what has a young man to look foreward to?

[charles brough]

He can look ahead and see his whole life before him and it somehow seems so drab, so meaningless. His parents may hold religious beliefs, but he is educated enought to dismiss huge spirits floating down from "heaven" and the like. He is not going to be suckered into believing in dreams and mythology.

So, he figures that once he gets his liberal education from the planned four years in college, he will learn what life is all about and find something worthy to be and to look forward to. He is no hippy expecting to find it from some guru in India or Nepal!

So, what happens, he spends the four years in college studying a mountainous mass of confusing, conflicting economic, sociological, political science, psychological theories mixed up with five thousand years of easily forgotten history and up up to a billion years of paleontology, anthropology, archeology, etc.

By the time he is finished, he has given up every making sense out of it all. All he can do is look back at it and regard it as a sort of "trial by fire" used by the upper class to weed out the rest.

But it is only the first step. He has to get more degrees to really qualify. After going through four years of grade inflation, he is introducted to degree-inflation. If his parents are wealthy, he can become a professional student.

I say that in social evolution one can find the explanation of what is going on in the living world as well as physics does in the physical world.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

death and taxes

 

[horizon_mj1]

I say that in social evolution one can find the explanation of what is going on in the living world as well as physics does in the physical world.

I agree to an extent. The relevance of how both can work on the surface may appear the same, but what is going on inside differs tremendously.

 

[Twilight Hue]

death and taxes

Or taxes and death.

 

[David M]

What has he to look forward to?

Life: It can be a lot of fun you know (especially, its seems, if you don't live in the US).

 

[Chisti]

There is nothing to look forward to in this life, unless of course you're strangely attracted to this world of war, poverty, disease, corruption, and all that. There's happiness only in the afterlife.

 

[A-ManESL]

Angst.

 

[Orbital]

There is nothing to look forward to in this life, unless of course you're strangely attracted to this world of war, poverty, disease, corruption, and all that. There's happiness only in the afterlife.

It is unreasonable to arbitrarily give prominence to all the awful and horrifying circumstances over the righteous, innocent and awe-inspiring moments. To make up a 'perfect' life to live instead of dealing with reality is just silly.

Even in a sea of death and poverty, one drop of joy and hope is enough to make any human see the light. If this drop would not exist, we would drown. If the path of destruction, pain and suffering was inevitable, it would truly be a vacuous bleakness we are living in. If there was no way to oppose these means, it would truly be meaningless.

But there is.

 

[chinu]

what has a young man to look foreward to?

Nither Sience nor religion, Only and Only.......
Young Girls

_/\_
Chinu

 

[TheKnight]

He can look ahead and see his whole life before him and it somehow seems so drab, so meaningless. His parents may hold religious beliefs, but he is educated enought to dismiss huge spirits floating down from "heaven" and the like. He is not going to be suckered into believing in dreams and mythology.

So, he figures that once he gets his liberal education from the planned four years in college, he will learn what life is all about and find something worthy to be and to look forward to. He is no hippy expecting to find it from some guru in India or Nepal!

So, what happens, he spends the four years in college studying a mountainous mass of confusing, conflicting economic, sociological, political science, psychological theories mixed up with five thousand years of easily forgotten history and up up to a billion years of paleontology, anthropology, archeology, etc.

By the time he is finished, he has given up every making sense out of it all. All he can do is look back at it and regard it as a sort of "trial by fire" used by the upper class to weed out the rest.

But it is only the first step. He has to get more degrees to really qualify. After going through four years of grade inflation, he is introducted to degree-inflation. If his parents are wealthy, he can become a professional student.

I say that in social evolution one can find the explanation of what is going on in the living world as well as physics does in the physical world.

Sounds like the young man is contaminated with the disease of an overactive ego and a self-serving imagination that contributes to some sort of depressive lunacy.

 

[Looncall]

Sounds like the young man is contaminated with the disease of an overactive ego and a self-serving imagination that contributes to some sort of depressive lunacy.

Very good!

