Well, Are We?

Are we born to die (into nothingness)?

Yes or No? Explain.

This general question is as individuals and not as a species.

I reserve my answer...I'm an Atheist who believes in Evolution. :whistling:

Whoa Carl , i didn't know they gave you the mature discussion card ,congrat !

I shall got to the garden of the 1000 good looking yet virgins, with rivers of wine, yet of sparkling shinny water on wich reflected the emerald yet sky.
Then sit my naked bum under a majestic yet humble agedless tree of which branches brush the infinite yet limitless sky...and so on and so on.

Perhaps.
Maybe we are born to learn and find the answers to these questions...eventually.
Evolution is a long process. Does it have an endpoint? Maybe. Maybe not. If it does, human beings are certainly not it, in my opinion. I could be wrong. Time will tell.

Aside from making the universe a bit more interesting, I don't think there is a particular point or purpose for life. Life just happened and continues to just happen as long as conditions for it are satisfied.

AquaBlue said:

I reserve my answer...I'm an Atheist who believes in Evolution. :whistling:

Click to expand...

I don't see what that has to do with your question.

I don't think it doesn't have anything to do with his question at all, maybe he's trying to be interesting.

Can you define nothingness?

I'm also an atheist. Though through most of my 20's I was a born again Christian.

Really, religious dogma and wishful thinking are the only reasons I can understand someone thinking there is an after life. To believe that it seems you would have to accept that there is some part of our "self" that is not tied to our physical mind. One need only look at someone with Alzheimer's or another type of dementia to see that the self is purely a manifestation of the physical brain. So when the mind ceases...well, so do you.

So what does "nothingness" feel like? Remember what it felt like before you were born? It feels like that.

chris302116 said:

Can you define nothingness?

Click to expand...

The absence of things.

Bob Magness said:

So what does "nothingness" feel like? Remember what it felt like before you were born? It feels like that.

Click to expand...

That is not 'nothingness' that is just not being able to remember.

AquaBlue said:

Are we born to die (into nothingness)?

Yes or No? Explain.

This general question is as individuals and not as a species.

I reserve my answer...I'm an Atheist who believes in Evolution. :whistling:

Click to expand...

Carlos ,Carlos ,Carlos....*shaking head* or did you change your name yet?

Why reserve?:whistling:

chris302116 said:

That is not 'nothingness' that is just not being able to remember.

Click to expand...

So you remember what happened before you were born, then?

I'll never change huh Libra...but...I'm improving. Say it ain't so.

Questions like this are so fascinating because no one knows for sure. No matter how many letters you have behind your name, no matter how many books you've written, no matter who says you are a representative of God, no one knows definitively.

With that being said, there isn't nothingness, there just is.

Existence precedes essence.

Very interesting, controversial and an intelligent vital question for us humans. Since, we always tend to look for the reason of things; we want the answer of ‘why?’.

In addition, this question presents and leads to think about one’s values and philosophy of the world and his/her life.

Evolution is part of nature, and it is how things work, but not why. Now, what’s the answer to why… I’m not sure I have reached it or if I will reach it.

For me, I have been thinking a lot about it. At one time I was thinking of it completely from a religious perspective, and another time I was looking at it from an atheist perspective. None of them satisfied me, but rather found them silly making use of the weakness of human minds.

I am still thinking about it... it actually hits me from time to time, since I automatically reflected on my purpose in my everyday life... I am formulating some ideas which I will be sharing soon...

SFG75 said:

Existence precedes essence.

Click to expand...

That is a strong sentence there SFG. It is the backbone of existentialism, which basically says that humans after they came to existence, they thought about it and came up with values and the meaning of life. Back in university, I took a philosophical course all about existentialism, and concentrated on some of Nietzsche's works.

Samerron said:

For me, I have been thinking a lot about it. At one time I was thinking of it completely from a religious perspective, and another time I was looking at it from an atheist perspective. None of them satisfied me, but rather found them silly making use of the weakness of human minds.

Click to expand...

I would love to hear more of your thoughts, as my thinking on this subject has been very similar to yours. :flowers:

libri vermis said:

I would love to hear more of your thoughts, as my thinking on this subject has been very similar to yours. :flowers:

Click to expand...

Here are some ideas that are interesting and I would like to share and discuss:

To start with, we have realized that part of our nature as humans is to develop and progress (D&P). Look back in history and notice that we love to explore, discover, work and organize in order to develop and progress (D&P). Regardless if we were created or evolved, we as humans are not evolving now since there is no natural selection anymore to decide which genes to pass on, tough this might be debatable. The only thing that is evolving or better said, developing, is our minds. Generation after generation people are having more knowledge and better thinking of the universe we live in.

Therefore, one might say the reason we live is to be part of this progression cycle; to play part of the development of human mankind. But then one might ask, what is the reason behind our development, why do we do it and where are we reaching.

The matter I described above is regarding the collective aspect of mankind but what about the issue of an individual. What is the meaning of existence for an individual, whether one chooses to be part of this development or not. Nevertheless, mostly people relate their existence to the collective and find a reason of existence as part of the whole after reflecting it on his/her identity.

Well, it is a big issue that we are tackling here, and it needs getting more into detail and discussion. I will waiting for your opinion before going into more details.

Samerron said:

we as humans are not evolving now since there is no natural selection anymore to decide which genes to pass on, tough this might be debatable.

Click to expand...

Interesting topic of its own, although with the gene-centered view, it may be more like unnatural selection.

Samerron said:

The only thing that is evolving or better said, developing, is our minds. Generation after generation people are having more knowledge and better thinking of the universe we live in.

Click to expand...

I may have misunderstood your statement but I'll comment. How can we be certain that more people have this knowledge? There are still wars, famine, etc. And even if they have this knowledge, do you feel it has improved the world in some way?

Occlith said:

Interesting topic of its own, although with the gene-centered view, it may be more like unnatural selection.

Click to expand...

Unnatural selection... its a new term for me, can you please elaborate more about it.

Occlith said:

I may have misunderstood your statement but I'll comment. How can we be certain that more people have this knowledge? There are still wars, famine, etc. And even if they have this knowledge, do you feel it has improved the world in some way?

Click to expand...

I like your question, because it gives me room to explain my idea, though we would be deviating a bit from the main topic of the thread. Well, the idea is that as we advance more people have knowledge and better thinking for more progress, development and advancement. The decisive factor is that people are now working more efficiently and effectively for a certain group. The group is the form of identity that an individual relates to. The group could be the family, community, society, country, humanity...etc, also selfishly it could be merely the individual. Conflict arise when two group compete for a certain resource or ideology. You can notice the inventions and latest discoveries and technological advancement usage in warfare - sadly!

More war can result from this advancement? Yes. In the end, it is more knowledge but not necessarily more wisdom or enlightenment.

In addition, opportunity for more peace can also be the outcome. One example, is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nevertheless, I want to note out that peace and war are two faces of the same coin, which we can discuss it in another thread...