What is the meaning of life on Earth?

MooseJam

kelly1 wrote:

You can't be sure of that in the same way that you can't be sure that God doesn't exist. Why is an "eternal now" an impossibility. I don't claim to know what this really means but I'm not going to dismiss it just because I don't understand it.

it's a really simple idea, if you are existing you are doing things, time is just a measure of how long passes between one thing you do and the next, its that simple ! therefore if you are existing so is time !

Gegerty

kelly1 wrote:

I could be wrong about this but doesn't the law of entrophy state that order diminishes with time in an enclosed system? Any physicists out there to verify this? So how could more and more complex life forms come into existence over time without external input? Or am I just a simpleton

I did physics in the leaving cert....a long time ago But sorry I don't know enough about entrophy to understand what you are saying. But maybe the answer is survival of the fittest?

Ekancone

MooseJam wrote:

it's a really simple idea, if you are existing you are doing things, time is just a measure of how long passes between one thing you do and the next, its that simple ! therefore if you are existing so is time !

NO!! Jesus simply loves you and he loves me too!!!! :eek:

Zombrex

kelly1 wrote:

I could be wrong about this but doesn't the law of entrophy state that order diminishes with time in an enclosed system?

Actually it doesn't.

But because most descriptions of the law contain the phrase "disorder increases" that is what a lot of people think it says and has lead to endless debates with Creationists who use it to say that evolution is impossible.

What the law of entropy states is that the amount of energy that is in a irretrievable disordered state (cannot be used to effect further change in the system) will increase as energy is used in a closed system. That is because by definition, in a closed system energy cannot escape the system. The used energy cannot be removed or destroyed, so it goes somewhere, namely into this disordered state where it cannot do anything.

That does not mean that order in terms of structure and organization of matter cannot appear. In fact order can appear while the energy is being turned into a disordered state.

A good example of this found here is the atmosphere of the Earth. While the atmosphere remains in an ordered state (the same amount of gas hanging onto the planet for millions of years as the Earth moves orderly around the Sun), at the same time entropy is increasing as more and more energy is converted into disordered energy. The energy is become disordered, yet order is actually increased.

kelly1 wrote:

So how could more and more complex life forms come into existence over time without external input?

Well firstly, as pointed out, the law of entropy doesn't state that order will not arise, only that the energy used to create this order will change into a disordered state.

But one must also remember that the Earth is not a closed system, it is heated by the Sun. The Sun provides more than enough energy, otherwise we would all be dead.

Crucifix

Gegerty wrote:

Time is just a man made thing. In the 4th dimension you are you at every stage of time all at the same instance....i.e time is irrelevant. We perceive life in the 3rd dimension, time is just our way of explaining what we see. In other words we all exist outside of time, but we can only perceive ourselves in the 3rd dimension.

In my understanding time is not a man made thing, it is (as you've alluded to) a dimension.

And I'm not sure what you mean about "In the 4th dimension...". Are we not at a point in the 4th dimension right now?

Scofflaw

Gegerty wrote:

kelly1 wrote:

I could be wrong about this but doesn't the law of entrophy state that order diminishes with time in an enclosed system? Any physicists out there to verify this? So how could more and more complex life forms come into existence over time without external input? Or am I just a simpleton

I did physics in the leaving cert....a long time ago But sorry I don't know enough about entrophy to understand what you are saying. But maybe the answer is survival of the fittest?

What's wrong with you people!? The answer is the Sun! The Sun! The big ball of fire that provides more power per year than we've ever generated!

aaaargh,
Scofflaw

Gegerty

Crucifix wrote:

And I'm not sure what you mean about "In the 4th dimension...". Are we not at a point in the 4th dimension right now?

In the 4th dimension we are not at a point (that is the 3rd dimension), rather we are everywhere all at the same instance. For example we are both 1 day old and 75 years old and everything in between all at the same instance.

But my point about time being a man made thing was that even in the animal kingdom there is no such thing as time. There is no yesterday or last year or half past one, there is simply day and night, sleep and wake, warm days and cold days.

