The Meaning of Life?

[dageir]

Morals and ethics are probably constructs to enable people to live in a society.
In an imagined "natural state" there would be no rules. How would humans act in such a setting?
Hard to tell, since humans are taught a set of rules from a young age. The family and the tribe are very central to humans and has been for millenia.
Even in the smallest "society" of two people, there would be a quick establishment of rules, unless the one kill the other.

[enlightenedcake]

If you want to understand the meaning of life you have to understand life itself ...

Nobody on this forum can make you understand ... and 99,99% of all people in our culture do not understand life themselves ...

I recommend you read Tom Campbell's book "My Big Toe" in order to get started ... it's a very scientific take on spirituality/consciousness and the nature of our reality. You don't have to agree with Tom but the book just shows you that most of what you think you know about reality is actually based upon culturally accepted belief systems. Once you are done with the book you might want to continue reading the classic books from Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Ken Wilber, etc. ... Tom's book just allows you to understand all of those books ...

Then you'll have a decent intellectual understanding about the nature of life and reality ... but that does not mean that you _understand_ life/reality ... you'll just know what prevents you from understanding reality ...

A little spoiler: Our physical existence is an illusion ... just like Haven&Hearth is an illusion. Every time you stop playing H&H and every time you shift your attention back into your "real" world you undergo some sort of spiritual enlightenment. You will undergo the same process in "real" life. Ultimately, you will wake up and realize that you have been playing a game ... and that the same mechanisms that keep you playing H&H are also keeping you playing the "real" world game: illusionary status and fame ... pointless fear ... pointless competition ... random concepts and belief systems ... a socioeconomic framework based upon artificial scarcity and the inflation of ego and "wants" ... etc., etc., ...

Good luck on your journey ... <3

p.s.: Once you read Tom's book you'll not be able to play H&H like you played it before ... just because this game mirrors the illusion of our physical existence and all the mechanisms that keep us playing and that prevent us from "letting go" that well ...

[enlightenedcake]

p.s.: Here are some books that might help you ...

Tom Campbell "My Big Theory of Everything" (you can read it for free on "Google Books")
Alan Watts "On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are" (http://terebess.hu/english/AlanWatts-On ... %20Are.pdf for example ...)
Alan Watts "Become What You Are"
Eckhart Tolle "A New Earth"
Eckhart Tolle "The Power of Now"
Steve Taylor "The Fall"
Charles Eisenstein "Sacred Economics" (Important to understand how our monetary system, socioeconomic framework, culture, value- and incentive systems are anti-evolutionary and anti-spiritual ... and how they lead most people away from said "Truth")
David R. Hawkins "Transcending the Levels of Consciousness"
Ram Dass "Be Love Now"

Just keep in mind: Reading is an intellectual endeavor ... no book can make you understand reality ... they just allow you to obtain an intellectual understanding about why you are not (yet) understanding reality ... they just allow you to obtain an intellectual understanding about why you are not actually experiencing reality in the present moment ... because of ego/thoughts/conceptualization/judgement/identification with a specific embodiment etc., etc., ... basically the same things and same mechanisms that keep you playing a computer game ...

And please don't argue about God or morality with random people on random forums ... "God" is just a word and people who don't (yet) understand reality and who use the term are not doing anybody a favor ... you'll just end up discussing words ... your understanding of reality will not improve by an iota ...

[GenghisKhan44]

Humans tend to choose evil if they do not learn to choose the good.

I don't believe in evil. I think humans are born selfish, and self centered with little regard for the wellbeing of others. If a monkey takes a banana from another monkey, is that evil? Why apply a separate ruleset to ourselves? In my mind it is because without it our society would not be possible. Morality is a necessary part of our society, but it is an idea we have constructed.

Would you say that society is conducive to an human being, erm, being more human? That is, is it characteristic of an human being - of human nature - to construct societies rather than not?
Or, if you wish to go deeper, does the human being as such have a nature - a manner of behaviour, a composition of matter and form, a manner of genesis and growth, and an innate goal (not necessarily a divine purpose, but rather one like the other animals - part what they are, perhaps even inexplicable) - that makes them distinct from other creatures?

Whilst I don't believe in good and evil (mostly because they are considered absolutes, black and white)

Define "black and white". Do you mean, as in, "a thing is either good or it is evil, absolutely"? Or, a person who believes in good and evil believes "that a thing may be good or evil in certain circumstances, but whenever it is evil, it is absolutely evil with no redeeming qualities"? Or in some other way do you mean that "good and evil" are "black and white"?

Because if that's what you mean, I would agree that morality is not "black and white" in that way.

I should point out that I do believe in positivity and negativity. That each action we take every day has a complex interation of negative and positive effects on everything around us, and that each action we take has a net contribution of either negativity or positivity to our environment as a whole. Semantics maybe, but the connotations inherent to the words good and evil are absurd to me.

I understand your reasoning. Words mean something. Connotation and context are not arbitrary. Homosexual is not the same word as a certain three-lettered word beginning with f.
Although I would say your concepts of morality - how you define "positivity" and "negativity" are, by definition, very similar to the Catholic Church's criteria - which, if you ever want to know, are in the Catechism.

Not that I'm saying, "Hey! You're like us! Become Catholic." But I am saying that you do make sense, and you would find more of an ally in the Catholic Church than I think you know.

I believe it possible for any animal to conceive an innovative thought. However without language, that thought will die with them. Just look at how hard it is for our own species to accept innovative thought, the preference is always to reject ideas which are different. Not so many of us are capable of rational, logical argument and the modification of ones belief system.

Different, yes, I concede this. Just not special.

But animals do have and are capable of language. Ants, for example, conduct signals to each other through smells. Dogs and cats bark, meow, and growl, not pointlessly, but with meaning. And of course there is always example. Some animals do, to some extent, teach their children. Not all, of course. But some.

But they do not innovate without the intercession of human beings. Monkeys raid anthills the same way they have for centuries, millenia. Gazelles do not develop defence strategies. Chickens, mice, and rats can develop ulcers due to stress only if induced by human beings. Furthermore, no animal has ever produced art or poetry even in a crude way. They might be induced to, again, by human intervention. Or perhaps with billions of years of evolution, maybe. But not as they are.

By the way, different is special.

Peace to you. And I apologise if I come off in some way negatively - especially that last bit (typed very quickly because I have to go someplace). But I do think you're worth dialoguing with about morality. You have a brain. I want to offer my own, if you want some other ideas to choose from.

[anderako]

no animal has ever produced art or poetry even in a crude way. They might be induced to, again, by human intervention. Or perhaps with billions of years of evolution, maybe. But not as they are.

That's because animals don't need to do that kind of thing in order to get laid.

[the_portals]

Maybe the real meaning of life was the friends we made along the way

[Jalpha]

no animal has ever produced art or poetry even in a crude way

I forgot to address this earlier.

They may have.

[Burinn]

What is the meaning of life?

[Jalpha]

Something very complex, requiring consideration of many facets of life, the world and... everything.

Do you have something to contribute?

[Burinn]

Something very complex, requiring consideration of many facets of life, the world and... everything.

Do you have something to contribute?

The question is in and of itself the answer. It was within you, us, the whole time.