Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

But why does it have to have a point? Are we so afraid of the possibility that we are merely another random species, with the attribute of intelligence to the point of self-awareness of our own mortality, that we must in turn search for a "purpose" to our lives, no matter how fabricated, just so we will feel the desire and drive to continue living? In that case, one could say that the purpose of life is to find purpose in one's own life.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

The way in which all of reality, past and future, can be seen by God is because God is outside of time, not because he progresses along with the timeline and can predict or control the future. And time is real, not simply a human invention. It is the fourth dimension and a physical property; it can be affected by velocity, though only by an insignificant amount unless reaching near-light speed.



I never said they weren't.



I'm sure there are plenty of religions that make use of such axioms. Likely there are logical reasons for holding such beliefs, but sadly that's not true in all cases. I can assure you, however, that not all religions rely on unexplainable statements to spur belief.



Survival of the species doesn't necessarily involve love – at least, not all the kinds of love that we can experience. Nor is our love purely instinctual. Should one see a drowning man in a river, and choose between solely his instincts, he would inevitably choose not to help if it were more likely that both should die if he attempted a rescue. This is his survival instinct overcoming his herd instinct. But what is it, if not love, that would make someone dive in to help?



Yes, people do become emotional over what they percieve rather than what is fact. People are often ignorant. But I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the rest of this.



Evil is the incorrect pursuit of good. Nobody does evil for evil's sake, but rather to attain things that are inherently good. Thus proving that evil is inferior to good. That's it in a nutshell. You can word that however you want, as long as you understand what I'm trying to say.

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You're a moron if you think I'm not.

The way in which all of reality, past and future, can be seen by God is because God is outside of time, not because he progresses along with the timeline and can predict or control the future.

Then all of time has already happened, and has always already happened, making us nothing more then inanimate portions of picture. So, by that arguement, we aren't even alive.

If god can know the consequence of every action he makes, before he makes it, then of course he can control the future, and he is also in a way responsible for it.

Survival of the species doesn't necessarily involve love – at least, not all the kinds of love that we can experience. Nor is our love purely instinctual. Should one see a drowning man in a river, and choose between solely his instincts, he would inevitably choose not to help if it were more likely that both should die if he attempted a rescue. This is his survival instinct overcoming his herd instinct. But what is it, if not love, that would make someone dive in to help?

Perversions of survival instincts.

Yes, people do become emotional over what they percieve rather than what is fact. People are often ignorant. But I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the rest of this.

That purpose doesn't have to exist for one to feel it, and that therefore absolute purpose is not necessary for a full life.

No, not really. It just means that God is outside of the timeline. It's like the timeline is a line in an empty 3D space, and God can step back and see all of it.

Or perhaps envision it this way. The timeline is a line, right? But whenever we get a choice (essentially anytime we're alive) this line splits up into an infinite number of other lines, each of them representing a different choice we could have made. God can see all of these lines.

Though, yes, God can influence the future by affecting our world, and could control the future if he so wished. But he gave us free will so that we might have the ability to truly love him. Because it wouldn't really be love if we were forced to do it.



Somehow I doubt that people would find it honorable and noble to do something that was merely due to a chemical imbalance. ...but I'll answer my own question. The only other thing that would overcome instincts would be morality. Which, in and of themselves, prove God, or at least the existence of something that has a mind and is 'good'. Lemme 'splain.

We've already established that morality chooses between instincts. Because our morals would encourage us to deny the stronger instinct in that example. Hence our morality is not itself an instinct, since what chooses between instincts isn't one itself.

Also, our morals are not evolutionarily feasible. It, contrary to promoting 'survival of the fittest', rejects it. Our morals encourage us to help those in need, those who are weak. Not to mention that a moral person is more likely to die than an immoral one.

As I said before, everyone has morals.



As well, morals aren't created by society. (Not that they'd have a reason to come up with 'em in the first place.) If they were, then morality would vary from location to location. But people are clearly comparing their morals to a standard; i.e., there is an actual right and wrong. (See above quote.)

What we can conclude from all this is that there is some being that is intensely 'good', is most like a mind, and had at least some influence in our creation.

That's pretty much my basis for all these ideas we've been discussing. I'll let you conclude what you want from all that.

P.S. Sorry for the enormously long post, but I thought that I'd cut to the heart of the issue and tie everything together.

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You're a moron if you think I'm not.

Umm...morals DO differ from location to location. And morals ARE created by society. The basis of creating morals such as not killing, stealing, or lying is to benefit the society (or group or pack or herd or whatever you want to call it). We humans discovered that by banding together, we had a greater chance of surviving individually. Eventually, we formed tribes, and in these tribes, each person had to do his/her part to help ensure that we all survived. Now, if a person in a tribe is withholding information (lying), killing off others (murdering), or taking from others (stealing), then that's harming the potential for each person in the tribe to continue living. The longer each other member of a tribe lives, the longer you could expect to live as well as a member of the tribe.

As societies have grown and evolved, adding more technological advancements, we become less dependent on each other for physical needs, and therefore start changing our perceptions of what is moral. Lying is now acceptable in certain situations, such as in sales or at a job interview, where you're vying for the other party to give you money (either in the form of a sale or a salary, in this example). It's not called "lying," though--we dumb it down to something like "marketing" or some other term that has less of a negative connotation.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Just wonderng, PianoMan, could you name me some of these locations where morals are different, at least by a noticible margin? Thank you, I''m just wondering.

