Is there a meaning to our existence?
Yes, to have a blast and enjoy life. In the moment you die, In the moment we all die, your brain becomes starved of oxygen and begins to shut down,
and massive quantities of hallucinogenic chemicals (purportedly DMT, but serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline,
and other neurotransmitters aswell) are released. In that moment it is not your sins that will be
weighed, but your deepest fears. For the only hell that exists is the one that your beliefs
summon to existance, and that hell when magnified through the psychedelic lense is greater than anything
dante could have ever imagined.
Perhaps this is the nexus where science and spirituality meet. Where words fail to express endless emotion without
cause nor bounds. The place not located in space or time but which all great philosophers, prophets, and religious figures
seemed to have an uncanny understanding of. Perhaps this experience is the origins of heaven and hell, when ones brain
is beginning to shut down, time dilates, a second can feel like years, linear time suddenly becomes completely irrelevent
and one is encapsulated in the amazing euphoria or grueling pain there own conciousness creates for percieved eternity.
Imagine being ripped apart, bones crushing, burning, and suffocating until you die, and doing that over and over and over
for percieved eternity, pleading to God to come and save you yet you hear not a reply. You call out again and again, finally
you give up on God and start praying to shiva, allah, dali llama, f**k it doesnt matter, someone just needs to listen,
someone just needs to remind you that you are human. Alas, all you hear are the sounds of tortured souls in the distance.
Do you want that? If not, then simply stop worrying about going to hell, get that concept FAR FAR out of your mind,
There is no hell, only self created, self perpetuated hell, both on this plane of existance and the next. Quite simply,
stop believing in hell, your mind is significantly less likely to manifest a concept one doesnt believe in then one which one does.
In summation, christianity and other organized religions to way more harm than good.
If you reason and exclude at least religious beliefs, there appear to be none : there is no objective purpose to our lives. The thing that would appear close as a "meaning" without being one would be the fact that life is about perpetuation and change of the genes, but hum, Nature does not have an "intention"... This is maybe the only objective way of answering that question. Then, as humans, we can give to ourselves and to the others all the meanings of life that we want. The advantage of religions and certain philosophies is that they give absolute meanings to life, which can be much more productive and comforting (at least for the person) than the sole realization of vanity. If you believe in a paradise and in resurrection, for example, you won't encounter the problem of the ultimate vanity of things and actions, since they don't exist in this belief, where death is not the end, where our works live on in another plane, where there is a God, etc.
and massive quantities of hallucinogenic chemicals (purportedly DMT, but serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline,
and other neurotransmitters aswell) are released. In that moment it is not your sins that will be
weighed, but your deepest fears. For the only hell that exists is the one that your beliefs
summon to existance, and that hell when magnified through the psychedelic lense is greater than anything
dante could have ever imagined.
Perhaps this is the nexus where science and spirituality meet. Where words fail to express endless emotion without
cause nor bounds. The place not located in space or time but which all great philosophers, prophets, and religious figures
seemed to have an uncanny understanding of. Perhaps this experience is the origins of heaven and hell, when ones brain
is beginning to shut down, time dilates, a second can feel like years, linear time suddenly becomes completely irrelevent
and one is encapsulated in the amazing euphoria or grueling pain there own conciousness creates for percieved eternity.
Imagine being ripped apart, bones crushing, burning, and suffocating until you die, and doing that over and over and over
for percieved eternity, pleading to God to come and save you yet you hear not a reply. You call out again and again, finally
you give up on God and start praying to shiva, allah, dali llama, f**k it doesnt matter, someone just needs to listen,
someone just needs to remind you that you are human. Alas, all you hear are the sounds of tortured souls in the distance.
Do you want that? If not, then simply stop worrying about going to hell, get that concept FAR FAR out of your mind,
There is no hell, only self created, self perpetuated hell, both on this plane of existance and the next. Quite simply,
stop believing in hell, your mind is significantly less likely to manifest a concept one doesnt believe in then one which one does.
In summation, christianity and other organized religions to way more harm than good.
_________________
Your Aspie score is 193 of 200
Your neurotypical score is 40 of 200
You are very likely an aspie
No matter where I go I will always be a Gaijin even at home. Like Anime? https://kissanime.to/AnimeList
Ichinin
Veteran

Joined: 3 Apr 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,653
Location: A cold place with lots of blondes.
I was gonna write a reply in this thread, but Fnord summarised it pretty well.
Each of us must supply his or her own meaning for his or her own existence.
Because:
1. Relying on religion to provide meaning means that we are either worthless or exalted, with no meanings in between.
2. Relying on people to provide meaning means that we are a confused mish-mash of failed expectations and exaggerated values.
3. Relying on material things to provide meaning means that our value goes up and down with the value of our possessions.
Our existence has no purpose other than what we make of it for our selves.
You're welcome.
_________________
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" (Carl Sagan)
The fundamental purpose of life is to exist and ensure continual existence of the human species.
This leads to the following chain of implications:
Existence
<- survival
<- doing well in the selection process (= being happy)
<- making your own life your first priority
<- thinking of your own life as the most important thing there is
<- loving yourself
So existence is the true purpose of life, but existence won't continue if you don't love yourself.
In that sense you can say the purpose of life is to love yourself.
richardbenson
Xfractor Card #351

Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,553
Location: Leave only a footprint behind
If you can find out whatever it is that works for you, then do it. and be happy. so far I have let the natural way of things shape who I am without any judgements or reservations and it has worked out suprisngly well for me.
I will not get caught up in religious arguments any longer because it is absolutley pointless.
C.G. Jung
^This^
Light is important in the dark.
It's impossible for all existence to have a meaning. Meaning and purpose arise from the role that something plays in a larger context. They always come from outside that which they are ascribed to. For example, words in themselves have no meaning. Their only meaning comes from our interpretation to them. We give words meaning and purpose. Our lives have no inherent meaning or purpose, but they have both in the context of society.
All existence has no inherent meaning or purpose. However, there is no external construct to give it purpose. All existence is all there is. You could argue that we can ascribe our own meanings to existence, but I would say that they wouldn't be true meanings, only a trick of the mind.