false by virtue of their context. When the context is insufficient (as is the case with Theorem x) the truth value of the proposition may be regarded as unknown.

Consider the statement,
This statement is neither true or false
It is true, but if it’s true then it’s false.
What does this prove? That the context of logical semantics helps little. (Sorry Ben!)

Some might be tempted to salvage the objective status of truth by suggesting that truth can be found by choosing the ‘right’ context. However rightness like truthness only exists in a context. So one could give a good argument why choosing the American context when viewing the ‘rightness’ of a war, however they would then to argue why the context for their argument for the context was right, ad infinitum.

So when thinking of the world in terms of true and false, right and wrong (something I think is natural to human beings) we are inescapably limited by whatever context we happen to be in. For that is the design of context, it is a limitation, it limits meaning.

Consider this passage:

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

--Act 5, Scene 5, Lines 19-28: Macbeth to himself
One of my favourite literary passages. How do we make sense of this passage? What do these strange symbols on the page mean? Well we need context, the first context we need is the context of the English language. If we attempt to view this piece from the context of the Japanese language we wouldn’t be able to make sense of anything.
So with this context we can understand what tomorrow means we can understand what day means. So we know what the words mean, but can we understand what the author means? No, we need another context, I can choose anyone that I want, I can make the candle mean a nuclear weapon, I can make mean the poor player a literally poor actor or I can make the whole passage as a metaphor for life.

Now most people would think that the first context is less correct (or true) than the second and certainly the third. But of course in getting trapped by our true/false dichotomy we are within a context. We could be thinking within the context of Shakespeare being from a certain period and being the greatest playwright who ever lived. Within this context we may think that he could not have possibly been talking about nuclear weapons and that being a great playwright it is probably a metaphor for life.

So what we realise is that we cannot make sense of anything without adding contexts to them and that none of these contexts are inherently true. There is just what fits for the moment and what doesn’t.

So, it must be simple then we simply need to get the context that fits the best and we’ll be fine. But that doesn’t seem to work, both Creationists and Evolutionists think their theories fit the best. That is because in deciding what fits you are in yup, you guessed it another context.

What you may now be aware of is that the human act of context making is a system that is developed in order to make sense of the world, it is a formal distinction system designed to simplify and (paradoxically) abstract existence so it can be conceptualized by the human brain.

To emphasise how deep seated this process is, we must consider some of the first contexts that are created in the first years of childhood development. We learn that the thing with horns and brown spots is a cow, and that a cow is different from a horse and different from a house. We learn that this shade is called black and this is white, we learn that this is a thing that is wood and it is different from cotton.

What we are learning is the context of reality. The fundamental system we have developed to interact with the world a formal distinction system. Over the centuries of human existence we have advanced our distinctions by continuing to distinguish this from that, this is ironic that is satire…

What are we actually learning as children? Yup, you guessed it, language. This is the human invention that allowed us to relate to reality in a way that we can make deductions, conclusions and rationalise. You can see that language is not just about words, it is the fundamental human context. It transcends words, it is comparable to the machine code programming of a computer. It is inescapable.

Go outside and look at the world, and try with all your might to do so without language, without the context of language and all the others added upon it. Look at a tree without thinking of it as a tree, without thinking of it as something which is different from that. This leads to the practice of Zen meditation, but I will return to that in another post.

If we attempt to remove all context, we find, nothing. Thus there is no truth but what we make for ourselves. It all exists within the contexts we design. Even this entire post is true only by virtue of the context I have given it and perhaps false to you dear reader by virtue of the context in which you are reading it.

Thus it follows not that there is no truth, but perhaps there is no truth. It is in fact unknowable because the absence of any context is insufficient to determine a truth value.

So what do I know? perhaps nothing.
What does it all mean? perhaps nothing. Perhaps it is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

-Zen

insanejester, I like your story.

It strikes me as really close to mine. Exept we started at different poles.

I was born and raised complete atheist. My grandparents scorn at the

church and wanted me to be the same way. And I was. (but I was just a

kid then). I hated religion.

Science and reason were my Gods. everything was easy to reason out

and explain.


However, recently I began to question the reality, life and it's purpose.

I posed the same questions as you did:

Originally posted by insanejester
I If there was no god then I have no purpose am I here simply to live, experiance short moments of happiness, suffer and die? Most of my life I've been able to find a logical explanation for everything but when it comes to the core of it all the very meaning of life its self I haven’t got a clue

All of my ideas seem to be trivial and pointless there are flaws in every possibility I went through the phaze where u know reality is simply an illusion an all that

but, I think there for I am, I exist, I am an individual thinking being
but (yet again) what is my purpose? To experience as much as I can in my short time here? After all our experiences are what shape us into the person we are.

main one being the purpose of life.

My logic couldnt explain it. So I started to think deeper.

All this stuff got me really depressed. If there's no purpose in life, then

why live? - I asked myself. I really considered suicide as a test.

Quite obvious that I started to seek an alternative. and I scientifically

proven the existence of god to myself. It wasnt any particular faith.

just my own system of beliefs.

Then came the debate about afterlife and much more...


I turned to drugs, hoping I will get a revelation of some kind.

my beliefs needed some form of proof. It is hard to describe.

Well, in the end I found myself completely changed. Now I acknowledge

teh presense of god and all kinds of mystical things.

-- -- -- --

there were other thoughts in my head, just like yours.

however, some of them were really strange, taken out of drug trips and so on. Bizzare, yet realistic.

this is a strange topic :/

as you can see, I'm not trying to sell you anything, I'm trying to tell my story, which I think is really close :/


main thing is : DONT GIVE UP YOUR SEARCH FOR TRUTH

Change is good, and in the end you will find yourself greatly improved and stronger then ever.

Perhaps life is simply the "middle bit", the bit after you've been born and before you die. And whatever you do in that middle bit dosen't really matter because in 0-100 years you'll be dead anyway.

Wow, that sounds depressing.

Speaking of the point of life... I tried to solve that eternal mystery myself, and it drove me insane... I spawned my own hell on earth (I don't believe in god, devil, hell or w/e, but u get the idea)... now I regret that I ever tried...