PDN

daithifleming wrote:

For God.

Because God said so.

God.

God.

God.

Because God told them to.

When God said so.

God.

God

Scofflaw wrote:

So, not 42 then?

daithifleming wrote:

It would appear that atheists may go in for 'more thought' but not necessarily 'Deep Thought'.

Or else Douglas Adams isn't required reading on the Leaving Cert.

Ekancone

PDN wrote:

It would appear that atheists may go in for 'more thought' but not necessarily 'Deep Thought'.

Or else Douglas Adams isn't required reading on the Leaving Cert.

God.

kelly1

Scofflaw wrote:

What's wrong with you people!? The answer is the Sun! The Sun! The big ball of fire that provides more power per year than we've ever generated!

aaaargh,
Scofflaw

When I mentioned external input, I was referring to input from outside the universe. The sun is inside the universe...

kelly1

kelly1 wrote:

I could be wrong about this but doesn't the law of entrophy state that order diminishes with time in an enclosed system? Any physicists out there to verify this? So how could more and more complex life forms come into existence over time without external input? Or am I just a simpleton

it's nothing to do with "complex life forms" in the slightest. It's energy in a closed system
if only I had my old notes here to throw up the equations
ah well

edit: ah yes, Wicknight has it

Dave!

kelly1 wrote:

When I mentioned external input, I was referring to input from outside the universe. The sun is inside the universe...

I'm no physicist, but I would think that external input isn't required when we have all of the energy from the sun....

Scofflaw

kelly1 wrote:

When I mentioned external input, I was referring to input from outside the universe. The sun is inside the universe...

Without getting into anything technical - the Sun is a local energy source, and drives life on Earth. In exactly the same way, the local energy provided by your engine drives your car. Even though at the scale of the Universe, entropy predominates, it only does so overall.

If your interpretation were correct, nothing could ever happen except the slow decay into oblivion. Fortunately, it's not, because it attempts to apply everywhere what is only true in aggregate.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Gegerty

kelly1 wrote:

When I mentioned external input, I was referring to input from outside the universe. The sun is inside the universe...

And this external input is invisible? Magical? If there is an external input it would then become part of the system. It think its fair to say it would also have to be something fairly spectacular, more spectacular than the sun and in that case it would be pretty obvious and more than likely visible in the night sky. So what is it? Where is it? Personally I find the whole God thing a bit disappointing. The universe is far more beautiful and I am not so arrogant to believe that we can figure it all out, but at the same time we should not make up elaborate stories to explain what we don't understand. The whole God and heaven thing was a nice money making scheme in its day but nowadays it just causes conflict and war. People need to get their heads out of the dark ages.

Zombrex

kelly1 wrote:

When I mentioned external input, I was referring to input from outside the universe. The sun is inside the universe...

Why does life need energy from outside the universe? What, there isn't enough energy in the universe?

If you are asking where the energy came from before the Big Bang, no one knows.

But the energy is here (in the universe), and there is lots and lots of it. There is more than enough energy in the universe for life to develop on billions of planets. Any star can provide more than enough energy for life on an orbiting planet for billions of years.

Anyway, as already explained entropy doesn't mean lack of order. The chemical reactions that take place in a life form use no more energy that a similar chemical reaction in a non-living environment. In fact to the universe there is no difference, life is simply a rather complex series of chemical reactions, but fundamentally no different to oxygen joining with hydrogen to form water.

kelly1

Folks, please forget I ever mentioned entrophy. I'm not a physicist (obviously).

Scofflaw

kelly1 wrote:

Folks, please forget I ever mentioned entropy. I'm not a physicist (obviously).

Sure - it's a creationist argument, that particular one, so it's hardly surprising it blew up in your face almost immediately. It takes a certain kind of very persistent stupidity to make such arguments in the face of any kind of actual knowledge...

cordially,
Scofflaw

kelly1

Scofflaw wrote:

Sure - it's a creationist argument, that particular one, so it's hardly surprising it blew up in your face almost immediately. It takes a certain kind of very persistent stupidity to make such arguments in the face of any kind of actual knowledge...

cordially,
Scofflaw

I believe the world was created by God but not as it appears in Genesis. The idea of a universe exploding out of a singularity for no good reason doesn't really make any sense to me. But I'm not a physicist...