One could also mention the intellectual virus of religion.

 

[TheKnight]

Very good!

One could also mention the intellectual virus of religion.

When do the religious make threads about their depression and how they have nothing to look forward to?

I know, it's so hard not to bash religion whenever you can, but this really has nothing to do with religion or its affect on the intellect. It's about man's struggle to find, what appears to be, a purpose.

 

[Orbital]

I know, it's so hard not to bash religion whenever you can, but this really has nothing to do with religion or its affect on the intellect. It's about man's struggle to find, what appears to be, a purpose.

I beg to differ.

Most religions try to offer and actual objective purpose to life in a 'spiritual' sense. This would lead you to conclude that a dictation of a meaning by some higher entity somehow makes it objective, and that a subjective meaning is totally meaningless and of no use.
A total adherence to the word of a god is defiantly an effect of religion.

If this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, then I am lost.

 

[McBell]

There is nothing to look forward to in this life, unless of course you're strangely attracted to this world of war, poverty, disease, corruption, and all that. There's happiness only in the afterlife.

I have always laughed at the blatant hypocrisy of this position.

 

[TheKnight]

I beg to differ.

Most religions try to offer and actual objective purpose to life in a 'spiritual' sense. This would lead you to conclude that a dictation of a meaning by some higher entity somehow makes it objective, and that a subjective meaning is totally meaningless and of no use.
A total adherence to the word of a god is defiantly an effect of religion.

If this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, then I am lost.

I don't see how this about religion. It seems to be about finding a purpose. A person who doesn't want to be religious is searching for a purpose.

I don't think many would argue that religion provides an objective purpose, but it can give a life purpose, and I don't think that said purpose would be any less valid then any other purpose a person would give himself.

 

[painted wolf]

Sounds like our young man needs anti-depressants.

I know I look forward to seeing my son grow day by day, growing old with my wife (and as Tim Minchin pointed out in "Storm" twice as long as my ancestors)... the beauty in an ordinary day... the joy of learning new things even if it's part of the academic grind.

The future hope that I can earn a living doing a job I enjoy, even if I'll never be rich or powerful.

Isn't that enough?

wa:do

 

[Orbital]

I don't see how this about religion. It seems to be about finding a purpose. A person who doesn't want to be religious is searching for a purpose.

I see now.

I don't think many would argue that religion provides an objective purpose,

I would.

but it can give a life purpose, and I don't think that said purpose would be any less valid then any other purpose a person would give himself.

If it is not any less, then how can the purpose provided by religion still be objective?

 

[TheKnight]

If it is not any less, then how can the purpose provided by religion still be objective?

I didn't say that it was.

 

[charles brough]

I beg to differ.

Most religions try to offer and actual objective purpose to life in a 'spiritual' sense. This would lead you to conclude that a dictation of a meaning by some higher entity somehow makes it objective, and that a subjective meaning is totally meaningless and of no use.
A total adherence to the word of a god is defiantly an effect of religion.

If this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, then I am lost.

Yes, I think it has all to do with the subject at hand. Mention of "The Return of Christ" is the underlying "goal" or Christianity. It is the "purpose" we are all supposed to have. Similarly, our secular system has goals which are mentioned in the post. None of these goals are optimal any more to unite us and lead us in the right direction. There is so much the world needs to do. We need to avoid over crowding and over, but that is not being adequately addressed because we have the wrong goals.

 

[painted wolf]

What about religions that say you are supposed to be responsible and think of making things better (at the very least no worse) for future generations?

wa:do

 

[charles brough]

All successful ideological or world-view belief systems teach its believers to be fair to each other. The exceptions were Nazism and Marxism. They had to devise legal systems to function and focussed more on aggressive territorial ambitions.

One of the benefits that made Christianity so successfull for so long even now--- although in most ways made obsolete by science---is the Decalogue. But even it is no longer inadequate. We need an ideology that expands the moral codes and sets construtive world goals. Without that, we will never develop a way to unite the world and make it better. The old religions have to be replaced. There is no other way.