Why are we here?

I think that is why religion evolved. To try to explain the unexplainable

Summed up quite well by this poem:

The sky is deep, the sky is dark.
The light of the stars is so damn stark.
When I look up, I fill with fear,
If all we have is what lies here.
This lonely world, this troubled place,
Then cold dead stars and empty space...
Well, I see no reason to persevere,
No reason to laugh or shed a tear,
No reason to sleep and none to wake,
No promises to keep and none to make.
And so at night I still raise my eyes,
To study the clear but mysterious skies
That arch avove us, cold as stone.
Are you there God? Are we alone?”

Tell me again what an FM is?

I agree with other FMs that the human race is no more significant in its existence than any other species on the planet (although I tend to liken us more to locusts than anything else). Our purpose is simply to exist and further our own species.

Isn't happiness a product of existence?

If happiness actually exists, why doesn't everyone feel happy about the same things?

Isn't happiness a product of existence? I was suggesting "nothingness" might be preferable.

I suppose being in a permanent state of happiness would render it meaningless because, as Tegan says, there would be no unhappiness to compare it to. It seems to me, though, that many people in the world get more than their fair share of strife and unhappiness and if that's the product of a "grand design" then I don't think much of it.

Strife is inbuilt - the whole of the natural world is predicated on kill or be killed. It is amazing to me that humans are as civilised as they are.

So did early man just fight for survival or fight other tribes?

When did the fighting begin?

Peace and infinite happiness could get very boring after a while (a bit of it is lovely after the DGC have gone home, but not too much). Oh, that was more practical than philosophical.

Would we appreciate peace and infinite happiness if we didn't have the opposite to compare it to? Maybe we've created strife for that reason or it's just a way to fill the gap left by not having to fight for survival on a daily basis ...?

Eloethan The whole question is so unanswerable that if I thought about it too much I would be overwhelmed by the apparent pointlessness of it all.

I think that is why religion evolved. To try to explain the unexplainable. But it does not explain anything.

Joelsnan I think the Earth is greater than the sum of humans who have or will exist on it. The Earth will still be here after we have become extinct, perhaps by our own foolishness.

The question is Why are We Here? rather than what we personally feel gives our lives meaning.

If we feel there is a "grand design" that has in some way been set in train by a superior being to "test" us, then we may feel this test involves caring for other living things and for the planet in order to achieve some sort of heavenly goal of eternal peace.

If we feel the universe and our existence is totally random and inexplicable, we may still choose to care for other living things and the planet just because it makes us feel better to do so.

I really don't understand why we - or any other living things - are here, or anywhere else in the universe. The whole question is so unanswerable that if I thought about it too much I would be overwhelmed by the apparent pointlessness of it all.

Personally, I find it difficult to believe in a higher being that has created the universe and everything in it. If such a being existed, I would not feel kindly disposed towards it. Why create pain and suffering when there could just be infinite nothingness and peace?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz-PMDqq-L8

Are all dancers not human?

joelsnan that is a very good analogy. My 'us as plantlife' theory explanation is that as we grow, we take all the goodness out of the soil, but as we die we put it back - until lately, when we have added too many chemicals to enable us to grow just too many crops.

I am here to take the dog out when he asks - which he is doing now and then I am here to get the dinner and make sure DH takes his pills.

Are we human or are we dancers?

joelsnan I'm with you! We are rotting the earth, bit by bit and species by species. I think that we are a huge mistake because no other species has done so much damage.

I think that we are nothing more than a higher form of mould, just as you see different colours of mould colonising an apple and vying for supremacy whilst reproducing at such a rate the mould rots the apple. So humanity is colonising and will eventually rot the earth.

Me in my pumps

i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm181/janeharrison/jokes/securedownload-1.gif

You would have to be VERY bored indeed to make me a figment of your imagination glass

rose you have just beaten me to it.... do we exist or are we just a figment of somebeings bored imagination.

There is a funny song about someone who lives a virtual life janerowena basically he is a 5ft 3 overweight pizza delivery man who lives with his parents. But on-line he is 6ft 3 ,has a mind blowing six pack and models for Calvin Klein !! Very funny but entirely possible.

My virtual self would be plain looking and not very bright. But I can live with being beautiful and highly intelligent.

Our murderous nature is because, like all animals, we are territorial and part of the competitive food chain. It is genetic. Survival of the fittest.

Our efforts to be kind are often thwarted by our genetic legacy. We can only do our best.

I would love to live a virtual life, and tell porkies on here and be something I am not - but I would never be able to remember all the porkies I had told. Sadly I shall never be cross-dressing paunch named Bert, he of the ballet pumps and jam-making.

Gransnet has to be real, but the advice given does not. For example - we give objective advice, but put in the same circumstances, are we able to step back and give ourselves that same sensible advice, and follow it? When my own marriage had a hiccough, I found it very hard to follow what I now see as good advice, but at the time couldn't see it.

My point being, that although we may think that we are capable of logical thought, there are times when we are not. Maybe those times are what causes wars.

Do any of us exist - or are we all virtual Gransnetters?

No, my family on my mother's side are spiritualists and I am a bit of a black sheep, I tried hard over the years but something in me won't and can't believe it. So I would have put it down to a lucky guess.

It's so sad that we are such a murderous race, I do wonder if we really shouldn't live so much on top of each other. Maybe the world is too crowded. The fight for survival makes people desperate and greedy, wanting to control all resources so that they won't be the ones to suffer should there be a shortage.

I went to the beach a few years ago, at Southwold, during a period of oil shortages, and was surprised to see a long chain of coasters out at sea, just sitting there. I had never seen it before. I googled it when I got home and discovered that it was oil containers. The owners were refusing to unload until the prices had gone up even higher.

I don't know what the reason is for our existence, the best I have ever come up with is the same as gillybob, that we are a giant laboratory with a presence overseeing how we evolve and react to different situations.

I know how we evolved, but can find no reason why.
Perhaps the 'giants' and 'gods' that apparently visited the earth were from other parts of the universe where life became unsustainable. They visited and left their seed, which would explain a sudden leap in evolution. Perhaps we may one day become the 'gods' if we conquer space travel and visit less developed planets.

If we believe in life after death then this could in fact be purgatory. But if we do not then we are merely a product of evolution; we are, we die and are no longer.
Religion is a way of explaining that which we cannot explain in other terms.
As for the reason - heaven knows!