And if so, was the suffering that got us here worth it?
Inspired by this thread which got into why’s, I wondered about the chain of events that led to each of us.
For me, I’m here because my great grandparents fled Russia after suffering through pogroms. I’m also here, in part, because my parents were separated while my father was in Europe during WW II. I’m sure they would have had a kid before me if they were together, and everything would be changed.
A friend of mine is here because his parents met in a concentration camp, where his father’s first wife and children were killed by the Nazis.
The debate: if we are indeed here for a god-given purpose, god somehow arranged the pogroms and the Holocaust and WW II to lead to my friend and me. I find this morally reprehensible. I’d much rather believe that I was an accident, the unintended consequence of these horrors and a bunch of other circumstances much less horrible. Much as I like being here, and much as I hope I have done some good in the world, none of it is worth what came before.
So, those of you who think there is a reason for all this - are you worth it? I’m not.
You say you’d “much rather believe that you were an accident.” What’s stopping you from believing that?
I don’t believe there is any rhyme or reason for anything outside the conscious efforts each person makes to have an effect on their piece of the world. We is what we is. We’ll die and our kids will die and their kids will die. Hopefully we’ll all make someone happy while we’re here.
I do believe it. However many people who believe in god do so because they have trouble feeling existence is without externally generated purpose. I think it is easy to think that god somehow influenced ones parents to get together to have one. It might be a bit more difficult to deal with god starting a war in order for a person to exist. So, this is really addressed to those who think there is a reason for all this - which does not include me.
From Candy by Steppenwolf
If all this would have a reason
We would be the last to know.
I once posed the question, “What is the meaning of life?” to a very wise man, who replied, “Survive, and seek pleasure, in that order.”
Nothing else I have ever heard has summed it all up so succinctly for me. And if your pleasure is, say, helping others in the hope that the world will be a better place immediately and/or in the future, indulge!
Last year, 250,000 or so people died pretty much all at once as the result of a tsunami. Were these all “bad“ people, deserving of such a fate? Well, I doubt it, but that’s a judgement call on my part. And should those taking on the task of patching everything back together consider themselves not “worth” their effort, because of “what came before.” I don’t think so.
As resilient as humanity has been to this point, our lives are ultimately tenuous, and that’s an unavoidable fact. Granted, a “natural disaster” such as a tsunami cannot be exactly equated with the German Nazi regime, or pogroms, but everything that happens, including what we do to each other, is “natural,” in a strictly technical sense. It’s just what is happening at the moment.
So, survive, as best you can, and seek your pleasure, as best you can, and in that order. It’s all coming to an end, in the end, and few know exactly how it all will come about.
I believe we have no purpose, and find it quite comforting. After all, if we have no purpose, we can chart our own destiny; among other things, we can try to build a world without such things as concentration camps. If we are destined to follow some “divine plan” there is no hope; we can do nothing to help ourselves or make the world better, and we will suffer forever.
My argument would be that God created us with a certain design, we had certain cognitive functions preprogrammed in order to evolve, as certain criteria were met we advanced from a cellular biomass to more ordered functions, all contained within the DNA matrix that seeded the world. Now, this limited functionality is there only so we can discover the ability to act, then we are given a certain part of Gods will over which to rule, as we become more advanced and more capable of manipulating energy, the greater the power of that will. We are enacting God’s will, not so much in that we are God’s puppets, but that he gave us power of attorney over certain aspects of functionality. How we choose to design ourselves as a species is dependent upon all sorts of environmental factors. This is why I believe evolution and creationism go hand in hand. God created everything, in that it exists, but our consciousness is creative force that determines what our environment will be like, as there is a vast range of possible outcomes, we end up choosing based upon our limited, but increasing perception which outcomes we favor.
I make no attempts to absolve people of their own actions by claiming some form of predestination. Things are predestined only in that if you broaden your view enough, all time has already happened, it’s eternal and the uber-consciuosness to which we all belong, knows the outcome, but its from a completely and totally different perspective from ours, one which we would see as being completely amoral, as I doubt it sees our struggles as better or worse than single celled organisms feeding off of other single-celled organisms. We are different by category, not by essence. To a human, human suffering is a bad thing, but only from a human perspective.
As we evolve we transcend our limited functionality and have more freedom of action. I think our purpose is to commune with God, to be the microcosm aware of the macrocosm, though to smaller organisms we are their macrocosm, and so these hierarchies go into infinity, from atoms making up cells to cells making up organs to organs making up bodies, to bodies making up people to people making up tribes to tribes making up societies, to societies making up species to species making up planets to planets making up solar systems to solar systems making up galaxies and so on.
