Okay, so, let me get this right.

The people at the time only understood the earth as flat and the universe as geocentric.
Therefore, they wrote as though these things were true.
However, these things are demonstrably false.
Therefore, portions of the Bible are false.
Therefore, not all scripture is true?

Personally, dubmdell, haha it is so hard to spell your name.

Sorry, back on topic. Personally, I do not believe that any of those verses are describing the earth as flat or the universe as geocentric. They are simply stating how God set the earth and universe in place. As for the sun rises and sets verse, we still use that phrase today. Nobody says, 'the earth rotated and we can't see the sun anymore.' We still use the phrase, 'the sun sets.' In no way is that saying we believe the universe to be geocentric. It's just a phrase.

^therefore, the way we interpret things may not necessarily be correct. we can (and i believe should) try our best to interpret what the bible says to the best of our ability, but the fact is that with a God so big, it is believed that we cannot comprehend what He has to say. zachattack is correct, the center of all Christian doctrine should be the death and resurrection of Christ. that is the centerpiece to the Christian faith, although it is sometimes not treated as such.

Whatever meaning we choose to impose upon it.

Yeah, sorry Tolstoy, this thread has been derailed, and I have been a part of it. My apologies.

However, on the relevant topic, one can never know his or her purpose. We can set goals for ourselves, and we can think we know where we fit in the pattern of life, but ultimately, we are painfully insignificant. The best one can do really is to live life to the fullest, regardless of one's beliefs.

yes, i must apologize too Tolstoy, i just didn't agree with what KA was saying. i didn't mean to completely change the direction of the thread ahaha.

@King Atom. the Bible is God's word so why would he say things that are false in the Bible? I believe everything in the standard Bible to be true. I am a Christan and believe in God and the Bible to be his word. My God wouldnt put false things in the Bible so I do believe in everything in the bible so it is possible to believe in everything in the bible or Quran.

Tolstpy. There is many purposes to live in this life. Religiously or worldly. If you chose religion then worship your God to the full exstent. If you chose worldly then do what ever it tells you. if it is bang as many girls or drink as much as possible. Its your choice :)

Tolstoy, why do you think you are alive?

"They are simply stating how God set the earth and universe in place."

I presume you mean, they state how God set the Earth to orbit around the sun? Which means that you agree the Earth is moving, yes? Let's read our little psalm again.

Psalm 104:5: "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved."

Oh. Wait, it is moving though. So maybe the Earth can never deviate from its orbit? Except that its orbit isn't exactly the same every year? So there's no way to understand this verse /except/ as flat earth (no rotation on an axis) and as a geocentric universe (no revolution around the sun)?


Moving on, "we still use that phrase today."

Yes, but these phrases are not born in a vacuum. They aren't born simply because of poetry. These archaic phrases once were considered truth. These beliefs and phrases were the foundation of the case against Galileo and Copernicus.

Obviously I believe that the earth is moving, and obviously its orbit fluctuates. But the bottom line is, the earth is in a 'set' orbit that was designed or fell into place perfectly, depending on your belief system.

And yes, I agree but that is what I'm talking about when it comes to interpretation. Clearly that could be a misinterpretation of these verses.

I'm sorry that you don't understand, but given our past interactions, I suspect you don't actually care and are just looking to waste my time. This conversation is considered resolved.

What past interactions? I honestly don't even recall talking to you. Regardless, I'm not sure what I am not understanding. I am interpreting these verses as simply saying that earth was placed in a specific position. Not sure how that is so off the wall.

Well, Tolstoy, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much...

...Or mommy's very mad at daddy and gives his best friend that's always eyed her pretty clearly at the Christmas party a call...

I live in a tight philosophical orbit around the singularity of nihilism, and I say that your purpose is to carve your name on existence for future generations to fear and emulate.

Each orbit makes a really dubsteppy "wub wub" noise, in case you were wondering.

@Tolstoy

IMHO (hee), there is no meaning or purpose to 'life'. But there is meaning and purpose for each individual. The meaning/purpose is defined by your values. Inevitably everyone lives according to their values, so that is the meaning - your own subjective interpretation of the world, because there really is just YOU. You must the judge of what you mean.

"If you want to get pleasure out of life, you must attach value to the world."
- Goethe.

Does that make any sense? ;P

read "You must BE the judge of"
oops

I like your energy Average.

@dubmdell, I don't really think you're being fair in the interpretation of those passages. First, we use "rises" and "sets" language even today -- it's a perfectly fair description of what's going on there. You're allowed to describe things from your own reference frame.

As for the earth one, there are actually _multiple_ alternative explanations. First, in almost every context, it's clear that "cannot be moved," etc., could mean that the earth cannot be shaken from its foundations -- it is secure where God wants it to be. If its orbit -- not a concept that was really in play at the time in the first place -- changes, then that orbit IS part of God's plan for it, hence part of its foundations.

Second, I'm no expert in Hebrew, but in many of these cases, it seems earth and water are being juxtaposed. I'm not sure "earth" isn't supposed to refer to the land portion of the world, not the "globe." Since they didn't realize there was a globe, why would we insist that their word "earth" meant the globe, and not the land? If it did, then it's obvious what edges in Job 38:13 might mean.

