I don’t know about “higher meaning” or “purpose”, but there is something to be looked at in Newton, Thermodynamics and the Heisenberg Principle, which are about as much “text” or BIOS as we’re going to get. We’re the product of mass and energy and so is much of our cognitive and emotional processes. Newton’s I: Momentum keeps me going, inertia gets me down. Newton’s II: It’s going to take a life-time of hauling ass to pull myself out of the nosedive the JW years put me into. Accelerate and reduce mass: Get thee to college and forget Paradise. Newton’s III: Unless you’re much smarter, you generally reap what you sow. Pick your battles wisely, for you know not who it is that not only speaks softly but also carries a big stick. Thermodynamics I: Time and money are inversely proportional. Thermodynamics II: The center falls, all the time. Global warming is human nature. Find a place to make your stand. Heisenberg: Not only do we forget where we are if we stick our nose in too far, there are also some things that cannot be penetrated or illuminated under infinite investigation. An ethical, emotional, guilt-cathected best-performance of these phsyical laws is not what I have in mind. I believe that dopamine is the real purpose, however it is you can get it at minimum cost in human and material capital.
Why do so many people NEED to believe in a greater purpose?
by gringojj 110 Replies latest jw friends
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poppers
As soon as you find yourself separate from all that is you will seek wholeness. Seeking wholeness takes many forms: in relationship with another, in livelihood, power over others, possessions, and for those who have discovered the futility in finding wholeness is those things, they seek wholeness and purpose in philosophies, religion, and god.
Inevitably of course, all forms of seeking wholeness will fail. They will fail because you already ARE whole and complete, but you don't know it. It is the search that keeps wholeness hidden, and that search is based on a BELIEF that you are not yet whole.
To relinquish all forms of seeking is the beginning of the rediscovery of your inherent wholeness. When that is found, there is no "purpose" that needs to be pursued. The extraordrinary ordinariness of everyday life is enough, the present moment is full and complete, and you are one with it because you are everything. -
AuldSoul
I didn't say you were better than anything, TS. You are putting words in my mouth. Want to weed your straw bed and then come back to my post again? You are the one adding qualifiers of better/worse, I only stated increased capabilities and made mention of the fact that your stated purpose is one your dog cannot ever attain to, so your purpose is greater than your dog's purpose. I didn't attach any meaning to your added capailities beyond their existence, did I?
If you read into it, I can't really be held accountable for that. I'm up to the task of a debate so long as you stop changing my arguments into those you wish I had. Fair enough? I know gringojj is the one who actually propped a straw man that wasn't in my post, but that didn't keep you from playing off of it.
You have a greater purpose than your dog has. In fact, you have thousands of purposes greater than your dog has or ever will have.
Every time you create a shopping list before going to the store, take into consideration the weather for the trip to the store in choosing clothing that is more likely to keep your billions of little pieces of genetic code from suffering illness, imagine the route to the store, navigate the best path to avoid possible approaching automobiles on your way into the store, think through whether the goods you plan to purchase can be carried in your hands or basket or buggy, think through the layout of the store (if you are familiar with it) to reduce the time you will spend in the store... you get the idea I imagine. But then, I can imagine. You give yourself greater purposes than your dog can ever have.
You are just an animal. I agree. But I don't understand how you can arrive at the conclusion that means your only purpose is continuing your own existence and procreation. Humans have a capacity to do something no other animals seem to possess. New capabilities are not always a plus, but sometimes it all depends on how the capabilities are utilized. We have the capacity to give ourselves purpose. That is how you get "greater purpose" than your dog has, by giving it to yourself. Your dog's purposes have always and will always depend on his genetic coding. Your purposes can change from one moment to the next. Your imagination can influence the changes to your purpose.
If your dog sees you do something over and over again, your dog may learn to imitate you. But you need only read about someone doing a specific thing one time, imagine them doing it and—if your physical capability and current technology allows for it—you can imitate that person you imagined. If current technology doesn't allow for it you may set—as your life's purpose—making the technology that would allow for it. If your physical capabilities aren't able to do what is described, you may develop a purpose of creating technology to augment the capabilities until you are able to accomplish your purpose.
This is a very limited (but useful) demonstration of how your life has greater purpose, and more purposes, than your dog's life. I didn't attach meaning to it. I am only trying to increase your awareness of how very unlike a dog you really are. As I said, you may have some functions/features in common, but that doesn't mean a damned thing when it comes to purpose.
But, hey, I can see your box and you wear it well. Not trying to change you, but it does seem like you can't see my box very clearly. We have to get a chance to toss back a few over this.
AuldSoul
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gringojj
Auldsoul,
We have no greater purpose than any other animal.
