What do free thinkers think is the purpose of life?
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For those people here who are free thinkers who belives that you will become dust after you die and there is no soul etc that will remain after you are dead, there are no God or Demons, no reincaration, no heaven and hell etc, come and share what do you think is the purpose of life.
Is it to enjoy life as much as possible while you are alive?
To acheive something big like Qin Shihuang etc and let people remember you forever?
Or you got no purpose at all, everyday just wait to die?
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life is an experiential journey of self discovery from birth till death...
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For me, survive and make other's lives better as well as mine. I can pour essays on this but I'm sleepy right now.
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Well, I believe that we are creatures of this earth, nothing more. We simply reproduce to ensure the survival of our species.
If that is not enough for you, you can always create your individual purpose. You can have ambitions, dreams, missions; all words that means the same thing. Some people want their dream job, a sportscar, great wealth and so on. To each his own.
Religion is nothing more than one of billions of attempts to create a purpose in life, except that it is a collective purpose. In other words, it is a purpose that all humans should follow. Evidently, this has caused quite a number of problems.
If you think that freethinkers just live their lives aimlessly, you cannot be more wrong. It is just that our dreams have nothing to do with any deities. We don't see evidence, as well as a need, for a deity.
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And what do christians, buddhists think is the purpose of life?
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Very interesting topic.
For me, I believe it is just a matter of time before life-extension methods are developed and humans can live forever, then we might be able to travel to far away stars and learn about other races.
Of course other people who dun want to live forever can opt to leave the world and turn to dust. It will probably still be democracy during then.
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its not an intersting topic, it more like crap talk to me. while i have nothing against what others believe, i wil have something against it if they push their religion and gods down my neck, by force or soft talk, some just want you to koin them then colect funds then they can use it to invest in properties overseas.
free thinkersa can believe in everything, or nothing. like now people can travel her aand there to this country and that becum one citizen to another, no remorse, no root and loyalty to any one palce at all - and we giv those silly asses an excuse - multinational in a globalized world
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Click this, pretty much sums it up...
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Originally posted by TIB868X:
For me, survive and make other's lives better as well as mine. I can pour essays on this but I'm sleepy right now.
Ooh I second this.
See it as a curse, but we're all stuck in this cycle, so why not help make others' stay in this world more... pleasant and purposeful?
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Same purpose animals have lives.
Purpose was to provide pleasure to male and female parents.
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want to collect funds and use it on your own say lah. no need to do it and slowly slowly hit on the pretext of using religion as excuse lah
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Being a Christian...Fine....being Buddhist....Fine....being in Hinduism....Fine....being in Islam....Fine....being in Toaism....Fine.....every person has their own believes...the important is...the living must learn to respect other's religion...if you don't believe in what they believe in...leave it...you can't argue until the God you believe in appears in front of you.
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Earn money.
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you have to find meaning in life. people find life meaningless, cos they do not find meaning for their existence, just mundane existance day in day out, week in week out, year in year out.
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I am atheist. My purpose is to live 1000 yr old. What about religious people. Queuing up to enter heaven? Free thinkers live a more purposeful life then non religious people.
Does not mean that you believe in a heaven and god and ur soul floating somewhere , then therefore you life is filled with hopes and purpose. A faked hope is not real hope. Its called delusion. Being happy over a falsehood may seem a blessing, but it is one in disguise. Because in religious people, they will always have a naggy feeling trailing them that tells them that something is not right, and they always have to confront the truth and reality that they their sense of self is an imaginery one and temporary one.
Being atheist is better. It means to be free from prison and to standing on the side of truth . less contradiction in life and will not go around in circles .
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To ensure the survival of humans as a species and not go boomz like dinosaurs
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To do and die, and not to question why.
Whatever you believe in, the ultimate duty of a human being is to do something. And keep on doing. Pursue something to do. Whether you like, don't like, or must.
You mostly do things for yourself, then altrusticly for others.
If you chose not to do anything, and prefer to do nothing, then you're in for a miserable life.
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all religious people are in a sense, selfish. why?
When an atheist does a good deed, it is purely for altruistic reasons.
But when a religious person does a good deed, regardless of his justification, it will still eventually boils down to his desire to progress to a better life after death. e.g. going to heaven instead of hell.
Their primary aim is to attain entry to heaven, and helping people comes secondary.