Ekancone

kelly1 wrote:

I believe the world was created by God but not as it appears in Genesis. The idea of a universe exploding out of a singularity for no good reason doesn't really make any sense to me. But I'm not a physicist...

Why does there have to be a 'good reason'? I find this puzzling about religious types, its as if you have some genetic commitment to seeking out a purpose to everything that happens, as if every action in our universe is seeking out a path. Why is that?

MooseJam

kelly1 wrote:

I believe the world was created by God but not as it appears in Genesis.

you don't believe part of the bible, surely a slippery slope

Zombrex

kelly1 wrote:

The idea of a universe exploding out of a singularity for no good reason doesn't really make any sense to me.

Why exactly?

This is an argument that ancient people used to use for the weather. They didn't understand the weather systems on Earth so they figured that when it rained or there was a storm this was happening for a reason

How the different cultures on Earth dealt with that varied, but they mostly involved some kind of offering to the gods, since they figured that the gods were the force behind the weather.

The idea that it just rains, for no purpose, because of the complex weather system the encircles the Earth, was only arrived at later when people started thinking about these things.

Now if someone asked "What is the reason for this rain" they would get blank stares, with people going "What do you mean? Its rain, there is no 'reason' for it. It just rains"

This is very similar to you now going I don't under stand how the Big Bang could just happen, surely there must be a reason, and something (ie God) must be deciding force behind that reason

In another thousand years someone will go "What is the reason for this Big Bang", and people will look at him blankly and go "What do you mean? Its the big bang, there is no 'reason' for it. It just explodes"

bonkey

kelly1 wrote:

The idea of a universe exploding out of a singularity for no good reason doesn't really make any sense to me. But I'm not a physicist...

Can you explain what good reason God has for existing?

I ask because its entirely analagous. The origins of the universe are where the scientific model (effectively) ends. The theist argument often presented is pretty-much that which you've just done...that there is no reason and therefore no sense.

On the other hand, hide that creation event behind "a theistic God did it" and all of a sudden, it makes sense. However, once a theistic God did it, then the origins of the universe aren't as far back as we go...but rather the origins of God. Theists often "cloud" this issue by insisting God is outside time, and therefore the concept of an origin has no meaning...but similarly, the idea of the universe coming "out" of something, has equally no meaning. If it does, then the rules of time no longer apply there either, but somehow thats not acceptable (although its fine when talking about God).

So why does God exist? We don't know.
To what purpose? We don't know.
And why is it ok for a theistic God to be eternal, but not for whatever the Big Bang came from if it wasn't a theistic God behind it?

Why don't these questions cause equal problems to the "We don't know" regarding the origins of the universe?

kelly1

daithifleming wrote:

Why does there have to be a 'good reason'?

If you assume that the big bang was just a random event, then there really isn't much meaning to life. We are then the product of an explosion and that's all there is to it. There are many things about this scenario that are difficult to accept and too many questions arise. What is our purpose? What do we have a conscience? Why do we have a sense of good and evil? Why do we appreciate beauty and abhor ugliness. Why do a large majority of us believe we are created for a higher purpose? Why do we have a need for God? Why do material things never fully satisfy our inner craving for something more, something infinite. Isn't our sense of finitude problematic at times?

Atheists often claim that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of God. This is untrue. It's hard to deny that countless miracles have occured over the years. It's also hard to deny the testimony of the saints who have had direct experience of God. They've all said that the effect that God produces in the soul is ineffable but very, very real. The say it leaves them with an unforgettable memory. It's unfair to assume that all religious people are deluded fools. Most sincerely religious people will tell you they can see the effect of God in their lives through divine "consolations" and answered prayers. How can anyone ignore this evidence without sincerely looking into it? I think too many atheists are just world-weary and cynical and kowtow to peer pressure, afraid to show any signs of a belief in the supernatural.

