Why are we here?

Do you speak in tongues rosewhite ? Serious question.

Oh my! what an amazing lot you are! Full of varying thoughts and beliefs or even non belief. It is good that these subjects stimulate us to think of deeper things than the cost of living or living in fear of devastating events that happen on varying scales. Over a period of fifty five years I have studied, listened, questioned, experienced various religions and fields of thought and enquiry. With what I have read, conversations I have been involved in, experiences of life after death and healing, Peace movement etc. I believe that we are a creation of God, God being an energy of Love; we are part of Him/Her; so God could be either, or part of both. So we are spiritual beings who embark upon a journey to other sphere's, planets, constellations. The purpose is experience, which feeds back to God, the reason, we, as a species do dreadful things to others, and by others, I mean, as well as humans, to the animal kingdom and the planet herself; is because we have forgotten all this. We have forgotten we are inheritors of all the wonderful gifts that are there for us. Life on this planet, can be visited over and over again, until we get it somewhere near right. Whether you believe or not, doesn't matter, it is your intention that counts. Just honour each other as we would care to be honoured, and be joyful. Blessings to all. Margaret.

With the passing years, there’ll come a time,
You couldn’t have dreamt of while in your prime.
When your zest for life goes into reverse,
And you just know that things will get worse.

Old age wears you down and bends your back.
What was once taut, now becomes slack.
You find life’s rewards no longer enthral,
And your normal pace is down to a crawl.

Your respect for authority is just about nil.
You’ve seen them too often with their hands in the till.
You don’t have anyone, now, to impress,
So comfort is all, when you get up to dress.

If you were lucky enough to have had a good life.
You’ll know it was because you had a good wife.
But, as you wait to pass through death’s dark door.
You find yourself wondering. What was it all for?

Right now the thread that follows this one on the Active list – Why are we here? – is Relocation. I love entropy.

There is no divine plan. I can accept that some people have a need for a god, but what I find offensive, and laughable, are those who cansider non believers to have been corrupted by the devil and will be denied a chance of some mythical future paradise.

Anya If it's mythical, why would it offend you (apart from the repetitive tiresomeness)? Laughable? – tee hee.

Btw and not relevant, but I'd really not mind a short match-up with this corrupting Satan chap, but I have no longing for a future paradise.

That's the laughable bit Absent

Naughty!

PS and completely off topic, doesn't 'tiresomeness' look odd written down?

Gerente Thanks for the verses, very apt. I often wonder what's it for, why are we here, what's the point of life, what purpose do we serve on this earth. Expect I will never know.

I had a post on Fb which I liked. It said,

How others treat you is their Karma
How you treat others is your Karma.

I try to treat others well. I was raised Catholic and we were taught that there was Jesus in everyone we meet.

Don't know what I believe these days, but if we follow the above rules for living we will be better people and also if there is an afterlife where we are judged well, we did try to be "good."

Sartre: Hell is other people

TS Eliot: Hell is oneself

As they say in exam papers: Discuss!

What if God's a woman? Not only am I going to hell - I'll never know why!
Adam Ferrara

Of course god isn't a woman.

So much beauty in nature. Seems to me our world would be much plainer if it was all by chance.

God (if he exists, which is another subject altogether) is neither a man nor a woman, so those who would bar women from the priesthood or from taking an active part in worship are using their own prejudices. Male and female are only needed for reproduction, and for most of the world's history organisms reproduced by asexual means. A supremely powerful being who could create a universe in one stroke (if that is how it all started) had no need for a second (and subordinate?) being to assist.

Many creation stories involve two gods - one male and one female - but Judaism only involves one, who was considered to be male. When Jesus the promised deliverer was born in human form, there was a 50/50 chance of male or female.

I can't help feeling that a woman god would have got things right ordered the universes better. My remark was flippant, so possibly out of order.

I wonder whether Christianity would ever have got off the ground had the promised deliverer been born a girl?

Bearing in mind the mores of the time, I mean...

It would have been labelled as another of the fertility cults that pre-dated the "God our father" religion. Female deities were definitely disapproved of - they had all those rituals associated with sex and reproduction that encouraged women to get above themselves and think they could do something that men couldn't. Can't have that!.

I think that Gabriel told Mary that her prospective baby was boy, so that fact was known in advance and presumably a deliberate act of God, if indeed we believe it!!
I would love to believe in the after life, but somehow if I'm totally honest I have grave doubts, it's too complicated for a mere human to visualise and from the outside looking in completely impossible.
As to why we are here - well there's a question? Goodness only knows, some people it seems were put on this earth to do good, countermanded by those it would appear who were created for the exact opposite. Most of us muddle by and there appears to be no particular reason for our existence. Why do some live into old age and others die as babies. Is the earth the only inhabited planet? So many questions, most of them unanswerable. I don't know why we're here, who or what created animal life or what will be the end of it all.

I think that having "grave doubts" about an afterlife is entirely appropriate

But niggly's post sums it up - we just do not know and cannot know. Let's just try to get along while we are here.

Yes and just 'Imagine' if there was no religion, nothing to fight and die for?

Don't you believe it Anya, human beings would/will always have found/find something to fight over! Sometimes you begin to feel that they actually enjoy it! baffling I know, but at times it seems that way!

Indeed - we are programmed to be territorial I think, and humans will battle one against the other even without religion - but if it did not exist there would be one less major thing to fight over!

If nothing is; then I am not (Socrates tr. Jowett)