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Well, there's the sense that it's perfectly within morals to oppress women in tyrannical countries such as in the Middle East, whereas there is no such oppression in other countries.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Well, it is quite concievable that a society itself could be corrupt and thus 'have different morals'. So I guess 'twas misleading of me to say "morality" doesn't vary from location to location. But anyways.

That's likely somewhat due to a difference in ideas rather than morals. Middle Eastern beliefs tend to rationalize such oppression by saying it's 'out of respect for the woman'.

The mere fact that we can compare societies' moralities and say that one is tyrannical or bad and another is not proves that there has to be something, some kind of standard, that we are comparing them to.



It does benefit society to be moral, yes. And it can benefit an individual to help its society. But why should we care to benefit our society unless it pays us personally? We may grudgingly follow society's laws to keep ourselves out of trouble when it does not benefit us, but this doesn't explain the moral impulse even during these times.

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You're a moron if you think I'm not.

But saying that another society's standard practices are "bad" or "immoral" is entirely subjective. Other societies (such as Communist ones) look at American society as being "bad" and "immoral." So you can't say that it's a global litmus test, because it depends on where you grew up and how you were sociolized to think.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Do you feel that anything is universally "bad", PMG?

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Yes, I do. But these are my personal beliefs, and since I recognize that they come from a mixture of how I was sociolized and what I've thought on personally, I must respect that other people have different ideas of what is good and moral and what isn't. But as long as those people's beliefs don't infringe on any of my rights or harm anyone in any way, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to have them.

_________________
The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Wow... tough criteria. Can you give me a couple examples of beliefs that would not infringe on your rights or harm anyone in any way?



This is a good attitude.

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Well, that's more of a guideline for avoiding practices that WOULD harm people, such as murder, rape, theft, etc. As long as people just go about their daily lives without hurting others, I don't see any problems.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Ahh, sort of a "Love your neighbor as you love yourself" approach. Seems like I've heard that somewhere before.

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I wouldn't say it's "love your neighbour" so much as "let your neighbour be". "Love" seems like a very active and strong term. You don't have to love or support other people if you disagree with them, but as long as they are not harming anyone by their beliefs then you should tolerate them.

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That would make sense if we all thought our own country's social standards were right and thought everyone else's were wrong. But such isn't the case; I know that I personally have a very low opinion of the US's practices, and I'm certainly not the only one.

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You're a moron if you think I'm not.

But what if they're hurting themselves?

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And conversely, there are people who have a very HIGH opinion of the US's practices. Yes, there are disagreements within societies--that's where the wonderful, migraine-filled world of politics comes into play. So are you saying that people who have a different set of opinions on specific morals are just plain wrong? That they don't understand what the "true" global morals "should" be?



I always thought that "not hurting anyone" included the person in question who initiated the action.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

So you agree that if someone is hurting themselves, then intervention is acceptible.

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While I feel that there would be some instances where I wouldn't think intervention would be best, I can't think of any such examples right now...so in essence, yes.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

So if someones beliefs were hurting them, then it would be necessary to confront those faulty beliefs, to correct them. This is particularly true when one's life and/or eternal destiny were at stake.

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Eternal destiny is a matter of opinion. I was talking more about the physical realm--something provable and tangible.

_________________
The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

I'm not entirely convinced it is entirely a matter of opinion. At least it didn't seem to be to Jesus and his apostles. Granted, some may not wish to consider what they had to say, but that in and of itself does not make it a mere matter of opinion, particularly since I have reason to believe that they are uniquely qualified to address that issue.

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I am.



I have reason to believe otherwise. So, what, you're basically saying my opinion is "wrong"? You might as well say that my opinion on what food I think tastes best is also wrong.

_________________
The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Not the same thing. This is a matter truth. If Jesus is in fact the person the Scriptures claim him to be, and if indeed he commented on the nature of eternal life, then these things are not a matter of opinion. At the very least, they do not fall within that category of opinion that I can safely ignore, for to do so would be equivalent of allowing someone to harm themselves without intervening.

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But since there is no proof as to whether or not this is truth. If Judaism or Islam or any other religious belief is correct, then you're also in potential danger of harming your eternal life for being Christian. But the point is--there's no way to tell which is really truth. It's a matter of personal choice, i.e. opinion, on what religious belief (or lack thereof) one follows.

_________________
The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Perhaps from the perspective of someone down here who does not have access to all the relevant facts. However, can we be at all certain that this is the case from God's own perspective? One would have to be qualified to speak on God's behalf in order to make that assessment. One would have to have divine authority.

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Jesus may have claimed to have such divine authority, but not everyone believes that he truly had such authority. There are plenty of people around today who claim to speak directly to God, and have divine authority to pass it's message--but we generally pass them off as being crazies who need to be locked up in loony bins.

_________________
The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

But if he actually had that authority, and did something spectacular to prove it--say, rise from the dead three days after being brutally tortured to death--then what?

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Then I'd say there's plenty of argument that makes such a miracle seem less than important, such as listed from this article, particularly this section:

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!