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 HouseOfRoses
Official Gay™
Registered: 02/09/18
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 Life's purpose from a nonbeliever  1
#24985730 - 02/11/18 12:57 PM (6 years, 2 months ago) |
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I'm not religious, nor am I spiritual. In the end I believe there is nothing.
With this in mind that doesn't mean I think life has no purpose. At least, I don't think my life has no purpose. I think everyone makes their own purpose whether it is a good one or bad one isn't up for me to decide.
I believe my purpose, if there is such a way to describe what a purpose is, is to appreciate the beautiful in everything.
If there is no one appreciating the beautiful, then what is the point of anything for being such? We might as well all live in the darkness with nothing. I will admit I'm not always very good at doing this, but with every little time that I do, I believe I am bringing more goodness to the world.
It's like a schöenders cat. Is both exists and doesn't exist. When I, or anyone, takes the time to appreciate something beautiful we are actively adding more beauty to existence. And this counts for all things.
A magnificent mountain, a delicious sip of hot chocolate, your favorite music, the feel of fresh sheets. I could go on.
In the end, appreciation of things worthy of it. The more we focus on the nagatives the worse we are making our own life. That isn't to say that we shouldn't change the bad, just make sure to let yourself love the good too.
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Peyote Road
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: HouseOfRoses] 1
#24986481 - 02/11/18 03:48 PM (6 years, 2 months ago) |
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feel of fresh sheets, that's something i haven't felt in a while
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The path of the herbalist is to open ourselves to nature in an innocent and pure way. SHe in turn will open her bounty and reward us with many valuable secrets. May the earth bless you. - Michael Tierra
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Buster_Brown
L'une
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: HouseOfRoses]
#24986615 - 02/11/18 04:32 PM (6 years, 2 months ago) |
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That's all well and good, and perhaps you will never succumb to depression and the suicidal impulses that may prompt reflections of the First and Second Death
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Duncan Rowhl
Fiducia Christum
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: HouseOfRoses] 1
#24987281 - 02/11/18 06:40 PM (6 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ultimately, if nothing is 'after', then that act of appreciating beauty has no purpose.
It needs to be a lesson taken away from the experience.
To believe that there isn't a subsequent 'place' for evaluation of a prior experience renders a belief that can only be purposelessness.
I believe the 'after' already is (eternity) and we are feeding into it and from it in every given moment.
I believe this existence is a result of a mass dispersement of the singular, so that it can experience itself from sexillions upon sexiliions of different perspectives, experienced by everything from humans down to nanobes, to re-evaluate for the sake of ever continuing maturity, upon the death of the perceiver, which is only me, yet paradoxically everyone else.
Edited by Duncan Rowhl (02/11/18 07:24 PM)
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 Grey Fox
Registered: 01/22/15
Posts: 2,655
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Duncan Rowhl]
#24992561 - 02/13/18 10:07 PM (6 years, 2 months ago) |
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HouseOfRoses thank you for your contribution. It is good that you have found a purpose that brings you peace and happiness. To be present in the moment and to appreciate it for what it is sounds so simple, but it is so challenging to actually accomplish. To be silent and aware in nature has brought more peace to me than anything else. Theology and fantasies of eternity are really just distractions.
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IT WAS ALL A DREAM
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RJ Tubs 202
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Duncan Rowhl]
#25006793 - 02/19/18 09:56 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Duncan Rowhl said:
Ultimately, if nothing is 'after', then that act of appreciating beauty has no purpose.
It needs to be a lesson taken away from the experience.
I've worked very hard to not make life such a project 
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MarkostheGnostic
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 Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: HouseOfRoses] 1
#25008114 - 02/20/18 01:22 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Although you say that you're not spiritual, you may be saying that because of a cognitive bias. You may think that religious or spiritual necessarily means adherence to some 'beliefs,' including some type of post-mortem existence (another discussion), or to some tradition, or to some ritual practice whether sitting quietly, lighting candles, reciting prayers or mantras, or any number of forms. However, appreciation of Beauty, according to my favorite Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus, is grounded in metaphysics. Appreciation of physical beauty, the sensate awareness of form is the lowest type of beauty. There are higher forms, and according to Platonic philosophy the temporary manifestations of physical beauty are all dim images of the Form of Intellectual Beauty, an Eternal Idea whence all temporal beauty derives. According to Plotinus, part of the human soul (psyche), which participates in the World-Soul (Anima Mundi), is in contact with a higher ontological realm wherein the Eternal Idea of Beauty resides. This realm (Nous), in turn, derives from Ultimate Reality which is called The One, or The Good.
