John Page

The "logic" of the situation seems to dictate that we are inclined to think: "we are somehow pawns in God's grand scheme - that our existence is a means to some end that benefits God."

Some Loser

But wait! Conservation of energy doesn't have to just lead to either 1) permanent motionless state (which I still think might be possible, but unlikely) or 2) oscillating universe. It could lead to 3) infinite expansion. Remember the universe will expand forever unless there is a force strong enough to pull it back. If things are spreading apart at a fast enough rate relative to the amount of matter in the universe (which they are according to current studies) then gravity won't be strong enough to pull everything back together.

abe smith

"... God doth not need
either Man's works nor His own gifts...." of course.

Guess I'll forbear to belabor the matter. Anyone who likes to think/believe/require that there shd be a deity who needs/wants/takes pleasure in... our fortuitous and um random being-here-briefly-now is of course free to do that ("whutevah turns you on") and/but/so? Wishing doesn't make it so.

Mary and Mike

I bang my head from time to time. My rational thought is, "If I am going to die someday and not go anywhere then what is the point of being here in the first place?" (This is an aurgument I use with Mike all the time.)

But really, if this does happen then why can't all human life just end human life? Would anyone be missing anything if this happened?

Which leads me to wonder about things like murder. If we die and that's it why do we punish people who kill others? They just go on to nothingness anyways. And if they had lived then they would have ended up going to that nothingness in the future.

Can you tell I started banging my head again?

Mary

Ensign Steve

How funny, I look at this just the opposite way. I figure if people are religious, why do they get all bent out of shape when someone gets murdered? If they're just going to a "better place" or whatever, what is there to be so mad about? Murdering someone does them a favor, and sends them to Heaven or wherever.

However, if you don't believe in an afterlife, and you believe that this life is the only one we get, then that makes that one life quite precious. To murder someone is to rob them of the one chance they get to live.

Jen

Answerer

Well, no, if our universe expands faster and faster. I will expect the sketching of spacetime to reach its limits and 'tear apart'. Unlike some people, I don't believe that universe will ever exist in a perfect motionless state for all time.

7thangel

Xeren said: Regardless of what you believe, 7th Angel, as the original post said, positing a god doesn't solve the question. To put the question in Christian terms so it can blow your mind as much as it does ours,

It does, really. If God exist, then there is eternal life. If we exist eternally, we always make sense existing. As I exist, I enjoy the struggles I experience from atheists around me. I guess when they die, they loss their identity but their evolvement to dust still makes sense to me. Their dust make sense but not the lost human life who once existed and made sense to whom he interacted to.

Xeren said: Why does God exist instead of nothing? Why Something instead of nothing?

God has power, wisdom, and understanding, without “something” for it to apply his abilities, what does that make Him? Consciousness without "something" to apply conciousness is absurd.

Xeren said: If you can come up with a good answer for that, I may just become a Christian.

The problem is do you know what is a good answer?

jpbrooks

A number of excellent points have already been made, including those in James Still's essay (which I need to review for reasons outside the scope of the topic of this thread).

The "explanation" for the general question of existence that you seem to be alluding to above appears strange to us because the question asks something about the whole (scope) of existence that is actually only meaningful when such a question is asked about certain things that are parts or aspects of reality,

So, at the risk of repeating someone else's point, there is no possible alternative to the existence of reality because there can be no such thing as a "non-existent" "state of affairs". That is, any "state of affairs" of reality (including a "state" of "absolute nothingness", if it were possible) still would be something that is (or would be) "real". Thus, questions such as "why is there something instead of nothing(?)" assume that there can be (absolutely) "nothing", and are therefore "meaningless".

As for the question, "why are we (specifically) here(?)", the answers provided will depend on the beliefs held by those who attempt to answer it.


Yep! And over a few other philosophical questions as well!

VivaHedone

Why does there have to be a 'point'? There is no logical reason to suppose that there is a point to existence, that is to say, that we have been brought into existence by some higher being to serve a premovitated purpose. This search for 'meaning' is entirely a result of a strange human desire for such meaning. But, if you think about it, surely it devalues life to suppose that we are only here to serve some mysterious purpose for another equally mysterious being, rather than to live lives for ourselves and others as we see fit?

The only meaning to your life can be a meaning that you yourself give to it.

With regard to the osciliating universe theory, it is unknown about the amount of matter in the universe and whether this is sufficient to cause the ultimate collapse of the universe. But surely this theory is the only one that can even begin to satisfactorarily explain our otherwise miraculous existence? Either that or the 'infinite universes' theory, which is basically the same but with the universes existing parallel to and not chronologically after one another.