Regards,
Noel.

kelly1

Wicknight wrote:

Why exactly?

Something in me tells me we have a higher purpose than mere existence and procreation. My belief in a higher purpose make a purely natural view of the world very unpalatable. I'm not going to "get over it" as I've been advised many times. Life is worth living because there is a higher purpose which is to live a life full of endless joy with God eternally. Some people find the idea of eternity scary but that's just putting a human limit on God's ability to produce ever-new, endless joy.

Scofflaw

Why does there have to be a 'good reason'? I find this puzzling about religious types, its as if you have some genetic commitment to seeking out a purpose to everything that happens, as if every action in our universe is seeking out a path. Why is that?

I'll say it, just to get it over with - the fallacies of teleology and agency are deeply embedded in the human psyche. "What meaning does it have" and "who did it" are how most people go about explaining the universe.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Ekancone

kelly1 wrote:

If you assume that the big bang was just a random event, then there really isn't much meaning to life. We are then the product of an explosion and that's all there is to it. There are many things about this scenario that are difficult to accept and too many questions arise. What is our purpose?

There is no purpose, why does there have to be one? Does bacteria have a purpose? Does a star have a purpose? Does a rock have a purpose?

kelly1 wrote:

What do we have a conscience?

There is something to be gained by having one, by feeling empathy for others and others for us, we stand a better chance of survival. Purely out of self-interest but still for the greater good. Refer to: John Nash

kelly1 wrote:

Why do we have a sense of good and evil?

Good and evil are constructs of the mind, there is no such thing in the natural world. Again, refer to above for reasons why this may be advantageous.

kelly1 wrote:

Why do we appreciate beauty and abhor ugliness.

For mating purposes.

kelly1 wrote:

Why do a large majority of us believe we are created for a higher purpose?

Because these people dont want to consider that we are here for no good reason other than chance. People are afraid that when they die, they turn into compost. It is easier to think of a paradise we all go to.

kelly1 wrote:

Why do we have a need for God?

Read above. In addition, God was the best explanation man could come up with as to our origins in the universe (We create, therefore something created us) until the 18th century, since then we have been coming up with answers that can be validated and tested, unlike god.

kelly1 wrote:

Why do material things never fully satisfy our inner craving for something more, something infinite. Isn't our sense of finitude problematic at times?

Speak for yourself, that is a very subjective statement. For those who find the world distressing, what else would one expect from a pack of balding, lunatic apes?

kelly1 wrote:

Most sincerely religious people will tell you they can see the effect of God in their lives through divine "consolations" and answered prayers. How can anyone ignore this evidence without sincerely looking into it?

Anecdotes/private feelings and hunches are NOT evidence.

Scofflaw

MooseJam wrote:

you don't believe part of the bible, surely a slippery slope

Not at all - you're forgetting that the Catholic Church (and the Orthodox) is Apostolic. That means that they benefit from being the direct successors, both in knowledge and authority, of the Apostles, and directly represent Christ in exactly the same way that the Apostles did.

The Protestant churches, because they reject the apostolic tradition, have no choice but to elevate the Bible to the inerrant word of God, because they have no other form of authority, and no other source of knowledge. The Catholic church, on the other hand, is free to treat it as the work of men.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tim Robbins

Scofflaw wrote:

Not at all - you're forgetting that the Catholic Church (and the Orthodox) is Apostolic. That means that they benefit from being the direct successors, both in knowledge and authority, of the Apostles, and directly represent Christ in exactly the same way that the Apostles did.

The Protestant churches, because they reject the apostolic tradition, have no choice but to elevate the Bible to the inerrant word of God, because they have no other form of authority, and no other source of knowledge. The Catholic church, on the other hand, is free to treat it as the work of men.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Brilliant post. But I thought Anglican was also Apostolic.

Zombrex

kelly1 wrote:

If you assume that the big bang was just a random event, then there really isn't much meaning to life.

No, it means there is no externally assigned meaning to life.

