What led you to God?

What, really, when you get down to it, does that mean? For some what's "within" is pretty depressing stuff. Some up-by-the-bootstraps types will make a big moral to-do about that, as if you have a responsibility to avoid having depressing stuff in there and to create for yourself a "fulfilled" life. And maybe you do have such a moral obligation, I don't know, but there are plenty who aren't up to it. Actually maybe many people don't seek purpose at all, maybe they just stay more or less stupefied and give it as little thought as possible -- or some seek "meaning" in various pleasures, and there are many varieties of those pleasures. Physical types can throw themselves into sports for instance, intellectual types into books, artistic types into art, and there's always the sexual addict, and there's even the satisfaction of feeling like a good person. Some dedicate themselves to making tons of money. Some are workaholics. People actually do have work or pastimes they really love to do. Sometimes it works, mostly I think as a drug of sorts; sometimes it leaves an empty hole. Then they have a "midlife crisis" or a psychotic break, or spend all their time at the bar.While I agree that God, meaning Jesus Christ, is the answer to all of it, most people aren't asking that question. When they come upon God it may be from a completely unexpected direction.

I just don't believe that purpose "comes from within." While most of my examples were rather on the depressive side I was mostly just saying there IS no purpose for most people. Even if people find happiness in life, and many do, that's not exactly purpose. Or maybe I just never liked the whole idea of purpose.I agree with prophex that belief in God gives purpose, though I wouldn't normally discuss the situation from that point of view. And even the purpose that comes from believing in God comes from Him, not from within, no, not from the "soul" either.There isn't much "within." As Jeremiah said, "The human heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it?"Sorry, I guess I'm mostly being a gadfly.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-12-2006 10:52 PM

I'm beginning to realize I'm not sure what we're talking about. Are we talking about capital-P Purpose to life itself, in being born at all? That's what I thought was the original focus. Within the usual atheistic/evolutionistic framework it is hard to see anyone having much sense of that kind of purpose to one's life. The Biblical perspective gives one's life enormous purpose by contrast.But there are also secondary purposes. People usually have a desire to use particular talents and interests they were born with for instance. When we come to know God, those talents are often redirected to particular uses for His purposes. This kind of purpose seems pretty objective, rather than subjective, as it involves abilities one is born with.Then there are the purposes of different ideas about living one's life "well" whatever that means to a particular person. That can get rather subjective I think. Sometimes the criteria are moral, sometimes about success, sometimes about comfort, making money etc.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-13-2006 01:02 PM

I'm talking about the ones that aren't acquired, although all of them need development or it's irrelevant to purpose and in that sense facility with them is acquired. But people are born with athletic ability or language ability or mechanical ability, or ability with science and math and that sort of thing. I'm sure if I had once put my mind to it I could have learned higher math a lot better than I did, but I don't have the natural ability for it, and it would never have become a pleasure as it is for people who have that ability.And then there are people with personalities that make politicians or con men. I mean this is stuff we are born with. It can be suppressed or developed depending on the environment you grew up in or how much drive you had to improve your abilities.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-13-2006 01:31 PM

True, I agree, Nature has no mind and so we have no purpose if we are the products of mindless nature, and all this stuff about this purposeless accidental life form's making choices and inventing purposes has always seemed like complete meaningless futility, or like some kind of mean trick to me.But if a magnificent Mind/Consciousness/Heart/Soul made us, that's something else.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-13-2006 03:08 PM

In general, loving and serving God forever and ever and ever and ever...

Well, to each his own and all that, but there is absolutely nothing about the idea of having been parented by atoms that enchants me in the slightest. I suppose I had more or less made my peace with that notion before I became a Christian, but I can't say it ever pleased me. It could never promise the slightest fulfillment of what to me has always seemed my most human of qualities, and also the strangest -- my mind, feelings, the whole nonmaterial part of me. There is no WAY atoms could ever have brought about the human soul. But it's true that I could suspect that all I wanted, there was no way in the modernist atmosphere to convince myself of the alternative. That took God's merciful intervention. Eternity is anything BUT boring.

I figure that physical things in general and the brain in particular affect the soul's experience. That doesn't prove they are the CAUSE of the soul. The brain I think of as a physical instrument for the soul for navigating the material universe. If you kill the brain the soul will merely go elsewhere. There is certainly an intimate connection, however, between body and soul. After all, Christians expect to have our bodies forever -- the improved edition of course. We don't expect to be disembodied souls.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-14-2006 07:16 PM

Perhaps it roams, perhaps it is in a sleep state itself.I remember a friend's telling me her experience of nearly dying of hepatitis in India during her spiritual quest there, and hearing a voice talking to her in her delirium, or really talking ABOUT her, wondering if she was going to forget about the "car" altogether, and sort of exhorting her to take charge of it, the vehicle being her body.

Not all words point at the moon. The word "moon" does however.The word "dog" points to the actual physical dog.The word "mind" points to the thoughts we all experience having but may have trouble identifying without more words to identify it.The word "God" and the words that describe Him in the Bible point to something we have even more trouble identifying, but they POINT, they are not Him, and no Christian thinks they are.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-14-2006 07:51 PM

But the subject was whether/how people find purpose in life, and my examples were of NOT finding purpose in life and methods of escape from that fact. Finding God, however, does give purpose to life. So everyone will tell you.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-15-2006 11:34 AM

My point was that usually those engaged in the mentioned activities don't feel life has a purpose, and the activities don't give them a sense of purpose either. But I'm not going to argue with anyone who insists they do.

Again, I was talking about what people say about their own experience, not giving my own opinion as you are doing.

The problem is we're way overqualified for the job.And if an alien did check us out, it wouldn't just be our bodies he'd be pondering, but what we actually do with our time, and I think he'd find out eventually that we're this strange creature that *wants* to matter, wants to have a purpose, and will make one up if we can, or go into depression if we can't. That in itself doesn't prove we HAVE a purpose I suppose, but it certainly shows that the mindless designer goofed by creating us wanting to have one.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-17-2006 05:02 PM

The question isn't "Do we have purposes." Haven't we all agreed that we do? The question is whether we have Purpose with a capital P. Whether we were MADE for something. Humanity as such I mean. Whether humanity as such has a Purpose.Individually we all have purposes in the plural. Including the purpose of raising children. Including the purpose of persuading others of our view of purposes and/or Purpose.Even the purpose of trying to figure out if we have Purpose with a capital P. Even the purpose of ignoring the fact that we don't have Purpose with a capital P; or trying to embrace the fact that we don't have Purpose with a capital P. Which leads to some interesting mental acrobatics it seems to me. Mostly wishful thinking.
It seems to me.RRohan doesn't mean that we don't have purposes in the plural. We're a purpose-making-and-seeking machine as it were. What's odd is that that is true about us, and yet we seem to have no Purpose with a capital P. The way a pickup truck does.Unless there is a God who made us. In which case He might have had a Purpose in mind for us worth considering.Now Robin will come along and say it all or something better, in fewer clearer words. Wait and see.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-18-2006 06:19 PM