Why Why?

[slartibartfast]

[quote pid='2073857' dateline='1636097793']
Why is it so important for human beings (some more than others) to find an answer to the question of why we exist? 

I can see all the usual responses:

• My life doesn't have meaning otherwise
  
• I won't feel fulfilled without having a purpose
  
• I need to know what happens when I die
  

Theists fill the void with the concept of an omnipotent being that magically has all the answers.... apart from it doesn't.

To the best of my knowledge, Christianity does not provide a reason for our existence, other than saying God created us but his purpose is so unknowable and obscure that we shouldn't ask.

How is this any better than saying "I don't know"? Ie. instead elevating all provided answers to the important questions to vague "we cannot guess the will of God" bullshit.

The main criticism Theists have of science is that it can't / doesn't attempt to answer the ultimate question of "why" teleologically, which is correct. However nothing in religion answers anything either other than supposedly giving an answer to "How" we came to be. 

Coming back to my original question - why is it so hard for most people to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, that they would rather clutch at any explanation (no matter how vague, unfulfilling and unlikely under even modest logical scrutiny) than be truly comfortable with simply not knowing? Is this just plain and simple human nature?
[/quote]

[Foxaèr]

God is the primitive variant of a brain fart.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

[quote pid='2073857' dateline='1636097793']
Why is it so important for human beings (some more than others) to find an answer to the question of why we exist? 

I can see all the usual responses:

• My life doesn't have meaning otherwise
  
• I won't feel fulfilled without having a purpose
  
• I need to know what happens when I die
  

Theists fill the void with the concept of an omnipotent being that magically has all the answers.... apart from it doesn't.

To the best of my knowledge, Christianity does not provide a reason for our existence, other than saying God created us but his purpose is so unknowable and obscure that we shouldn't ask.

How is this any better than saying "I don't know"? Ie. instead elevating all provided answers to the important questions to vague "we cannot guess the will of God" bullshit.

The main criticism Theists have of science is that it can't / doesn't attempt to answer the ultimate question of "why" teleologically, which is correct. However nothing in religion answers anything either other than supposedly giving an answer to "How" we came to be. 

Coming back to my original question - why is it so hard for most people to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, that they would rather clutch at any explanation (no matter how vague, unfulfilling and unlikely under even modest logical scrutiny) than be truly comfortable with simply not knowing? Is this just plain and simple human nature?

[/quote]

Fear of death.

Boru

[brewer]

I concerned more with 'how'.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why is it so important for human beings (some more than others) to find an answer to the question of why we exist? 

Well........

Coming back to my original question - why is it so hard for most people to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, that they would rather clutch at any explanation (no matter how vague, unfulfilling and unlikely under even modest logical scrutiny) than be truly comfortable with simply not knowing? Is this just plain and simple human nature?

B-mine.  Yes, it's human nature.  More particularly, the whys of a god are predictable and exploitable and that's the purpose of theistic gods...whereas how is a past tense description of nuts and bolts.

Still, I don't think it's so much a problem that the whys of life are uncertain or ambiguous - at least not with respect to how the faithful employ them..but that their whys are commonly atrocious. If the purpose of our existence is to be a bunch of insufferable pricks, as evangelical christianity insists - then uncertainty and ambiguity aren't really the issue.

[slartibartfast]

I concerned more with 'how'.

Me too. But science does a pretty good job with "how".

[Alan V]

Because "by chance" doesn't seem to some people to answer the question "Why?"

[The Grand Nudger]

For alot of people, it doesn't seem particularly accurate, either. A question being answerable doesn't guarantee that every answer people give will be sensible or accurate (and this question can have plenty of answers depending on the specific person you're talking to) - but with respect to the whys that we exist..in an important sense, they're self certifying.

People telling you their why aren't mounting an argument - they're making a declaration of intent.

[no one]

Arrogance, ignorance, and fear, which are byproducts of the mind. The "mind" itself, is just a byproduct of a large, cognitive, aware brain that was allowed to relax and ponder due to the safety created by the fact that it was smarter than everything else.

In the early ons, humans did not have any clue to the natural sciences going on around them. So, they made stuff up to quell their fears. When a volcano erupted, they had no idea to the events that led up to its eruption. That over time, pressure, heat, and volume would eventually lead to its eruption. So, they invented gods to appease. After generations and generations of god and or gods being ingrained into the human psyche, they still fear the unknown, and gods help most overcome those fears.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wonder if people who continue to make propitiations to the god of the volcano can be said to have overcome their fear? I don't know that christian churches are full of people who've overcome their fear of death, either. Seems like both groups are still armpit deep in it. Still failing, wildly, to face it. Stuck bargaining, and not just that, bargaining on the most ludicrous of premises.