Christianity appropriated the system of Plotinus when it developed its own trinitarian version of Ultimate Reality, but Christianity never developed a human psychology as well as Plotinus did. Plotinus interpreted the writings of Plato and systematized them. Augustine, one of the early developers of Christian theology was a Neoplatonist before he became a Christian, and C.G. Jung took his psychological use of the term archetype from Augustine, who took it from Plato. Beauty would be an archetype [rom arkhe- ‘primitive’ + tupos ‘a model']. My point is that being a human being, you possess a spiritual dimension. Arguably, you ARE a spiritual dimension, a human being. The spiritual might be unconscious for you, but it is the transcendental aspect of human consciousness even if one has not contemplated its origin in Ultimate Reality (which may be unknown, but which is logically undeniable). The psyche, said Aldous Huxley, is "amphibious," by which he meant that the mind can identify with matter or with spirit or with both. For you, the appreciation of material beauty may be an entering wedge into its further implications.
While the all too common appreciation of the beauty of the opposite sex can be convincingly attributed to a biological imperative to reproduce, that is clearly not the case for those humans who thwart reproduction but not the appreciation of human beauty and sexuality, whether straight, gay, or otherwise. The appreciation of non-human beauty in the mineral, vegetable, animal, artistic or celestial realms are perhaps more clearly understood to be derivative of that principle that transcends human biology. In this philosophical sense, you are experiencing a transcendental cause for your appreciation of beauty, and as such you are experiencing as aspect of your spiritual dimension which is connected to these higher realms of being.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/#4
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (02/20/18 01:59 PM)
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sudly
Quasar Praiser
Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 11,369
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: HouseOfRoses]
#25014729 - 02/22/18 10:16 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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My purpose is to do what the boss says to do, and that includes planting lomandras and keeping the natives maintained. But really, getting paid to do is a great reason to do.
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I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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Duncan Rowhl
Fiducia Christum
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
#25015262 - 02/23/18 06:11 AM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
RJ Tubs 202 said:
Quote:
Duncan Rowhl said:
Ultimately, if nothing is 'after', then that act of appreciating beauty has no purpose.
It needs to be a lesson taken away from the experience.
I've worked very hard to not make life such a project
I don't think life needs to be a conscious effort to yield something of assumed use each and every day.
I believe it's about being the best we can be and the lessons are simply an inevitability of living.
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RJ Tubs 202
Registered: 09/20/08
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Duncan Rowhl]
#25017340 - 02/23/18 10:25 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Duncan Rowhl said:
I believe it's about being the best we can be . . .
Can you restate that perspective without using the term "best"?
(I don't mean to be a jerk. I think it would be insightful.)
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Duncan Rowhl
Fiducia Christum
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
#25021183 - 02/25/18 03:33 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
RJ Tubs 202 said:
Quote:
Duncan Rowhl said:
I believe it's about being the best we can be . . .
Can you restate that perspective without using the term "best"?
(I don't mean to be a jerk. I think it would be insightful.)
'Optimal' in accordance with one's belief of personal potential.
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BrendanFlock
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Duncan Rowhl] 1
#25021994 - 02/25/18 09:29 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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The soul wants yields.. for everything is its seeds, its crops..!
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Violet Wizard
Violet Prisoner
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: BrendanFlock]
#25023478 - 02/26/18 11:16 AM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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I dont believe in the after life and am not spiritual at all. I have no inclination to be spiritual and I think as such this life matters. I think the idea that if there is nothing after this there is no purpose is because spiritual people draw purpose and meaning from being that way.
To say there needs to be a reason to appreciate life is to make it sound like life itself is not the gift. I make every day special even if its not, even if its just remembering the fact I am gifted a location i can walk to work in and spend every day admiring the simple changes this world goes through. Stupid things like the way the coming of spring makes the wind warmer and what it feels like to have the warmer wind against my face rather then the cold piecing kind.
I think there is a lot of natural beauty and small things people take for granted that make this reality and life beautiful and unique. I feel like people that cant see that is the meaning and the gift are the ones lost.
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Promise me to pass the time. Dance with me on plastic tears. Kiss me, we won’t feel alone, till morning when we disappear.
