"To live free, to love free, to court destruction with taunts; to feed the remainder of life with one moment of madness and fullness, one brief hour of madness and joy."
"To live free, to love free, to court destruction with taunts; to feed the remainder of life with one moment of madness and fullness, one brief hour of madness and joy."
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
Make sure the window is on the ground floor Miss T. We dont want to lose you.Originally Posted by miss tenderness
Meaning and Mattering
I do not know if this will be a balm or sollace for those who feel their life has no meaning. But, technically, all life has meaning, it is simply the type of meaning that is the issue. Everybody's life means something...that is every single person has had an impact on others, has taken actions, has had feelings and in looking at all of those elements certainly someone could develop the meaning of ones life. The fear is that the sum total meaning would not be particularly welcome news.
Does my life have significance? Does my life have worth? Does my life matter? Or even more clearly articulated....has my life made the world, even the small world I have touched, better? Has it made it worse? Or has it had no impact whatsoever?
I think the last possiblity is very doubtful although not widely doubted.
As far as has it left the world better or worse?
Ahh...it is the season of It's A Wonderful Life in which the angel reminds Gregory Peck...that yes you have made a positive difference in ways no mortal would ever be able to understand.
"...there is only one plot. Things are not as they seem"
Jim Thompson
Crime Noir author
"...Thy Name
Shall be the copious matter of my song"
Paradise Lost
John Milton
The buddist monk was once quoted as saying "What is the meaning of a flower?"
There once was a man named Viktor Emil Frankl.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. - Mark Twain
Everyone's life has a meaning. It seems to me that we teach each other so many little things, that even that can be considered a meaning of life. From a religious perspective, a child is born with her/his own agenda( a kid is ment to make a difference), the fulfillment of which totally depends on his/her choice.
(..sorry if it sounds confusing...)
Destiny isn't a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
Нужна всего одна минута, что бы заметить особенного человека, всего один час что бы его понять,всего один день что бы полюбить...... И целая жизнь что бы забыть.....
Today we are torn between two different streams of thought: One - God exists and each and every natural phenomenon is stirred by God alone. It is God that sets wind in motion. It is God alone that makes pant Grow. It is God alone that gives colors to flowers. Planets orbiting the sun, the way constellatins and galxies accomodaing stars and planets following a specific path with no deviations has to do with the fact that there is supreme law, and it is God who is the maker of the law. The law that shaped the world is framed by God. And see if panets take the reverse course, Wind stops blowing. All these facts approve of the existance of God. Science never can answer the final question. There will be a chain of questions science has to answer after one afte another if it keeps answering qestions.
This is one side of the issue, and the other side is totally an antagonistic or agnostic question. There have been hundreds of questions and arguments against the existence of God. The whole tradition of scientific thought disapprove of this fact. Theories of physics commencing with the findings of Galileo and the latest one now Stephen Howking, all this whole school of scientific thought that had seethed with the the skeptical view of the existence of God.
At home we have been taugt in our ealry age of innicence that is God what kind enough to offer this beutiful world, We must be thankful to him. And the rest of such things stuffed our fertile mind.
Now you can not totally erase this from your mind set this is strongly set there and cemented.
At school you have learned the opposite idea that God made this world is proved wrong by scientists.
Tell me how can I get me out of these two boxes of thought and have a fair idea clean of all these borrowed ideas. I have more and more such questions that will follow. Do you have anything to cooment ?
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
Life has no meaning. We give it meaning.
I make this comment in every "meaning of life" thread made on this forum.
I second that wholeheartedly. Just about every philosophical book I've read has lead me to the same conclusion.
This is 'the other side', as you put it. Either Individuals are given meaning by an all powerful entity or they are to make meaning for themselves. "Dionysus or the Crucified" as Nietzsche said.
As for science being in opposition to the existence of God, it's only true if you take the disproving of scripture to mean that a God is unlikely to exist, science doesn't directly disprove the existence of a God. This is the division of naturalism, metaphysical naturalism is the case where supernaturalism (i.e. God) is believed to be unable to exist. Methodological naturalism is the second position, which is where we must assume there is no supernatural explanations to conduct science, although this position is agnostic and is open to the possibility that supernatural things may exist, but we can never really know of them.
God, like Love, has different meanings to various people. To some, they are mere shades of meaning, but to others they can be quite distinct. I believe, therefore, it is necessary to qualify such controversial subjects before entering into discussion, or debate.
I am, for one, always interested in others attempts at defining these concepts, particularly 'God' which is one that can be neither empirically proved, nor disproved.
Words have no meaning in themselves unless they create a picture in the mind. Communication is the ability to create mental pictures in the mind of another. I would be interested to know what mental picture the word 'God' creates in yours (or anyone's).
This is in genuine interest, and in no way connected to cynicism
how's about this: words have meaning, life doesnt. life is meaning
Unless, of course, we treat "life" also as a word which has many meanings, depending on what adjective is placed before the word. E.g. sex life, plant life, thought life, and so on.
"life is meaning" is even more profound. Words which have no meaning may be be considered to be life-less. However, some words and sounds which have no meaning to A may have much meaning to X.
Science has "proven" nothing of the sort. Science has found enough puzzle pieces to convince itself that God is not necessary to explain the universe - but that only means science thinks itself sufficient to explain the universe.
Flip on the evening news and say this statement with a straight face.
Even more suspect: language can be twisted and manipulated due to its incredible elasticity - language conveys ideas, but it is not the idea itself.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
A straight face would get in the way of my lifestyle of laughter.
The news confirms my belief that this world is absurd and meaningless. And the only way to live is to rise above what this world is. There is nothing true or meaningful in any tragedy or triumph, it must be made meaningful by the individual. To give my position a more traditional foundation "existence precedes essence".
For me the idea that something that came somewhere that no one can explain blew up and created a solar system. In this system a planet just happened to be in just the right spot, not half a mile left or right, to sustain life. Then by chance al of the elements worked together to spawn life and from that single cell organism came all life on the planet, animal and vegetation. When I see the world I see a wonderful design. In my mind that could only be done by God. Therefore, for me, the meaning of life can be summed up in Ecclesiastes 12:13 “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole of man” some versions say “for this is the whole duty of man”
Many more ramblings about God yet no one has taken up my request to tell me how they vizualise this Creator of all things.
Not that this surprises me. All it indicates is there has been little understanding gone into the thought about the concept.
So many let the word 'God' roll off the tongue and ascribe so much to (His/Her/It's) doings but struggle with an explanation of what His/Her/ It, is.
But I will wager, if they were honest, it will be some human form stomping around way up above the clouds with an all seeing eye.
Come on, be honest - am I right?
I know that no one knows for sure, but there must be a reasonable, possible,
mature, explanation that would suffice until that day of judgement when all will be revealed.
And if there is nothing, it won't matter, we will never know that the life we are living now is all we have, and not as some believe, and live it, like it is some practice run.
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