Hello

[JJ]

What sort of leading question is that?  The question assumes there is a purpose.  Is there?
The answer could be whatever you want it to be.

But science can't categorically say that there is - or isn't - a purpose.  It can't answer the question.  Since many people believe that there is a purpose to why they are here - after all, a lot of mental health seems to come down to 'purpose', not to mention a host of organisations and their 'mission statements' implying that purpose is a innate element of humanity, I would disagree that it is a leading question: rather, its one asked by thousands upon thousands of people every day.

Interesting that you say about a sense of purpose being very important for mental health.  I do agree there.  But I think it's a step too far to assume that therefore there actually is a purpose.   I think the sense of purpose is allied to having a sufficient amount of serotonin in the brain - too little is a reminder that we haven't got the optimum conditions for personal equanimity.  And not that we aren't fulfilling some sort of cosmic purpose.  Every organism - you, and me, and them - fulfils its own purpose from birth to death and some of us do better than others, clearly.

I think we just are. 

[Martin]

But science can't categorically say that there is - or isn't - a purpose.  It can't answer the question.

Nor can God really.  Belief in God, for most people, is based upon faith, so any question that God 'answers' is an answer from a faith position - in other words not a logically derived answer from a progressive argument but something taken on trust, almost like a parent giving the answer 'because I say so', which is no answer at all.  And even then, all that the existence of God does is to take that question of purpose up a level, because if the answer to the question 'What is the purpose of life?' is 'to serve God', then the next obvious question is 'What is the purpose of God?'.

I don't see the unfathomable ideas of purpose and worth to be questions really - not questions that need to be answered anyway.  Purpose and worth are rather things to be sought in themselves. We know when we have purpose and worth, not because we can pin an argument down and explain it, but because we can feel it.  When we feel such things, we haven't answered the question of whether there is any ultimate purpose, but what we can feel and know within ourselves and our relationships, even if it is only the illusion of purpose or worth, does the trick, gives us what we need.

I'm not talking about fooling ourselves, about deliberately believing in an inconsistent idea in order to get the goodies - which is what so much of religion is about.  I'm talking about being as honest and open as we can with ourselves about what makes us feel purposeful, of worth, truthfully fulfilled etc. recognising that there are perhaps no ultimate empirical answers within our grasp, but pursuing what we feel.  For me, and I expect the same is true for many others who try to do this, when I boil it all down I come to the one thing that I 'know' to be of worth and that is Love, in its broadest sense, in us and between us.

[JJ]

  

[AndyHB]

By the way, I have opened a new thread - as I said I would - entitled 'Nature of God (and questions?)' to address both Martin's and Tabba's questions/points here and on the 'God-breathed= ... ' thread.