So I think God planned the holocaust only in that it was a possible eventuality. I do believe that there are higher intelligences that cultivate the growth of life on a planetoid to make sure that the crops don’t murder themselves outright, but that keep a largely hands off approach. Though, I think by the same token there are higher consciousnesses that also work to the detriment of life. We use these consciousnesses as they are applicable to our situation.
Its kind of like the idea of Jesus vs the Devil, though I don’t really like to go with such simplistic either/or scenarios, merely that the ideas are tools to help us advance our own consciousnessm, and we can choose the ultimate good (Jesus) or the ultimate evil (Satan), though I think that at a certain point the idea of good and evil as a reward punishment system must be transcended. Reward/Punishment is a way to teach primitive beings, but I think as a whole we are beyond that level, or about to step across the threshold to being beyond that level.
Further to what Der Trihs said (and I agree with the sentiment).
I think it the utmost arrogance to suggest that humanity is important enough in the universe to have some ‘special purpose’ outside the meaning we all create for ourselves onm an ongoing basis
You know in essence I agree with you. I am not big on predestination either. There are some steps that I feel we disagree on, but I do agree with you about charting our own destiny. I feel like the “plan” is only so far, and we get more and more control over our own destiny the more we are conscious of ourselves and our effect upon that destiny. As we setup warning systems to keep us from getting hit by a tsunami, we can migrate out of its path, but if we do not have those, then it is our ‘fate’ to be destroyed by one.
I find I have come to many similar conclusions to yours, I just haven’t found any of those conclusions to be incompatible with God.
This is irrelevant. We’re here to survive, procreate, and perpetuate the species. Suffering doesn’t count. Some of your ancestors may well have been slaves, be it in the American South or Rome or China or Africa and they likely suffered, but they procreated, and because of that you are here today.
I disagree with your premise. It’s not like I’m the pinnacle of all existence, and all of history was planned to culminate in me. Nobody planned the Irish famine just so that my ancestors would be forced to come to the US, just so that I would eventually be born. My ancestors’ lives do not only gain meaning once I am born. Rather, their lives had meaning because they lived them. I don’t really come into the picture until now.
I do happen to think that God has purposes for us, in that there are things we need to learn, and those things tend to be somewhat individual. We don’t have to learn, or do, things according to that plan. And one good thing is that God can help us to learn and gain great good, even out of terrible things that should not have happened. Nor is the Holocaust the result of God’s plan, except insofar as that plan insists that humans be allowed to choose their actions.
As far as I can tell, God’s first and absolute rule is that we are allowed to do as we choose. If we choose to commit evil, he is not going to stop us. If he did, where would the line be drawn? Would we be allowed to kill? How about lie or steal? What if God thinks extramarital sex is wrong, would you like it if you were not allowed to engage in it? What if you could not choose to tell lies, or fight with others, or spend your money on garish, useless items? What if you were never allowed to choose anything, but always forced into a particular action? If we can’t choose our actions, then we remain automatons and mental infants. God wants us to grow up. Growing up is often painful, and it involves choosing our courses of action, and enduring the consequences.
Of course, your question is really just the problem of pain from another angle. Why is there evil in the world, if there is a benevolent God?
I chose my purpose in the name of God. And the world is ever so slightly better off with ever so slighty comforted because of it. I could chose to acknowledge God, yet create more suffering rather than comfort, or I could also not believe in God, yet comfort those around me or create more suffering.
I don’t see where the fatalism is flaws in this sense. If a diety is all knowing, then does that not nullify the concept of free will? I can’t reconcile the two in any meaningful fashion. If that is the case then fatalism is the only possible consequence of an all-knowing god
The obvious analogy is with fictional characters. Would you argue that the protagonist of a well-written novel, play, or movie has no free will in their fictitious world? Does the fact that Hamlet decides not to kill Claudius while he’s praying means that he was fated not to kill him? If so, why does the play still have a moral message?
I believe that you can have faith in God and have freewill, hence unlimited consequences. So when I see:
I personally disproved “we can do nothing to help ourselves or make the world better, and we will suffer forever.” by my own past and current actions. Many people are doing just that, not just me. Faith in God is one thing, actions based on that are quite another. I keep seeing that religion is to blame for the suffering in this world, when in actuality, it’s people (religious or not) that don’t equate themselves to other people on this planet and treat them as such. There lies the problem.
