9inches:
Okay, but have you realized why you exist and the meaning of your life?

9inches:
I have. Have you?

HellVictorinho:


My life is not a word in the dictionary. And I exist simply because someone gave birth to me.The question should be why do humans exist?

9inches:
Listen to your answer. The purpose and meaning of your existence is because someone gave birth to you?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP2rLgrBtTI

MhizAngel99:


How do u knw that there is someone controlling reality? This is the one question you christians have failed to answer for centuries, WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?

9inches:

Really? Prefacing your question with a lie is not a good way to start. You simply could've said you don't accept the answers (assuming you have truly searched for one). Then you could give reasons why you don't accept them or why they don't make sense to you.

Why not start with an ordinary Google search and see how much you could get... then you could ask questions because for sure a lot of the responses you will get will not be the whole truth.

Requirement:
1. Courage to dig for the truth.
2. Humility to accept it when you see it.

What type of evidence do you need? Intellectual knowledge generally is the union between the intellect and an intelligible object. But a TRUTH is intelligible to us only in so far as it is evident to us, and evidence is of different kinds. Hence, according to the varying character of the evidence, we shall have varying kinds of knowledge.

A. A truth may be self-evident e.g. the whole is greater than its part.... in which case we are said to have intuitive knowledge of it; or
B. a truth may not be self-evident, but deducible from premises in which it is contained. Such knowledge is termed reasoned knowledge; or
C. a truth may be neither self-evident nor deducible from premises in which it is contained, yet the intellect may be obliged to assent to it because It would else have to reject some other universally accepted truth;
D. a truth may rest on grave authority, even though it might not be evident in itself. Here, the intellect may be induced to assent to a truth for none of the reasons in A, B and C. For example, we accept the statement that the sun is 90,000,000 miles distant from the earth because competent, veracious authorities vouch for the fact.

This last kind of knowledge (D) is termed faith, and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith.

That's how you should start approaching evidences so you don't limit yourself to only thev truths you could see or perceive.

9inches:

D. a truth may rest on grave authority, even though it might not be evident in itself. Here, the intellect may be induced to assent to a truth for none of the reasons in A, B and C. For example, we accept the statement that the sun is 90,000,000 miles distant from the earth because competent, veracious authorities vouch for the fact.

This last kind of knowledge (D) is termed faith, and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith.

joseph1013:
"In premodern times religions were responsible for solving a wide range of technical problems in mundane fields such as agriculture. Divine calendars determined when to plant and when to harvest, while temple rituals secured rainfall and protected against pests.

When an agricultural crisis loomed as a result of drought or a plague of locusts, farmers turned to the priests to intercede with the gods. Medicine too fell within the religious domain. Almost every prophet, guru and shaman doubled as a healer.

Thus Jesus spent much of his time making the sick well, the blind see, the mute talk, and the mad sane. Whether you lived in ancient Egypt or in medieval Europe, if you were ill you were likely to go to the witch doctor rather than to the doctor, and to make a pilgrimage to a renowned temple rather than to a hospital.

In recent times the biologists and the surgeons have taken over from the priests and the miracle workers. If Egypt is now struck by a plague of locusts, Egyptians may well ask Allah for help – why not? – but they will not forget to call upon chemists, entomologists and geneticists to develop stronger pesticides and insect-resisting wheat strains.

If the child of a devout Hindu suffers from a severe case of measles, the father would say a prayer to Dhanvantari and offer flowers and sweets at the local temple – but only after he has rushed the toddler to the nearest hospital and entrusted him to the care of the doctors there. Even mental illness – the last bastion of religious healers – is gradually passing into the hand of the scientists, as neurology replaces demonology and Prozac supplants exorcism.

The victory of science has been so complete that our very idea of religion has changed. We no longer associate religion with farming and medicine. Even many zealots now suffer from collective amnesia, and prefer to forget that traditional religions ever laid claim to these domains. ‘So what if we turn to engineers and doctors?’ say the zealots. ‘That proves nothing. What has religion got to do with agriculture or medicine in the first place?’

Traditional religions have lost so much turf because, frankly, they just weren’t very good in farming or healthcare. The true expertise of priests and gurus has never really been rainmaking, healing, prophecy or magic. Rather, it has always been interpretation. A priest is not somebody who knows how to perform the rain dance and end the drought. A priest is somebody who knows how to justify why the rain dance failed, and why we must keep believing in our god even though he seems deaf to all our prayers.

Yet it is precisely their genius for interpretation that puts religious leaders at a disadvantage when they compete against scientists. Scientists too know how to cut corners and twist the evidence, but in the end, the mark of science is the willingness to admit failure and try a different tack. That’s why scientists gradually learn how to grow better crops and make better medicines, whereas priests and gurus learn only how to make better excuses.

Over the centuries, even the true believers have noticed the difference, which is why religious authority has been dwindling in more and more technical fields. This is also why the entire world has increasingly become a single civilisation.

When things really work, everybody adopts them."

