The Workermonkey

Thursday, April 29, 2004

deep thoughts, by jack meoff 

# posted by josh @ 4/29/2004 09:58:00 PM

so today in my 2nd to last undergrad class ever we were talking about the establishment clause and a case in which someone argued thru the textbooks used in alabama schools the state was trying to establish a religion. one of the criteria they cited that's required for something to be a religion is that it explained the purpose of life, and of our existence. but i ask, is one necessary? i mean, i cant come up w / a good purpose for our lives. the best i can come up w/ is to live on and keep life going. but the idea that we live to keep life going seems kind of circular to me.

what about the idea that life is just a random sequence of events? why is this so hard to believe? of course there will be cause and effect things (this is not in any way to invalidate science, after all, that's how we know what we do about ourselves and the world), but things wont happen towards, or because of, any one overarching purpose. obviously if i bang a girl she'll feel damn good for a long time (cause and effect) but that's not to say we had sex for any purpose, such as sustaining life or cuz it somehow led towards the accomplishment of some other goal of our lives which leads to a larger goal for society or humanity.

i think people have such a hard time w/ that concept cuz they want to believe that they're living for something. but what if we're not? is that so bad anyway? it doesnt change life at all, cuz even if we do have a purpose we dont know what it is. so what difference does it make? you cant work towards something you dont know the contents of. you can just live your life and respond to teh things that happen around you. it seems a contradiction ot me the people who think they're living for some purpose but also have the philosophy ofjust going out and enjoying life as it comes. if you just enjoy life, as i think you should, then you're just appreciating that which comes to you. unless the purpose of life is to enjoy it. maybe, but then it seems we wouldnt do nearly as many things as we do that we dont like. it seems we would just do what we felt like, what brought us pleasure, and we clearly dont just act like that. or maybe we would act like that w/ the exception of interfering w/ others rights, for example, not killing them.

cue the entrance of religion. people are happier if they think that they have some god to live for. or heaven as a goal to reach. boy are these people gonna be pissed when they realized they dont exist. i almost feel bad for them but then i'm not dumb enough to believe in that shit. god/heaven give people a purpose. unfortunately, they try to impose their personal life purpose on others, and we get religious people everywhere telling us what should be censored and what we can and cant watch or hear. hey, if people wanna live for that stuff that's fine, but dont impose your fake life purpose on me. i'm not sure life has a purpose, and until it does i will live my life the happiest i can inside the rules and regulations of society. cuz that's just how i wanna do it. i'm not convinced that's a purpose as much as it's a philosophy of how to live life. why not enjoy it while we're here , cuz i probably wont be too happy when i'm just rotting in the ground.

and some girl in class today was arguing that religion should be taught cuz it's a part of our history. only in the aspect that people have always held some sort of religious beliefs and it's caused many unjust wars, death, hatred, and ignorance. i'm sorry but if you tell me that someone was born from a virgin, and that's part of our history, i'm not so much buying that. or that we all come from adam and eve. if that were the case maybe we'd think twice about criticizing incest so much. arent we all related? maybe it's amazing we dont all have 11 fingers or toes. or maybe that's no more true than a guy who travelled the country with his blue ox. who knows. all i know is i could go for some wings right about now...

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