What is life? What are our objectives in life? Ok, we have to go to school, so we can go to Uni, so we can get a career, so we can get a job, so we can get married, so we can have a family, so THEY can grow up, and repeat the cycle again…RIGHT? Then what?
I suppose a religious person would say that this earthly life is just a transitional period through which we must pass for one reason or another in order to go on to eternal life.
However, I think this poses a few problems. Firstly, if we assume that there can be no good without evil since they are both relative to each other, then what does it mean to say we shall go on to an eternal life of pure goodness. If there is no evil to compare it too, goodness becomes nothing. Surely an eternal life of nothing is not nearly as good as a temporal life of good in relation to evil.
Secondly, if we assume that good and evil are non-relational and therefore good can exist without evil, it begs the question, why did a God create a world in which evil exists? To this argument many would say that there must be evil in order to have good but we’ve already postulated that this is not the case.
So, which side is right? They both seem to have problems but my guess is the first way has a way out which i have not yet seen. Enlighten me… 
MOHAMMED: You described society’s expectations of our lives. People have individual thoughts of life that break out of society’s rules. IE.Religions, as Ben mentioned, who’s followers believe life is a test of faith. Others believe this world is actually a practise world where different tests are set upon us to see how “The Real World” should be formed.
It’s sad that people can’t break out of society’s ruling because surely without the restrictions set upon us we would appreciate life a lot more and have a clearer understanding of the meaning/purpose of life.
BEN:Binary oppositions, you cant have one thing without the opposite. I agree that you cant have good without evil otherwise we wouldn’t know what goodness was.
My thought has always been that if an omnipotent, omniscient being is in control of goodness, why can’t there be an all-powerful being of evil which causes the badness in the world to oppose the good??
nope, still cant find “badness” in the dictionary.
Granted I might be young, but from my point of veiw that school-job-family cycle is restrictive. It worked for millions of humans, but what it is to say it’ll work for me? There is a book I started to read on logic that I never finished, and it said “Know what you are arguing.” I don’t agree with that. Was it Emerson or Thoreau that said, “Consistency is the hobogoblin of the mind?”
I think the meaning of life is to have sex. To procreate ( I’m not the best speller ). I see everything in life as leading to the evolution of the human race.
We work for money. We need money to survive, pay the rent and eat food. We need to survive to have sex. Soon enough humans will evolve into non-coporeal beings, and we won’t need physical bodies. I might be taking it too far, but that is kind of where I stand right now. Up until I find a better point of veiw. My mind is always open for change.
Life is the quality of : Being Alive – The Objective? : To be alive we must first Survive.
The rest is: Individual Choice. Meaning of Life? Meaning: idea conveyed or intended to be conveyed.
I suppose a important question is “Do you think life conveys a intended message to you?†& “if so what is this message?†Does reality seem to describe purpose/meaning to you?
Further into the thought: Is there a fundamental need for existence to exist? Must there be something?
The best I can offer: The fact that the very notion/idea of an opposite to something negates itself leads me to the following> The universe is unfathomably large & its make up ridiculously small. The fact that its size alone must not have boundaries (the smallest particle could always be divided in 2 & the entire size of it can’t actually have a end) suggests containment. Sure we may simply not understand how something could exist without what we would term “Ends†but it does beg the question: Why so big & small? Why do the laws of physics seem to breakdown at both ends? Call me suspicious but not superstitious - lol.
Regards,
I have decided that I would use my life to make the human race go in a better direction. I know I can’t do this on a large scale. So I’m going to live my life in the way I seem is the right way. Not the way others have concluded is the right way, but in the way I have deduced to be the right way. And when the time comes for me to raise a child, I would teach that child to live in the manner that I have come to an agreement with myself is the right way. Me and the child’s mother would have had endless philosophical discussions to make sure that it is the right way. And to give this child the tools in order to decide (when the age is appropriate) whether or not the moral and philosophical foundations that we have layed are good for them.
In order to change the world, you must first change it within yourself.
— Hello Smooth. Like your posts. It was Emerson and i believe the quote was, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Nietzsche kept a copy of Emerson’s essays.
there is about as much meaning in life as there is when i drop some baking soda in a glass of vinager. stuff just happens. i belive in hard determanism, and that being the case makes any meaning to life to be an illusion seeing as its all already planned out. whatever meaning or anything you seem to think is there is an illusion and/or irrelevent.
I view life as a continuing very complex chemical reaction. No chemical reaction implies no life. The purpose of life depends on a living organism’s capabilities. All life shares a necessity to propogate, but in the case of humans, our purpose has expanded with our ability to control our destiny. In my opinion science is central to that ability, and expands our range of possiblilities.
and then what…
and even if you have a why or a how.
so what?
hence forth and whyfore?
for nothing or for something and then nought. insane absurdity.
for the last fleeting moment when you inhale your last gasping breath that you may look back vainly at life and say " i did this and this"
and then you die.
Reply to jedi_pocky
You say: “you may look back vainly at life and say " i did this and this”
and then you die." Do you have an alternative in mind? Maybe: don’t look back?