what has a young man to look foreward to?

[*Anne*]

He can look ahead and see his whole life before him and it somehow seems so drab, so meaningless.

I'm sorry you feel this way, and I hope this changes soon.

 

[painted wolf]

So what about religions that teach that we are responsible for the well being of future generations? That we should have ecological, economic and social responsibility not just for ourselves but for everything on Earth?

And as an aside.... humanity will always find a reason for dis-unity. If for no other reason than we are limited by our own evolution. But it's a nice Utopian fairy tale.

wa:do

 

[Yes Man]

He can look ahead and see his whole life before him and it somehow seems so drab, so meaningless.

It's when we search for meaning, that we also lose it. The natural human condition is happiness, and yeah the World has a lot of cruddy things happening in it; but we're here regardless. You can be a part of the problem, or part of the solution. The worse thing to do is to become a depressed fatalist. That's my opinion anyway.

 

[*Anne*]

I should have pointed to my signature in my first reply.

We all matter to someone or something, and that gives our lives meaning. As a child, sibling, parent, partner, neighbor, employee, voter, helpful stranger, thoughtful forum member...our actions affect people and things in one way or another.

I've chosen to attach meaning to all of my actions. It ranges from the raising of my family to making a stranger in the doctor's office laugh. My hope is that I always offer up the best of myself in each of my life's roles.

 

[outhouse]

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.

life is what you make, its all attitude

I believe yours needs serious help

 

[charles brough]

People hate to have their beliefs referred to as "ideology" because we think of old myths and dogma associated with "religion" when the word is used, but our modern way of life and thinking is shaped by the world-view that created our scientific and democratic beliefs that began to develop in the 16th century. "Religion" and even "ideology" are just words that people use for what "other people" have and not what they themselves have.

Perhaps the most objective and useful word(s) would be "world-view" because what the ideology we have, such as "Secular Humanism" is a world-view, and world view systems determine the way people think. People in different ones think differently; that is what divides them from believers of other world-view system or ideologies.

Those who post in this forum, like most everyone else, enterprets their secular belief system's world view as "the truth" and they resent anyone inferring that it is not.

Our secular belief system popularly includes science but it is not science itself. Science and secular beliefs are not the same thing. To mention that secular belief systems are not new to history and were a feature of every civilization throughout world history is not to criticize them but to introduce the work I have been doing in social evolution. They serve a role an important role in the preserving of each civilization, but none of them have ever been "the truth." Like all world-view systems or ideologies, they have come and gone over and over again throughout world history. They are not "god" nor is our secular system "god-like." "God" is just some being who sits up there doing nothing . . .

 

[Where Is God]

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

_/\_
Chinu

Only if you are a female priest.

 

[Where Is God]

So I am guessing your parents aren't super rich and you didn't become a pro student?

 

[charles brough]

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.

Yes, I agree. We are unable to appreciate fortune without there being misfortune. What is good is good only in comparison with what is bad and what is bad is only so in comprison with what is good, and there is no such thing as "evil." (Its a old religion concept only).

In another forum I was criticized by the professional academics in it for my post here which I duplicated for them. It made me emphasize that the rationalizing done by social theorists serves the purpose of accommodating our secular and old religion ideologies so we could get along better and achieve a minimum of unity. It would be a mistake to assume I was criticizing social science. It is just that when we rid social theory of its ideological compromises, we end up with a very clear picture of the whole human story, that is, how society undergoes natural selection, and students can learn it all from a single book in a single course. . .

 

[Oneatatime]

Or taxes and death.

Death tax. You don't even escape being taxed when you die

 

[camanintx]

Death tax. You don't even escape being taxed when you die

Actually, it's the survivors who are taxed on their inheritance. The government will have a hard time collecting any taxes from me when I am dead.