Frankly, all of Job 38 is _extremely_ poetic. See for example verses 17 or 22. There's little indication that I'm aware of that ancient peoples actually regarded darkness as being behind a gate, or snow as being kept in storehouses. You need a certain sensitivity to the passage, imho.

You're right that various passages referring to the Messiah are varying levels of poetic, as well. There's a spectrum there, really. I'm sure there are many that I would never have realized were referring to Christ if He or a new-testament apostle hadn't explicitly said so.

There is no purpose in life. There is only you and the world. You are the purpose. Don't ask why you are alive. Rather ask how you will live it. The will of man bends the future.

Your purpose in life is to is to lose to me in diplomacy, thus providing a small boost to my morale to help sustain me on my way to greatness. When I leave this site your life will cease to have meaning.

Seriously, though, there are plenty of people in this world who know the purpose of their lives. If you do not, then the chances are that you don't have one.

The universe and all the matter within it came to be through natural happenings. They were not guided by any outside force which could give them any meaning or purpose. They are inherently purposeless.

This fact can either be the cause of your life's greatest despair or liberation. You can either trudge through the rest of your existence paralyzed by the cosmos and the infinite distance and depth of its nothingness, or you can pick something you love to do and do it and enjoy it and find some happiness and peace in an existence hostile to both, throwing all reservation to the wind knowing that reservation is the only thing stopping you from following your dreams. You've only got one chance to do anything and everything, and in the end the result for you is the same, so you've got everything on the table and no excuse not to go for it. And while I haven't lived very long, I've experienced enough to know that the only regret that ever really haunts you is the regret that comes from not doing something you wanted to do and NOT, contrary to popular assertion, from doing something that turned out badly.

Just do the rest of us soul-searching purposeless husks a favor and don't impede on our chance to enjoy that same liberation, alright?

@ PE

That's not actually true though, is it? For one thing popular assertion is that not doing things leads to worse regrets than of doing things that go badly. My own experience suggests doing things that go badly wrong are actually somewhat worse in terms of regret.

Besides, it all depends on how you word the experience. "I regret not going to university" and "I regret getting a job I hated for the money" can refer to the same action. Are you regretting doing something or regretting not doing something? It is clearly both, and the way you think of it is purely down to your own interpretation of events.

I suppose popular assertion depends on the group being observed. I've found that most people I encounter seem to prefer to play things more "safely," not ruffling any feathers or straying in any significantly way from what's acceptable in society. I personally think that's absolutely ridiculous, and that in light of the fact that social expectations don't mean a damn thing in the end either, that no one should let them get in the way of following dreams. And while people definitely TALK about that very thing, TALK about how everyone should follow their dreams, they sure as hell don't DO anything about it in their own lives or encourage others to DO anything substantial about it, either. Mom and Dad tell Billy he should do what he needs to do to follow his dream, but when Billy's dream is to be a teacher or a politician Mom and Dad strongly recommend engineering or business school. Not that there's anything wrong with engineering or business school; follow that dream if it's yours! But too often I find people let such silly things as social stigma get in the way of doing what they want with the extremely limited time they have. And yeah, sure, social stigmas are intimidating and formidable, and I can understand why they're feared. But why bother living a life full of dreams unfulfilled? When the only purpose in life is that which you make for it, and you are restrained by fear of social stigma from pursuing that purpose, you're living a purposeless life, which is no better than no life at all.

Regarding things going wrong, I suppose I could see that they'd be more regrettable, if you put full effort into what you were doing and things didn't work out. Or even if you just plain old made an error in trying that messed things up. Again my personal experience is different from this, but I suppose I just have been fortunate enough to avoid running into that.

Your second paragraph needs more explaining. Why does the person regret getting a hated job for the money? Why does the person regret not going to university? I suspect the ultimate answer is that the person regrets getting the hated job because the hated job is not the purpose the person had in mind for his/her life, and that not going to university was a decision not to pursue something which the person wanted to pursue. In both interpretations the root cause is non-action: not pursuing the purpose the person wanted for his/her life. That's how I would answer your charge as stated, though again the charge lacks necessary detail for me to understand your exact meaning.

This is one of those threads where I feel I should just respond to OP's questions without reading the thread so here goes:

The first thing to realize about the "meaning of life question" is what is making you ask it. Why is it that you care at all? That's a very simple answer actually.

It lies with something called teleology. Humans are infected with it. Let me explain: when we were more or less apes out in East Africa, what distinguished us and sent us down this path of technology and civilization? Tool-making and brain size. Everyone knows that. But once we got the bigger brains, what was the mechanism by which we learned tool-making? Simple. Teleology. Our brains took a kind of shortcut. Someone found out by accident that sharpened sticks were good at killing game. Our brains facilitated the making of these tools by providing the illusion that sharpened sticks are FOR killing game. That's WHY they exist, or at least why we make them.

We apply this teleology to all our tools. What is the purpose of a fridge? To keep my food cool. My phone? To talk to me friends. Webdip? To play diplomacy with my friends.