Humans MAKE UP greater purposes.
You are looking at things from a humans viewpoint. You are putting yourself on a higher plane than other animals. You are forgetting relativety.
Can you PROVE that dogs do not have a greater purpose? This is where it gets tricky. I am not saying can you prove that dogs dont have a greater purpose in relation to our greater purpose and our thought processes. I am saying according to a dogs thoughts and feelings can you prove they dont have a greater purpose.
If you cannot prove it then its a possibility.
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tetrapod.sapien
auldsoul,
jesus christ, maybe i shouldn't have mentioned my dog and "meaning" in the same post. it seems to have really offended your sense of right and wrong.
But, hey, I can see your box and you wear it well. Not trying to change you, but it does seem like you can't see my box very clearly. We have to get a chance to toss back a few over this.
you can see my box? wow. you must really be enlightened, to see other peoples boxes through your own. to be able to tell other people that there is more to life. that we are special. that they are not the same as their dogs. that although someone sees no meaning to life and as far as they are concerned it's just as well to be a dog, that *that* is a box somehow. this baffles me. because i am ready for meaning/purpose, if i could find any, or if any found me. but it baffles me because a box is the last thing someone in my position is really related to at all. this isn't about creating shopping lists, and leaving my dog at home while i go to the mall. this is about shedding everything. do you want me to shock you?
what do i think about war? i don't care.
what do i think about genocide? i don't care.
what do i think about human suffering? i don't care.
what do i think about murder? i don't care.
what do i think about the whole "awe inspiring" willy nilly slap dick chilly universe? i don't care.
what do i think about my own survival? i don't care.
do i care if i am homeless? no.
do i care if my family died? no.
i don't care either way about anything. tell me how this is a box, in relation to your box, in any sense of the metaphor? if you say my genes, then i may agree with you.
golf,
you wanna spend some time with me? why? i tell you what. i thank you for the pm, but i am not ashamed to answer the questions. let me answer them here:
age: 28, brown curly hair, brown eyes, brown beard, several self-inflicted scars, 6'1". genetically, mostly spanish and norwegian. culturally, mostly american/canadian.
lifestyle: basically, my life has drastically changed in the last three months. it's probably what you would call evil and debauched. seriously. burning the candle at both ends. my wife and i just broke up. i do drugs, i have casual sex, i am selfish, and i love it. i have a condo and a car, but i am selling them and moving into and old run down house by the railroad tracks. i am an artist by trade since childhood. i paint mostly, but i also write music. rap and rock. i write prose too. i plan on getting into the art full time again. the only sport i like is hiking, but i am usually high on something, and drinking whisky and smoking, so the hikes aren't much for fitness. i am a lazy, under-acheiving, university drop out. i've always been lazy. and now i really don't see a point in changing. lazy is great. i also have problems of course. i am addicted to drugs and sex. and i don't care either. i post on this board a lot because i am trying to get everything remotely related to being a jw/xian out of my goddamn system, and i have a lot of time at work that i can steal from the company. i have a lot of issues to work through that i never plan on actually working through. i plan on either just running away from issue after issue, or ignoring them, for the rest of my life. at that point, everything becomes a non-issue.
type of work: i work as a network analyst 4 days a week, but that won't last much longer, because i can't really pull the responsibility/BS together. i also work as a male prostitute on one or two weekends a month for the last three months. there is a bar in town called the brass monkey where older women, or couples pick up younger guys for sex or whatever. it's getting to the point where i don't think i will need my boring, banal job anymore. we'll see. they all think i'm a freak anyways at the banal job. but i really don't care what the hell they think. i am not in the business of impressing people who feel better about life on the 1st and 15th of every month. my main goal that i want to do right now, is buy some land in bc, and live on it, and grow marijuana and mushrooms and sell them. so, basically get into the drug trade since my government has dropped the ball on that one.
upbringing: my parents were hardcore hippies/bikers. i was born in an inner city commune in 1977. they split up when i was 1. my dad is an american draft dodger, anarchist and a drug addict as well (and a former sex addict). he's 65. "old man, look at my life, i'm a lot like you were." he lives in the mountains as a hermit now, for the last 8 years, hunting game and skiing in the winters. i don't know how he survives, but he does. he moves around though, and i haven't seen him for about 2 years. my upbringing was not the usual jw upbringing, as my mom never really gave up her wild ways either. it's just the elders have never busted her. but a nice woman for sure. but apart from the brief stint as xian fundamentalists (jws), my family actually has a long history of dangerously liberal behavour. my grandfather on my mom's side was an atheist, fought in WW2 (put a notch in his arm for every man he killed), wrote poetry, trafficked drugs in colombia for 30 years, and did morphine until he died. i am 1/4 colombian because he married a prostitute from bogota, my grandmother. other family members on both sides are all pretty much off the deep end as far as i can tell. there are several in jail, and several dead from run-in's with the "law". he he. these are all people who influenced my upbringing. when i think of my upbringing, i think of all these larger than life charachters mixed in with the starched conservative people at the kingdom hall.
