Ok, finally free for the day ...
Ok, it's really important to be clear about the level of analysis employed to answer such questions. Answering these questions from the perspective that we're familiar with - "first-person" perspective that perceives a flow in time from past to present to future - is one way of treating them. Another way is by looking at reality at a really "high" level.
Going with the former:
As human beings, we exist through the process of biological evolution (descending from ancestral apes millions of years ago), a gradual process that continues to this day and that elegantly explains the variation of life on earth.
As for life itself, it seems plausible that it came about eventually as a phenomenon resulting from certain activities occurring in the nonliving world a long time ago. You see, life is not something for which you need an off/on switch to control; life, in terms of its origin, is really "non-life" evolving in a complicated manner over time. And no surprise there. In a vast universe with lots of galaxies, lots of stars, and lots of planets, there are bound to be planets (like ours) on which the right "ingredients" for life emerged at the right time, gradually interacting with one other in the right way to give "birth" to rudimentary life, which in turn gradually becomes more and more complex over time (through the aid of biological evolution).
As for how this universe came about (again, from our familiar perspective), let's be clear that when we say "universe", we tend to mean this local universe which we observe. If so, the answer is that the universe seemed to have emerged from the Big Bang "singularity", but we don't know that for sure. We only know that the expansion of this universe started with the Big Bang, but as for the start to its existence, no one really knows.
That said, let's shift our analysis to a "higher" level, and let's look at the universe and the wider world (the whole cosmos, including multiverses and all that) from a bird's eye perspective of an imaginary "outside entity". Note that this view that I'm about to describe, though consistent with modern cosmological science, is not based on conclusive evidence and is mostly speculative, but this nevertheless seems logical, so why not. By changing our level of analysis, we conceptually change the structure of the world. And in this case, rather than seeing a world full of changes and events (in which time clearly flows), we now observe a "zoomed out" cosmos, where universes, multiverses, and multiverses of multiverses are clearly seen, and everything is fixed and static. Every moment in time is but a frozen picture frame telling its own story, connected to other frames in a logical manner. This is an eternalistic high-dimensional block of reality (in which time doesn't really flow, no changes/events occur, and causality isn't really a thing). And if you look closely, you will see moments in time very close to the supposed moment when the Big Bang of our universe purportedly started, but possibly no moment depicting the start of the Big Bang itself. This might explain why all sorts of things start to break down when we try to go all the way back to the very "beginning" of the Big Bang (because the event never really happened!).
Now, if it isn't clear by now what I'm trying to get at, the answer to the question of how this world came about is (if the above view is correct)that this world has always been. The world didn't come from anywhere. It just is, with every moment in time being eternal, and every physical possibility being actualized (in different universes and multiverses). And this may be so, because something logical must exist instead of nothing at all, or instead of something else that is illogical, and this is the only logical way that this "something" (the cosmos) can be.
Ok, now this is where I'm going to suck really bad with my answers, mostly because this set of questions and the next sets don't interest me that much. But let's give it a go, anyhow.
The purpose of life is ... well, what purpose? Not sure there logically has to be one. I don't think the Principle of Sufficient Reason is at all logically mandated, and I'm not about to change my view on this. Things just are. No ultimate purpose or anything of the sort. Nevertheless, one could still assign purpose to one's own life, and this is often done subconsciously, determined by the kinds of experiences one goes through.
Same thing with meaning, whether or not meaning is different from purpose.
Are humans more significant than other creatures? Only according to our egocentric human views. Ultimately, we're not that special. We're just really, really, really tiny parts of this really, really, really huge world.
We have moral ethics because the human world would be a complete disaster otherwise. We wouldn't have survived as a species if we all thought there was nothing wrong with killing people and such. Not that the human world is perfect. It's not. But we're here, and that is something we should all be thankful for.
Good and bad exist, conceptually. And, as human beings, we tend to make good use of these concepts. So even with morality, still no need for God at all.
As for how we determine what is good or bad, we don't often do it consciously, so it's really hard to pinpoint exactly how we determine good and bad. Not unless perhaps you do some deep reading on ethics and such. Something which I currently have no time for, at the moment. People who opine that it's all subjective may have a point, but a lot of philosophers of ethics do argue for objective godless/secular morality, so I don't know. But again, no God is needed for morality to be a thing, and we don't even need a solid moral basis in the divine to live a fairly adequate moral life. So it baffles me when theists insist we need God for morality. For what exactly do we need such an entity?
What happens to us after death is that we most likely cease to exist as "us" (that is, if we adhere to the conventional notion of the "self"). And so no, most likely no heaven or hell either.
(February 5, 2018 at 10:20 pm)psalm531 Wrote: Origin
How do you think we got here - how did humans originate?
Where did the universe/world come from? Big Bang, God, other?
Ok, it's really important to be clear about the level of analysis employed to answer such questions. Answering these questions from the perspective that we're familiar with - "first-person" perspective that perceives a flow in time from past to present to future - is one way of treating them. Another way is by looking at reality at a really "high" level.