I personally believe that free thinker come to this world, to form part of the interactions which make up our known world. Without free thinkers, the world would be a less colourful place. Think LKY, MaoZedong etc
Also, one does not need to be religious to live a fulfilling life. Maybe from the religious point of view, from the big picture, free thinkers do not lead a purposeful life, since they don't exist beyond death.
But consider this, in the course of life, we can have a meaningful, purposeful life too.
While the values and the morals are taught/imposed on the religious, e.g. the Commandments of the Christians. You must not do this and that etc...
free thinkers derive their morals through logical thoughts, where the guiding principle is the Golden Rule: "Do not do upon other people what you do not wish to happen to you."
For the religious, you do not steal because you are wary of the punishment you will receive in your afterlife. for the free thinker, you do not steal simply because you do not like it if people stole from you either.
Thus, from the result of all that pondering and reflection, the free thinker will arrive at his own conclusion of what morals he should abide by. And with this moral, he can then choose to pursue whatever agendas which may arise.
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all religious people are in a sense, selfish. why?
When an atheist does a good deed, it is purely for altruistic reasons.
But when a religious person does a good deed, regardless of his justification, it will still eventually boils down to his desire to progress to a better life after death. e.g. going to heaven instead of hell.
Their primary aim is to attain entry to heaven, and helping people comes secondary.
I personally believe that free thinker come to this world, to form part of the interactions which make up our known world. Without free thinkers, the world would be a less colourful place. Think LKY, MaoZedong etc
Also, one does not need to be religious to live a fulfilling life. Maybe from the religious point of view, from the big picture, free thinkers do not lead a purposeful life, since they don't exist beyond death.
But consider this, in the course of life, we can have a meaningful, purposeful life too.
While the values and the morals are taught/imposed on the religious, e.g. the Commandments of the Christians. You must not do this and that etc...
free thinkers derive their morals through logical thoughts, where the guiding principle is the Golden Rule: "Do not do upon other people what you do not wish to happen to you."
For the religious, you do not steal because you are wary of the punishment you will receive in your afterlife. for the free thinker, you do not steal simply because you do not like it if people stole from you either.
Thus, from the result of all that pondering and reflection, the free thinker will arrive at his own conclusion of what morals he should abide by. And with this moral, he can then choose to pursue whatever agendas which may arise.
Not all religious people are "selfish". Your statement of "all religious people are selfish" is a generalization without taking into account of the understanding of religious practice. Buddhist practises selflessness (i.e. there is no 'self', which is the opposite of selfishness), an essential teaching of the Buddha. Christian's primary goal is to serve god, following god's will, which is to practise altruism and spread the gospel (god's message). Taoist aims to maintain self-harmony with "Dao" (or the way of life i.e. the nature of the universe) and practises a balance of Yin (negative evil forces) and Yang (positive good forces) for the benefits of mankind.
Your moral principle of "Do not do upon other people what you do not wish to happen to you." is basically based on Confucian ethics (己所�欲，勿施于人）, which is a great philosophy on humanism. Although Confucius does not mention much about religious thoughts, he did mention that one should also respect the deities/ghosts and if possible, stay away from them (敬鬼神而远之）.
IMO, there is nothing wrong with being a free-thinker, but one must have a moral practice in your life. With moral practice, your life will not go on the "wrong path", but instead will progress towards the "right path".
Mao Zedong should not be taken as an example of freethinker. In fact, he's bad example of one who blindly believes in Marxism, a form of materialism which rejects any form of idealism and spiritualism, or in fact any other philosophical thoughts such as Confucianism. He blindly crushed Confucianism. He has strong faith in Marxism and communism, and his ignorance has caused him to commit crime against humanity such as launching Great Leap Forward (causing hundreds of millions of Chinese to die of hunger), Cultural revolution (which causes the destruction of Chinese culture). He branded all religious practice as 'feudal' and 'superstitious' without realizing that most religions can act as ethical practice for people and preventing people from committing evil. Most Chinese who practised a combination of Chinese religious practice at least uphold the Taoist beliefs of "举头三尺有神明， 人在�，天在看" (just raise up your head by 3 feets and there will be deities. A person is doing it, the heaven is watching). This "heaven scrutinising human behaviour" at the very least prevents people from committing evils for fear of retribution in the present life.