But personally I would not like the idea of something else telling me what my purpose in life should be. I get enough of that from my parents

kelly1 wrote:

We are then the product of an explosion and that's all there is to it.

How is that any worse than being the product of a supernatural deity?

kelly1 wrote:

There are many things about this scenario that are difficult to accept and too many questions arise. What is our purpose? What do we have a conscience? Why do we have a sense of good and evil? Why do we appreciate beauty and abhor ugliness. Why do a large majority of us believe we are created for a higher purpose? Why do we have a need for God? Why do material things never fully satisfy our inner craving for something more, something infinite.

None of these questions have anything to do with a creator of the universe Nearly all can be explained by evolution, which again has nothing to do with the Big Bang.

Has it occurred to you that something might have created the universe for a reason other than us? We might simply be an amusing chemical reaction taking place in a tiny corner of this created universe, and those that created the universe barely pay us any attention?

There is something very egotistical in believing the universe was created so we could exist.

Isn't our sense of finitude problematic at times?

kelly1 wrote:

It's hard to deny that countless miracles have occured over the years.

No, actually it is quite easy to do that. "Miracle" is term used by people when something happens they don't understand. What people don't factor into this is that most people don't understand most things, so most things will appear to be miracles.

kelly1 wrote:

It's also hard to deny the testimony of the saints who have had direct experience of God.

Yes because people never are mistaken about things like that :rolleyes:

Hearing voices in your head isn't evidence of God. It is evidence that you hear voices in your head. The saint my say God is talking to me, but that is just him. He could just as easily say Satan or Elvis is talking to him.

kelly1 wrote:

They've all said that the effect that God produces in the soul is ineffable but very, very real.

They would though. They are hardly going to say "Its not real". They wouldn't make very good saints now would they.

kelly1 wrote:

It's unfair to assume that all religious people are deluded fools.

Why?

kelly1 wrote:

Most sincerely religious people will tell you they can see the effect of God in their lives through divine "consolations" and answered prayers.

So do Scientologists. In fact I informally call this the "John Travolta Effect", in honor of Scientology.

Most people believe what they want to believe.

kelly1 wrote:

How can anyone ignore this evidence without sincerely looking into it?

People have sincerely looked into it. And it always turns out to be something differently than what the person initially thinks is happening, because that is normally what the person wants to be happening.

kelly1

kelly1 wrote:

If you assume that the big bang was just a random event, then there really isn't much meaning to life.

On the contrary, life can have any meaning you want it to. Just because it isn't handed down to you, doesn't make it any less valid than choosing it for yourself

We are then the product of an explosion and that's all there is to it. There are many things about this scenario that are difficult to accept and too many questions arise.

Just because there are questions to ponder, doesn't mean it should be dismissed out of hand.

What is our purpose? What do we have a conscience? Why do we have a sense of good and evil? Why do we appreciate beauty and abhor ugliness. Why do a large majority of us believe we are created for a higher purpose? Why do we have a need for God? Why do material things never fully satisfy our inner craving for something more, something infinite. Isn't our sense of finitude problematic at times?

Our purpose can be what we want it to be, conscience has social benefits, beauty has natural reasons(breeding, etc), because people want to imagine their purpose is better and more meaningful, not everyone has a need for god, material things and satisfaction is a psychological thing.
Well those are my answers.

Atheists often claim that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of God. This is untrue. It's hard to deny that countless miracles have occured over the years. It's also hard to deny the testimony of the saints who have had direct experience of God.

Personal feelings and hearsay are not solid evidence.

It's unfair to assume that all religious people are deluded fools. Most sincerely religious people will tell you they can see the effect of God in their lives through divine "consolations" and answered prayers. How can anyone ignore this evidence without sincerely looking into it? I think too many atheists are just world-weary and cynical and kowtow to peer pressure, afraid to show any signs of a belief in the supernatural.

Ah yes, if someone's an atheist there must be something wrong with them.
Well, there's your answer to "it's unfair to assume all religious people are deluded fools" - many theists think the same of atheists, I suppose.