Going with the former:
As human beings, we exist through the process of biological evolution (descending from ancestral apes millions of years ago), a gradual process that continues to this day and that elegantly explains the variation of life on earth.
As for life itself, it seems plausible that it came about eventually as a phenomenon resulting from certain activities occurring in the nonliving world a long time ago. You see, life is not something for which you need an off/on switch to control; life, in terms of its origin, is really "non-life" evolving in a complicated manner over time. And no surprise there. In a vast universe with lots of galaxies, lots of stars, and lots of planets, there are bound to be planets (like ours) on which the right "ingredients" for life emerged at the right time, gradually interacting with one other in the right way to give "birth" to rudimentary life, which in turn gradually becomes more and more complex over time (through the aid of biological evolution).
As for how this universe came about (again, from our familiar perspective), let's be clear that when we say "universe", we tend to mean this local universe which we observe. If so, the answer is that the universe seemed to have emerged from the Big Bang "singularity", but we don't know that for sure. We only know that the expansion of this universe started with the Big Bang, but as for the start to its existence, no one really knows.
That said, let's shift our analysis to a "higher" level, and let's look at the universe and the wider world (the whole cosmos, including multiverses and all that) from a bird's eye perspective of an imaginary "outside entity". Note that this view that I'm about to describe, though consistent with modern cosmological science, is not based on conclusive evidence and is mostly speculative, but this nevertheless seems logical, so why not. By changing our level of analysis, we conceptually change the structure of the world. And in this case, rather than seeing a world full of changes and events (in which time clearly flows), we now observe a "zoomed out" cosmos, where universes, multiverses, and multiverses of multiverses are clearly seen, and everything is fixed and static. Every moment in time is but a frozen picture frame telling its own story, connected to other frames in a logical manner. This is an eternalistic high-dimensional block of reality (in which time doesn't really flow, no changes/events occur, and causality isn't really a thing). And if you look closely, you will see moments in time very close to the supposed moment when the Big Bang of our universe purportedly started, but possibly no moment depicting the start of the Big Bang itself. This might explain why all sorts of things start to break down when we try to go all the way back to the very "beginning" of the Big Bang (because the event never really happened!).
Now, if it isn't clear by now what I'm trying to get at, the answer to the question of how this world came about is (if the above view is correct)that this world has always been. The world didn't come from anywhere. It just is, with every moment in time being eternal, and every physical possibility being actualized (in different universes and multiverses). And this may be so, because something logical must exist instead of nothing at all, or instead of something else that is illogical, and this is the only logical way that this "something" (the cosmos) can be.
Quote:Meaning
What do you think the purpose of life is?
Does human life have meaning? If so, what gives that meaning?
Are humans more significant than other creatures? Are we special? Why?
Ok, now this is where I'm going to suck really bad with my answers, mostly because this set of questions and the next sets don't interest me that much. But let's give it a go, anyhow.
The purpose of life is ... well, what purpose? Not sure there logically has to be one. I don't think the Principle of Sufficient Reason is at all logically mandated, and I'm not about to change my view on this. Things just are. No ultimate purpose or anything of the sort. Nevertheless, one could still assign purpose to one's own life, and this is often done subconsciously, determined by the kinds of experiences one goes through.
Same thing with meaning, whether or not meaning is different from purpose.
Are humans more significant than other creatures? Only according to our egocentric human views. Ultimately, we're not that special. We're just really, really, really tiny parts of this really, really, really huge world.
Quote:Morality
Why do we have moral ethics? Why do some things ‘seem’ bad (like murder)
Do good and bad exist? How do you determine what is good or bad?
Are good and evil subjective or universal/absolute?
If you don't believe in sin, do you ever feel guilty?
We have moral ethics because the human world would be a complete disaster otherwise. We wouldn't have survived as a species if we all thought there was nothing wrong with killing people and such. Not that the human world is perfect. It's not. But we're here, and that is something we should all be thankful for.
Good and bad exist, conceptually. And, as human beings, we tend to make good use of these concepts. So even with morality, still no need for God at all.
As for how we determine what is good or bad, we don't often do it consciously, so it's really hard to pinpoint exactly how we determine good and bad. Not unless perhaps you do some deep reading on ethics and such. Something which I currently have no time for, at the moment. People who opine that it's all subjective may have a point, but a lot of philosophers of ethics do argue for objective godless/secular morality, so I don't know. But again, no God is needed for morality to be a thing, and we don't even need a solid moral basis in the divine to live a fairly adequate moral life. So it baffles me when theists insist we need God for morality. For what exactly do we need such an entity?
Quote:Destiny
What happens to us after death?
Is there a heaven / hell?
If so, how do you get there? Is there anything specific you have to do?
What happens to us after death is that we most likely cease to exist as "us" (that is, if we adhere to the conventional notion of the "self"). And so no, most likely no heaven or hell either.