~Yuval Noah Harari's "21 Lessons for the 21st Century"

HellVictorinho:


Don't be critically stupid!!!!!!!
And you shouldn't ask me for the "meaning/purpose"of my existence.(stupid question)
I only stated what CAUSED my existence!!!
And every human being that lives tries to last on Earth for as long as possible by competing with other humans for the things nature provides(The characteristic of living things also shared by humans that is called COMPETITION).
Once again, the correct/logical question should be "What is the purpose of the existence of the most complex specie known as MAN who has demonstrated a high level of intellect but hasn't shown to be completely different from other animals considering the similarity in their characteristics as living things which also involves DEATH due to the aging process.?

HellVictorinho:
The question should be why do humans exist?

HellVictorinho:
And every human being that lives tries to last on Earth for as long as possible by competing with other humans for the things nature provides(The characteristic of living things also shared by humans that is called COMPETITION).

9inches:


I understand why the question of "why" would discomfort you; even Richard Dawkins shies away from attempting to answer and calls it non trivial, just as you call it stupid. But that question alone goes at the heart of the whole existence discussion/debate. If a grown adult shies away from the discussion of "why" things are, like, WHY is there suffering in the world; WHY do we have cars (easy one, right );

HellVictorinho:


Okay, there is suffering in the world because humans are causing/allowing themselves to suffer.
We have cars that make transportation easy and also make it easy for humans to inflict pain on themselves.
And I have one question for you-Why can't you read and understand ?

9inches:


I understand why the question of "why" would discomfort you; even Richard Dawkins shies away from attempting to answer that and calls it non trivial, just as you call it stupid. But that germane question alone goes to the heart of the whole existence discussion/debate.

So, what is the purpose of the existence of MAN?

HellVictorinho:


"The Truth is a lie".
And I hope you now understand what Biology is all about.

LordReed:


What a gross mischaracterization. We do not accept that the sun is 1AU away because scientists said so. We accept it because the methods they used are repeatable and the results can be verified by others. Don't equate our acceptance of scientific facts with your unfounded faith.

9inches:


Again, you are talking about causality. Please explain WHY there is suffering, not who is responsible for suffering. Thanks!

9inches:
What do you mean by "others"?

9inches:
I'm sorry I don't. Mind expatiating on that?

HellVictorinho:

Alright, I'm going to burst your bubble.
Man is suffering because he is bound to suffer!!!
This is what makes him an 'Expression of Predetermined Absurdity'.
Philosophically,he is not just suffering.
He is actually occurring in a manner that is determined by the functional consequences of the 'The Possibility of his Existence'.

9inches:


Man is bound to suffer
1. to what end, and

LordReed:


Any other persons able to test and verify the results either professional scientists or amateurs so inclined.

HellVictorinho:

To no end!!!!
He is an 'Expression of Predetermined Absurdity'.
He is on Earth, which is the 'Prison of Man'.
And the 'Possibility of the Spirit Realm' is nothing but a 'declarification'.

9inches:


Man is bound to suffer
1. to what end, and
2. kindly throw more light on the "functional consequences" that determined man's existence.

9inches:


The functional consequences that determined man's existence also [pre]determined man's suffering to no end!

I'm following. I'm sure you are working on second part of my question.

And by the way, be free to point out any misrepresentation of what you say as I'm putting them all together.

HellVictorinho:

The 'functional consequences' are the effects of the 'Possibility of Man's predetermined Existence', which was actualized during ANYTIME as part of 'The Forming of Existence'..
These effects characterized the manner in which The First Humans were formed (not created).

9inches:


The effects of the 'Possibility of Man's predetermined Existence' can be called the 'Functional Consequences'. These effects (Functional Consequences) characterized the manner in which the first humans were formed and which predetermined man's suffering to no end!

HellVictorinho:

Check out the 'Explanation for Existence'.
It's a topic I created.
Read everything I posted including my reply to 'budaatum' on the 'Existential Constant'.

HellVictorinho:
Lastly,I choose to describe this 'Ever-Existing-Drive',behind the ever-occurring event which I have observed as 'The Forming of Existence', as the 'Existential Constant'.
This 'Constant' allows possibilities to become actualized in different ways.
The manner in which this possibilities are actualized depends on the functional consequences of the possibilities.

HellVictorinho:

Yes,Man is a Form of Existence.
And he was never created.
He was formed as result of certain occurrences/events that were bound to happen.

9inches:
Are professional scientists or amateurs different from "scientists"?

So, in essence, you were saying "We do not accept that the sun is 1AU away because scientists said so. We accept it because the methods they used are repeatable and the results can be verified by professional scientists or amateurs. Hmm

9inches:
Who are the "others"? Non scientists I'd guess?

More than 70% of researchers who took part in a recent study published in Nature have tried and failed to replicate another scientist’s experiment. Another study found that at least 50% of life science research cannot be replicated. The same holds for 51% of economics papers. The findings of these studies resonate with the gut feeling of many in contemporary academia that a lot of published research findings may be false. Just like any other information source, academic journals may contain fake news. There are as well scientific facts that have been disproven over time.

LordReed:


Yeah because amateurs are not generally considered when talking about any endeavour; in sports, STEM, astronomy, etc. Nobody will call a person tinkering in their garage an engineer if he doesn't have any formal training or certification. So they are in a class of their own.

LordReed:


Exactly why those experiments need to be replicated and results verified. Its not every study, research or procedure that will pass the test.

The sun distance measurement has been repeated in so many ways for about 400years, not something you will say nobody can replicate or verify.