What is the point to life?

[minipol]

Just read this thread. Well, for me, the answer is simple. There is no point to life. You just live it. That's it. No big answer. Off to playing the Star Trek Mod.

[Puke]

someone had to do it:

Why are we here, what's life all about?
Is God really real, or is there some doubt?
Well tonight, we're going to sort it all out
For tonight it's the Meaning of Life.
What's the point of all this hoax?
Is it the chicken and the egg time,
Are we just yolks?
Or perhaps we're just one of God's little jokes.
Well ça c'est the Meaning of Life.
Is life just a game where we make up the rules,
While we're searching for something to say,
Or are we just simply spiralling coils,
Of self-replicating DNA?
In this life, what is our fate?
Is there Heaven and Hell? Do we reincarnate?
Is mankind evolving or is it too late?
Well tonight here's the Meaning of Life.
For millions this life is a sad vale of tears,
Sitting round with nothing to say,
While scientists say we're just spiralling coils,
Of self-replicating DNA.
So just why, why are we here?
And just what, what, what, what do we fear?
Well çe soir, for a change, it will all be made clear,
For this is the Meaning of Life
-c'est la sens de la vie,
This is the Meaning of Life.

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

with apologies to Eric Idle, John Du Perez, and Monty Python.

[ October 07, 2003, 20:53: Message edited by: Puke ]

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
What is the point of life? I did not know it needed a point. In our short lives we scream that everything needs a point. Life is all inclusive; lions, tigers, and bears oh my! Does a lion think about the point of life? I think it is simply growth. I was born, I have grown and now I continue to seek growth or face stagnation. But that is me and I am alive. I “suggest” the original question be rephrased to: “What is the point of a human’s life?

Does not the fact that we are constantly seeking a point to life, an indication of something? I have thought that the common Freudian/Nietzschean dismissals of this universal religious drive to be too pat and dismissive.

[Renegade 13]

Here's a question for you all:

What is the point to life, without death?? What meaning would life have, if we have an eternity to live it?? Maybe this is just a wacky way to look at it, but perhaps death is a gift, a gift which forces us to treasure what time we have. You can't afford to waste 50 years if that is half of your life. Whereas, if everyone lived forever, 50 years would be nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Renegade

[Renegade]

Isn't this debate about pointless? Look at the issue this way, who the hell cares?

"These are the best of times, these are the worst of times."

[Lord Chane]

Originally posted by Ran-Taro:

In the absence of any evidence of something existing, it is a logical presumption that it probably doesn't exist.

Your statement probably needs some clarification. I'm not sure what you consider as "evidence of something existing". And when you say "presumption" I don't know if you mean it's human nature not to believe in things we cannot prove or something else. Without those clarifications though, taking what you said as it's written, then I'd have to disagree. In the absence of any evidence of something existing, I'd say the logical presumption is that there is not enough data to support a conclusion. Let's see if I can give an example that supports my statement. A thousand years ago there was no evidence that the planet Pluto existed. Actually the evidence was there, but humanity did not have the ability to see it. So for them there was effectively no evidence. Using your statement then, in the absence of any evidence of the planet Pluto, it is a logical presumption that it probably doesn't exist. Yet it does exist, as we later discovered when we learned to see the evidence of it's existance. Therefore, we can see that the lack of evidence does not in fact support the presumption that it probably does not exist. As far as the existance of an after-life goes, I am not aware of any evidence to support the existence of such a thing. But at the same time I am not aware of any evidence that there is not one. The fact that we cannot prove the issue one way or the other does not in fact support any conclusion other than there is no evidence one way or the other. If we accept that as true, then a belief either way becomes a matter of faith and not a logically supportable conclusion. However, to quote Dennis Miller, "But then again I could be wrong." Perhaps you'd like to explain your statement a bit further and give some sort of example to bear out your thought.

[President_Elect_Shang]

General Woundwort,
Something? Maybe it is our [human] something but not the aforementioned lions, or did one pose the same question already and I just missed the news flash? That was my only point. I did not refute or concede anything else. I said the question was too broad and answered the rephrased question as I posed it. It is human ego to think that all life must have a point because we want it to be so.
How does a “universal religious drive” fit into the question? Does everything have to contain religious connotations? Why? No matter what form you choose to pose the question why does this one have to? Because it is easier to quote than explain?