Teleology works wonders with tools, because it makes you think of a goal and then create a tool to achieve the purpose. So that is how we tool-making beasts are wired - with teleology.

But of course we are smart, but not THAT smart. We aren't very nuanced, at least. So we started to apply teleology to everything. "Why are there trees, Daddy?" "There are trees to give us shade and wood." "Oh. What about the ocean why is that there?" "The ocean is there to give us fish."

And so on. None of that is true of course, but we tend to think that way. And then, probably not too long after this shit evolved, some poor schmuck was the first to ask:

"Why am *I* here?"

Damn. Why indeed? What are we for? What is *everything* for? If the universe is a tool, what is it's purpose?

That's how we think of it. Even when we come to learn through pondering and much learning as we are lucky enough to in this modern era that there doesn't seem to be a unified purpose to it, we are left with the nagging idea that that's not good enough. There MUST be a purpose. Everything NEEDS a purpose!

But you must realize that that is just the lens you see the world through thanks to where and under what circumstances our brains grew up - the savanna.

Now, that won't satisfy your urge to justify yourself and find purpose and meaning. You will understand this and think, okay, fine, but I still want to know what my purpose is. Lol. That's how we work. You can't just duck the question.

So, this is where I answer the question personally. You will see other answers, but this is mine: Ultimately I am a skeptic as you know and doubt the truth of everything, claiming nothing is known. So since I am agnostic about everything, you would logically conclude I am also agnostic about the meaning of life. You'd be right. I don't believe we can know firstly whether there is a meaning of life, and secondly what it is if there is one.

But notice that this conveniently leaves room for hope. Life could very well have a beautiful meaning. I don't know it. But it could all the same. So I take this observation and construe the maxim:

"The meaning of life is to find meaning in life."

Sounds like a cop out but it's not - because what else can be done? Until you know for certain the meaning of life, the meaning of your life is figure out the meaning of life, no?

Anyway I have a temporary answer based on a long bit of philosophizing I did out in the Senegalese countryside, and it involves morality.

To decide what the meaning of life will be for you, you must identify an ultimate goal, a motivator, for all action. What is the end of all your action?

I chose maximizing my happiness. If you can think of another, please do tell. I can think of no other.

Then I went further - what would maximize my happiness most? Well, I am an egalitarian, so I realized that I would be most fulfilled if in fact I am seeking the happiness of all in equal measure without favoritism for myself. So actually *in the act of finding happiness selfishly for myself* I have arrived at the conclusion that the ultimate goal is to bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number.

This becomes my meaning of life. This is why I am here, this is my mission, this is what informs my action. For all I know I was created by an alien being and my purpose is actually to simulate carbon-based life for possible applications in interstellar weaponry. Maybe. I have no idea. But in the meantime I have found the morally fulfilling response to satisfy my evolved thirst for purpose.

Make sense?

in conclusion,

YOLO

My thoughts exactly.

I started searching for God a few years ago, since I'm an agnostic and I want to at least explore thought. Also, there were plenty of holes in my life, and to not even consider the option that God could fill them seemed stupid. I remember talking to a friend who is a Muslim, I asked her what made her believe in God, what REASON she had, and she told me that she just does. It's as natural as breathing to her. She feels God in the world, she feels purpose and meaning in all things, she feels loved and guided, she doesn't need to rationally question it because it's so ubiquitous for her. I had been looking for God rationally, and that's a cul-de-sac if there ever was one. I find it interesting that two human beings can perceive the world so differently.

So I dropped trying to rationally construct a way to explore spirituality, and tried to explore myself instead, my emotions, my psyche. I should say that I suffer from chronic depression, and a whole slew of other co-morbid psychological disorders, and it probably influences my view. What I found was that where she feels loved and guided, I feel like a dead man walking. The matter of the Universe, that is holy to my friend, just seems chaotic and fleeting to me. I can't shake the feeling that I'm a random animal completely fucked by self-awareness, forced to justify myself in a world where existence is tied up with domination and narcissism. We have to tell ourselves that we are special and beautiful, how else could we justify continuing to exist with all the horrors we are responsible for?

I did contemplate suicide for a long time, and I still do. To me, suicide is not cowardice, it's a valid choice for those whose existence is utterly horrible. I'm sorry if I'm upsetting anyone who has ever had to go through suffering because of a suicide, but try going through a chronic depression and a psychosis before you start being judgmental about it. Obviously, I decided to not do it, because no matter how fucked up my life is, I enjoy existing. And this was at the very core. I hate myself and want to die, I feel guilty for breathing, I go through periods where I can't even describe the panic and pain I'm in, but the feeling of wanting to keep existing is stronger. So I decided to make my own purpose, by attempting to as much as possible be what I want humans to be, if we were better, if we were holy.

So I stopped eating meat, because the thought of living through the death of other creatures sickened me. And I felt a little better. I started reading up on feminism and socialism because dominating others sickened me. And I felt a little better. Bit by bit I'm trying to build myself into the human I want humans to be. It's not a purpose, because in the end I'll die and rot anyway, which makes anything I do meaningless. But it keeps my existence feeling somewhat pleasant while I'm stuck in this meat.