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Somehow, despite not understanding why exactly we exist, what our purpose is, and that at any given moment we could die and cease to exist, we don't go insane.
by hsitz 13y ago
Somehow, despite not understanding why exactly we exist, what our purpose is, and that at any given moment we could die and cease to exist, we don't go insane. Do you have any idea how crazy that is?
This is the human condition. I'm not sure "normal" or "crazy" are appropriate concepts to try to characterize it. It is what it is.
Many people who aren't religious know what their purpose is. What they may also be aware of, however, is that their purpose is not something given to them, it's something they have the responsibility to choose for themselves, and this is part of what it means to be human. You can't just accept what someone else tells you your purpose is, you have to choose it for yourself. This is one of the core elements of existentialist philosophy. (And there are Christian existentialists, but that's for another time. . . .)
- bloodofheroes 13y agoI think he meant the purpose of humans, not the purpose of each individual human. Why would each human have a different purpose?
- lutusp 13y ago> I think he meant the purpose of humans, not the purpose of each individual human. Why would each human have a different purpose? Because of evolution and natural selection. Natural selection works because of diversity, not uniformity. The more diversity, the more quickly a species evolves to meet the environment's changing demands. So, to answer your question in the most formal and scientific way, if people weren't different from each other, evolution wouldn't work.
- hsitz 13y agoWhy would you think everyone must have the same purpose? Even among the people who think every person's purpose is to serve God, every person has a different way of doing that. This specific way of serving God is their "purpose". Strikes me as slightly analogous to Aristotle's claim that every person has happiness as a goal. That tells you relatively little about what each person might actually do, since what makes people happy (i.e., mostly realizing their unique individual potential, for Aristotle, "become who you are") differs from person to person.
- gnaritas 13y agoBecause there is no purpose of humans; each individual must decide for himself what he wants his purpose to be.