  
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Duncan Rowhl
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Violet Wizard]
#25023507 - 02/26/18 11:34 AM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Violet Wizard said:
I dont believe in the after life and am not spiritual at all. I have no inclination to be spiritual and I think as such this life matters. I think the idea that if there is nothing after this there is no purpose is because spiritual people draw purpose and meaning from being that way.
To say there needs to be a reason to appreciate life is to make it sound like life itself is not the gift. I make every day special even if its not, even if its just remembering the fact I am gifted a location i can walk to work in and spend every day admiring the simple changes this world goes through. Stupid things like the way the coming of spring makes the wind warmer and what it feels like to have the warmer wind against my face rather then the cold piecing kind.
I think there is a lot of natural beauty and small things people take for granted that make this reality and life beautiful and unique. I feel like people that cant see that is the meaning and the gift are the ones lost.
Imagine a paradigm which enjoys all of that and more. 
Those who regard an 'after' don't disregard the experience and moments of life.
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Duncan Rowhl
Fiducia Christum
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: BrendanFlock]
#25023509 - 02/26/18 11:36 AM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
BrendanFlock said:
The soul wants yields.. for everything is its seeds, its crops..!
Indeed.
It births generates of creation.
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Violet Wizard
Violet Prisoner
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Duncan Rowhl]
#25023513 - 02/26/18 11:37 AM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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My point is there is nothing more, why does there have to be for you to enjoy it? If you believe in something more then you then you are giving power to something and I simply focus that energy inward.
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Promise me to pass the time. Dance with me on plastic tears. Kiss me, we won’t feel alone, till morning when we disappear.
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Duncan Rowhl
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Violet Wizard]
#25024060 - 02/26/18 02:30 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Violet Wizard said:
My point is there is nothing more, why does there have to be for you to enjoy it? If you believe in something more then you then you are giving power to something and I simply focus that energy inward.
Enjoyment is something entirely different.
Your proposal was seemingly the suggestion that we can appreciate life more if it's considered as a one off chance of experience.
What is debated is purpose and there is no true purpose to growth which inevitably comes to a sudden and ultimate end.
Arguably those who appreciate the potential carryover are likely to make the best they can out of life.
Thus, the debate is a double-edged sword.
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Violet Wizard
Violet Prisoner
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Duncan Rowhl]
#25024072 - 02/26/18 02:34 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Sure there is, collected experience and understanding through that experience. Why are you so sure there needs to be a reason for it to have a purpose? Cant the experience itself be the purpose? Why do you want there to be a reason anyway?
Your still trying to say that there is a bigger reason then just you for being alive... how is that a comforting thought? I find it better to believe my experience is the purpose for my life and I alone control what i experience and my own destiny.
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Promise me to pass the time. Dance with me on plastic tears. Kiss me, we won’t feel alone, till morning when we disappear.
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Duncan Rowhl
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Violet Wizard]
#25024095 - 02/26/18 02:39 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Violet Wizard said:
Sure there is, collected experience and understanding through that experience. Why are you so sure there needs to be a reason for it to have a purpose? Cant the experience itself be the purpose? Why do you want there to be a reason anyway?
Your still trying to say that there is a bigger reason then just you for being alive... how is that a comforting thought? I find it better to believe my experience is the purpose for my life and I alone control what i experience and my own destiny.
Equally, why are you so sure there isn't a purpose (other than what itself is)?
It's a mistake to assume that beliefs are for the mere purpose of personal comfort rather than intellectual reasoning.
People have disbelieved and thought along the same lines as yourself, and then become to believe otherwise.
You do control what you experience, and that freedom is your creativity and the experience itself.
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Violet Wizard
Violet Prisoner
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Re: Life's purpose from a nonbeliever [Re: Duncan Rowhl]
#25024114 - 02/26/18 02:45 PM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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Because to me it makes no sense that this life would somehow continue after this life. I just cant begin to understand the value in that line of thought anyway and I suppose that is the other big issue. If you dont believe it and fail to see how its at all beneficial then youll have a hard time considering the fact it would ever make sense.
I am so sure of it because to me it is the only thing that makes sense and the only way that gives life meaning to me... because if we went somewhere after this why would this matter
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Promise me to pass the time. Dance with me on plastic tears. Kiss me, we won’t feel alone, till morning when we disappear.
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