i spent the last 15 years of my life trying to be a fine, upstanding, conservative civilian, doing his part to make the world a better place for those who come after me. and i realized three months ago that i just cannot hack it at all. i have tried all sorts of things over the years to find an outlet for my lust/hate for life, and until about three months ago when i just started shedding social doctrine after doctrine, i was a lost cause. now, life makes perfect sense to me, and i plan on giving it one up the a$$ before i go. i resent religion for stopping me for so long. i resent religious people too for reasons that i think are obvious.
so, there you have it................................................................ if there was a satan, i would worship him.
i bet you xians love to see an atheist who is so "screwed up". the funny thing is, that the only people calling me a screw up are people who think they have found greater meaning to existence. something to work toward. well, that's fine. again, i don't care. blah blah woof woof.
i might not be around on the board for much longer, but at least you all have a 3000+ post document of how one man went from a concerned and thoughtful human, to a self-serving, nihilistic asshole who finally fell off the edge of the world.
goodnight america,
tetragod
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serendipity
((( tetrapod )))
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rmt1
tetrapod, this may be irrelevant, inconsiderate, etc. Probably every day I affirm to myself the absolute, sovereign, inalienable, unquestionable right that I as a human being have, to drive myself off a cliff. I know where there is one, and when things are hot, I remind myself where a snappy, adequately irreversible solution lies. (None of this is my imputing that you are suicidal; I know you're not.) What I'm getting at is this: Every time I hear that an ex-JW has lost their center, lost it, whatever 'it' is, I think of nothing other than Orwell's 1984, where the system got in so deep that it took the person's center. The JWs spout that God rejoices more over one lamb being saved than 99 being good: I think this disguises the reality that JWs rejoice more over a single disfellowshipped/disassociated apostate who self-destructs, particularly by actual suicide, than they do over the disfellowshipped/disassociated persons who merely find a 'worldly' kind of selfish self-satisfaction that is only moderately self-destructive and will only kill them (sigh) at Armageddon. It may seem naive and symptomatic of the same entrapment I ostensibly attempt refute, but I think there is some sense in not giving the JWs more grist for their grind by "succumbing to" self-destruction. (Not that I'm saying you are planning it: this is me making free with your online personal as a Socratic apodosis.) "Choose" self-destruction, yes; "Succumb to" self-destruction, no. There's a fine line and one's mileage may vary. The main point, difficult to get at, is that if there was any purpose in leaving the JWs, there may be some good planetary-scale purpose in not giving them EXACTLY what they are WAITING for. I believe this idea can be held even without calling it a 'purpose'. Again, this is addressed to the words your persona spoke, not to the 'you' behind the screen. I don't know 'you' from Angelina Jolie's mitochondria.
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Golf
tetra, the things I had in mind was doing things together and I'll see if you care. Sorry, I'm not going to give you a hint. My wife says I'm not normal, some people think I'm crazy, some people think I don't care. Sound familiar?
Golf -
tetrapod.sapien
rm,
thanks. i can see what you are saying, and i think it's fair for sure. regarding not giving jws more grit, i would only say (and i am sure you'd agree) that i really shouldn't care what they think about me. if i die and they are happy for me, then that is their deal. i have been making my life around what they want for too long, and now i will do what i want. not saying you disagree or anything, but you know, if i die or end up sleeping in a ditch in mexico, then i won't really care what they think.
golf,
thanks. so, you live in alberta canada? okay, nevermind, i'll PM you.
cheers,
TS
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AuldSoul
gringojj: Can you PROVE that dogs do not have a greater purpose?
The evidence is of satisfactory weight for me. I am not trying to prove to you something that you disbelieve. I'm trying to establish something that I believe. There is a difference.
((tetrapod)): it seems to have really offended your sense of right and wrong.
I'm not sure that's even possible, so long as you haven't tried to screw with my marriage or my friends. I'm not aware of you having done so.
tetrapod: i don't care either way about anything.
AuldSoul: You think you aren't better or worse than your dog? I think you are potentially either, but if you don't ever choose to be, you'll prove yourself correct. Just a thought.
So, in your case, I have to agree. Except to the degree that you have the intentionally unused capacity to choose a greater purpose, you have no greater purpose than your dog.
Have a mediocre day!
AuldSoul