The Student Room Group

Existenitalism (Warning: Nihilistic)

It's a given fact that the vast majority of life on this planet passes by unnoticed, fast and ultimately without consequence. Bar the few (in the grand scheme of things) who have made a signifcant impact in the direction of human history, most of us live and die and are quickly forgotten about having all of our experiences pop into nothing the moment that a few generations have passed and we are no longer remembered/relevant.

With this in mind it's becoming increasingly difficult to overcome a growing sense of passive nihilism and, not being religious, there is very little that I could consider comforting about the overall meaninglessness of everything. So here's my question:


Excluding religious arguements (no offense intended), do you think there's a purpose to life?

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While I was a paid mercenary in the army I learnt that life is meaningless. I killed so many people and I think if I was to die tommorow literally nothing would happen
Without religious arguments, you are left with coping mechanisms in this field.

But then you go "Aha!" and say religion is a coping mechanism... But it isn't (or at least Christianity isn't). Only Christianity recognizes that man is “dead in trespasses and sins” and is incapable of doing anything worthy of eternity in heaven. Only Christianity offers a solution to the total inability of man—the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The responses you'll hear from this thread will be a mix of "there is no purpose", "the purpose is what you make it", "purpose is to help others", "purpose is to do what you want and achieve your goals" etc...

keep trying...
Reply 3
Original post by StudyJosh
Without religious arguments, you are left with coping mechanisms in this field.

But then you go "Aha!" and say religion is a coping mechanism... But it isn't (or at least Christianity isn't). Only Christianity recognizes that man is “dead in trespasses and sins” and is incapable of doing anything worthy of eternity in heaven. Only Christianity offers a solution to the total inability of man—the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The responses you'll hear from this thread will be a mix of "there is no purpose", "the purpose is what you make it", "purpose is to help others", "purpose is to do what you want and achieve your goals" etc...

keep trying...



I was expecting as much in terms of responses, but it would be interesting to hear what purposes individuals afforded to thier own lives. But what I was really wondering was outside of religious arguements, is nihilism the only argument that makes logical sense?
Original post by StudyJosh
Without religious arguments, you are left with coping mechanisms in this field.

But then you go "Aha!" and say religion is a coping mechanism... But it isn't (or at least Christianity isn't). Only Christianity recognizes that man is “dead in trespasses and sins” and is incapable of doing anything worthy of eternity in heaven. Only Christianity offers a solution to the total inability of man—the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The responses you'll hear from this thread will be a mix of "there is no purpose", "the purpose is what you make it", "purpose is to help others", "purpose is to do what you want and achieve your goals" etc...

keep trying...


You are right son.
Original post by Kanairee
It's a given fact that the vast majority of life on this planet passes by unnoticed, fast and ultimately without consequence. Bar the few (in the grand scheme of things) who have made a signifcant impact in the direction of human history, most of us live and die and are quickly forgotten about having all of our experiences pop into nothing the moment that a few generations have passed and we are no longer remembered/relevant.

With this in mind it's becoming increasingly difficult to overcome a growing sense of passive nihilism and, not being religious, there is very little that I could consider comforting about the overall meaninglessness of everything. So here's my question:


Excluding religious arguements (no offense intended), do you think there's a purpose to life?


Existentialism*

Learn to spell you illiterate fùck
Reply 6
Great another thread plagued by trolls and people who think religion is the solution to everything.
Original post by Sir Jesus Christ
Existentialism*

Learn to spell you illiterate fùck


Lol
Reply 8
Original post by Sir Jesus Christ
Existentialism*

Learn to spell you illiterate fùck


Woah, ok. Rude.
Reply 9
Original post by Asolare
Great another thread plagued by trolls and people who think religion is the solution to everything.


Yeah I shouldn't be surprised at this point
Reply 10
Original post by Kanairee
It's a given fact that the vast majority of life on this planet passes by unnoticed, fast and ultimately without consequence. Bar the few (in the grand scheme of things) who have made a signifcant impact in the direction of human history, most of us live and die and are quickly forgotten about having all of our experiences pop into nothing the moment that a few generations have passed and we are no longer remembered/relevant.

With this in mind it's becoming increasingly difficult to overcome a growing sense of passive nihilism and, not being religious, there is very little that I could consider comforting about the overall meaninglessness of everything. So here's my question:


Excluding religious arguements (no offense intended), do you think there's a purpose to life?


The purpose of life is to enjoy life. It's that simple.
Reply 11
Original post by James Bond 007.
It's never that simple.


Why not? Counter my point if you will.

