<edit> It's OK to push. You make me think. I consider that good.
>To have a goal beyond the extinction of your temporal
existance is not supported by the premise of nothingness at your death.<
Exactly. Once I'm dead, I'm dead. Foosh. (an article of my faith, of course) But I draw sustenance from the idea that I'm a link in a chain of people working toward advancement ... and not simply mucking the place up. I have inherited wisdom and resources my forebears have worked to produce, and I'd like to leave my children with even more than I had. In terms of history, technology, philosophy, the whole enchilada.
About purpose. I am alive, and I have a strong survival instinct. It's my opinion that pondering purpose is something we do as interested parties - to try to find a morally palatable supporting argument for entertaining that will to live. We want so much to believe that it is GOOD to be alive - that we end up constructing and handing on accommodating mythologies. Some of which take on weight and become religions.
I also think we are wired to seek purpose, even if it is a mental red herring. Furthermore we are wired, powerfully predisposed, to think in terms of, and surmise traces of, a Guiding Hand.
Again, an article of my faith. |
