What led you to God?

Life has no purpose, but one can make something up and call that a purpose. That's what people do.

If one's purpose comes from within, then it's just something subjective that you made up."Purpose" means what you were born for--your use, as it were. We were not born for anything. We have no purpose, any more than the beasts of the field.Any subjective purpose is ultimately arbitrary.

We were not born with any purpose. Purpose means the reason for something existing. There is no reason for us to exist. We are products of mindless nature, ultimately. Nature had nothing in mind in making us, since nature has no mind.

No in-between. Modernist religion is sentimentality.

A "modernist" religion is one which wants to keep the pleasant feelings while discarding in subtle ways the literal belief. An example would be Tillich saying that God does not "exist." I suppose one might argue that words cannot express the Absolute and therefore we can only speak of God paradoxically. One can say that, but it sounds to me like you end not really saying much of anything.The other type of religion is one in which there is a literal belief in God and whatever else is part of the dogma. In Christianity, this would be a literal belief in the existence and divinity of Jesus.

Well, Ifen, that was a very fine post indeed.

No, but what one can say is that in an objective sense, assuming no God, life is "meaningless," if by meaningless we mean "without purpose."In a subjective sense,of course, life can mean anything we want it to.

OK, if you don't like that term, let's use "formal purpose." The formal purpose of a made object is its intended use, it's function. The formal purpose of a car is to propel one from place to place. True, you might use a car for another purpose, such as to hide things in, but this would not be its formal purpose. We might call that a "personal purpose."Human beings have no formal purpose, assuming no being made us. We were not designed for a particular function. The designer had nothing in mind. Nature has no mind. Of course, one might say that we are made by our parents, and maybe there are some parents that have babies with a particular purpose in mind, such as for that baby to become a scientist or saint. But your parents are not the ultimate designer. They are like assembly-line workers. They can't form your body parts as they please. The designer's back in the office.

That's right. If an alien came down and was examining a car, after awhile he would figure out what its formal purpose is. He might be a little confused at first. He would turn on the radio and hastily conclude that this was a device for making music. Or he might examine the clock on the console and decide that the car was a timepiece. But when he examined everything, he would realize that the clock and radio were extraneous to the formal purpose of the car. They were just add-ons, and the car could very well do without them and still perform its formal purpose.If he examined a human being in the same way, he would be very puzzled. It legs suggest that it is something intended to move around. Its hands suggest a thing that is meant to carry things. The brain suggests a calculator. He wouldn't be able to decide for the very good reason that a human being has no formal purpose. Supposing we were made by God, the answer could be that our purpose is to freely love God. So I guess it's not inconsistent.

I didn't say they needed such a purpose. I'm just saying, need it or not, they don't have it. They are, in a formal sense, useless.

My comments about lack of purpose was not intended as an argument against Creationism. I was just saying that IF there is no God, then we have no formal purpose.If we were created by God, and this alien abducted us and examined us, he would still not be able to find any formal purpose by looking our bodies. So it says nothing about the possibility of whether or not there is a God to look at our bodies and decide we have no formal purpose. The formal purpose, if we were created by God, would be spiritual in nature--or at least might be.

Not that second, no. But it doesn't take long. Someone else will fill up your place and soon it will be as though you never existed, hardly of any more account than the sagebrush rolling along the prairie.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-17-2006 03:43 PM

If you are talking about a subjective use, we can think up any use we like, all of which are ultimately arbitrary. But in objective, formal terms, we are useless.

Our agreement is about a conditional: If there is no God, then life has no "Big P Purpose."This leads to another agreement about the falseness of what I would call "humanistic piety."But beyond that, the differences in our views become enormous, I think. You said it very well.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-18-2006 09:48 AM

Step-children only.