When a person is stealing, he thinks he's right and nothing wrong with it, because he has no sense of right or wrong (moral beliefs), has no fear and does not believe in retribution. He thinks he will not be caught and can get away with it. Unless a country has a strong legal system, he will most likely get away with it and will not be caught. But in most religion, there is retribution. Buddhism talks about karma. Stealing leads to poverty or bad karma. In strict Islamic law, stealing resulted in your hand being cut off. Taoism believes in retribution because the heaven is watching your action.
When a person is committing adultery (having sex with another person other than your own marriage partner) or visiting prostitute, he/she also thinks he/she's right and nothing wrong with it. He has no fear and does not believe in retribution and thus will continue to commit evil. He thinks he will not be caught and can get away with it. But in most religions, adultery is evil. Buddhism talks about karma. Adultery or sexual misconduct usually end up in broken marriage (divorce) or even sickness such as AIDS, sexual diseases or others. Look at how many people who watch porn escalated into porn or sex addictions and had to seek medical help. They lead to social problems that is bad for the society.
Retribution will not occur just in this life, but also in the next life after that. If one is a free thinker and does not believe in any form of religion, at the very least, he should always believe in doing good and avoid all forms of evil. This is the basis for humanism.
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Come to think of it, a free thinker is not exactly a free thinker.
There is always some sort of philosophy, and adherence to it robs the free thinker of the free thinker status.
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Originally posted by HyuugaNeji:
And what do christians, buddhists think is the purpose of life?
Depends on what you mean by "purpose" of life. Are you talking about "goals" or having a "meaningful life" ?
I cannot answer for Christians to my fullest understanding, as I'm a buddhist. But from what I understand, Christians faith rested on the teaching of Jesus and faith (belief) in god. According to Christian teaching, if you believe and have faith in god, you will have eternal life and ascend to heaven. Humans have sins and thus god send his son Jesus to savage humans, to save them from the sins. Christians faith, if I'm not wrong, rested on purifying one's soul, practising Jesus's teaching based on bibles (altruism) with the final goal of ascending to heaven after death (thus resulting in eternal living). The purpose of a Christian is to serve god.
For buddhist, I believe I can answer your question to my best understanding, as I'm a practising buddhist. The purpose of a buddhist is to practise the dharma (i.e. the teaching of the buddha) for the benefits of all sentient beings with the ultimate goal of attaining enlightenment (i.e. becoming Buddha). Only human being (not even gods) can attain enlightenment. Buddha is not a god, but a human who through his spiritual practice have achieved enlightenment. Buddhist teaching rested on the belief that one has to undergo a life-cycle of rebirth. Once a person is dead, he will be reborn again. But in Buddhism, a human being might not necessarily be reborn as a human. If he commits evil, he will be reborn as an animal, a hungry ghost or a hell-being and might undergo extreme torture and sufferings. If he practise good, he will be reborn a human again, a deva or a heavenly-being (gods/deva). The goal of a buddhist is not to be reborn (or ascend) into heaven, as a god (heavenly being) might fail his spiritual practice and be reborn into as a human again. In buddhism, life is a suffering as one keeps on undergoing rebirth in the 6 realms of existence: Heaven, ashura, human, animals, hungry ghost, hell. And to end the suffering, one can practise buddhism so as to achieve enlightenment, where one will not need to undergo rebirth in this life cyle. In Buddhism, only a human can achieve enlightenment. A god needs to be reborn into the realm of human beings in order to achieve enlightenment. Thus, the ultimate goal of buddhist is to become Buddha.
Practising the Dharma (buddhist teaching) has the benefits of relieving one's own sufferings and achieving true happiness in life. When one feels angry, a buddhist will not feel that the anger is permanent forever (which in buddhism is known as impermanence). He will not see that the anger is "real", but a manifestation of the 'unreal'. It is empty of its inherent existence. A buddhist will not feel that his 'self' is more important than others as one practises "selflessness" (no 'self', i.e. no "I"). With the notion of no "I", one is capable of sacrificing oneself for the benefit of other sentient beings, to practise compassion and loving kindness. A buddhist will not feel 'hatred', as he sees that "hatred" is impermanent and causes of root of evil and will let go of it, which is realizing internal peace and happiness.
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Originally posted by mancha:
Come to think of it, a free thinker is not exactly a free thinker.
There is always some sort of philosophy, and adherence to it robs the free thinker of the free thinker status.
Only addicts qualify.
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Die already then say.
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I freethinker but i believe ghost and there would be somewhere can go after we die...
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well, for me, i want to achieve something really big and amazing, something good, that i would be remember