What you have written does not hold since it is self contradictory to use a simple sentence to state 'its never that simple'
Reply 12
Original post by xylas
Why not? Counter my point if you will.

What you have written does not hold since it is self contradictory to use a simple sentence to state 'its never that simple'


I would argue that in some instances enjoying one's life might mean ruining the happiness of someone elses'. Take murderers who enjoy what they do for example, their purpose in life is to murder people because they enjoy doing it, but in turn they are destroying the lives of other people. Enjoying life as a purpose becomes tricky ground in terms of tricky morality
Reply 13
Original post by James Bond 007.
There's a saying in England. We're there's smoke, there's fire.


I know :P I'm British
Why do some people care so much about being remembered/relevant to a bunch of strangers? Isn't loving the people close to you enough? If not, maybe it's depression talking. And there is no mention of whether you want to be remembered for good or evil...I'm an atheist too and there is so much meaning in life in loving other people, building a life with someone, having kids one day, expressing through art, learning, finding a calling in something, music, travelling and exploring the world and just every tiny experience of life...if there's no meaning for you in anything I really think it could be depression?
Original post by applesforme
Why do some people care so much about being remembered/relevant to a bunch of strangers? Isn't loving the people close to you enough? If not, maybe it's depression talking. And there is no mention of whether you want to be remembered for good or evil...I'm an atheist too and there is so much meaning in life in loving other people, building a life with someone, having kids one day, expressing through art, learning, finding a calling in something, music, travelling and exploring the world and just every tiny experience of life...if there's no meaning for you in anything I really think it could be depression?


For me it's the PTSD. 11 years working for the secret services as a mercenary does that for you.
Original post by Kanairee
It's a given fact that the vast majority of life on this planet passes by unnoticed, fast and ultimately without consequence. Bar the few (in the grand scheme of things) who have made a signifcant impact in the direction of human history, most of us live and die and are quickly forgotten about having all of our experiences pop into nothing the moment that a few generations have passed and we are no longer remembered/relevant.

With this in mind it's becoming increasingly difficult to overcome a growing sense of passive nihilism and, not being religious, there is very little that I could consider comforting about the overall meaninglessness of everything. So here's my question:


Excluding religious arguements (no offense intended), do you think there's a purpose to life?


Rather than thinking about your impact on the whole world or universe, think about the impacts you make on a smaller scale. The impact you make in your day to day life, your own world. Most of the interactions we have are in a small but significant. Ie. your parents have had a huge impact on you for example. Life's main purpose is just understanding it, and helping others around you. A meaningful, ephemeral experience.
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 17
Original post by Kanairee
I would argue that in some instances enjoying one's life might mean ruining the happiness of someone elses'. Take murderers who enjoy what they do for example, their purpose in life is to murder people because they enjoy doing it, but in turn they are destroying the lives of other people. Enjoying life as a purpose becomes tricky ground in terms of tricky morality


I think thats a different point entirely. I'm talking about the purpose of the indivdual's life not the collective society's lives. Therefore to an individual his purpose should be to enjoy his life and if this upsets other people then they may cause him problems. So its always up to the individual to enjoy his life as much as possible weighing up the cost that upsetting people might have to his enjoyment.
Reply 18
I had the same question.

When I started asking myself the point of things, rather than finding answers I just found myself eroding all sense of meaning away. Nothing I could find seemed to have any real meaning at all in the long run, and the more I looked for it the more everything started to feel empty.

My whole life I had assumed things had meaning, but now that I was looking for it it wasn't actually there. It basically made me miserable.

I did find an answer eventually though. From almost all angles, I couldn't say why it was better to be alive rather than dead. Anything for my own sake was completely ruled out, because I wouldn't need it if I were dead. The trick was to think of perspectives that would persist irrespective of my own continued existence.

Although it doesn't matter to me if I improved something versus dying, it matters to all the people who wouldn't be dying. Although I can't say that I'm better off for existing, other people are better off for me existing, and given that I care about those people, there is meaning in my existing.

What underpins all of this is the belief that it really matters whether people are happy or suffering. Not just matters to me because I currently exist and hold certain values, but really matters. Some people seem to doubt this, but I don't. If I think about a pet or a family member, there's no way I could say it doesn't matter whether they are happy or suffering, and if I ask myself the reason it matters, it's not because I just happen to know them. If I never existed, it would still matter. It matters forever, independently of my own existence.

Once I realised that I believe it really matters how other conscious creatures feel, it was easy to see the meaning in everything. It matters whether I stick around to help people. It matters the impact I make or don't make on the world. It matters whether I'm happy, whether I improve myself, whether I act or stay in bed, because these things help me give value to others.

This answer stuck with me, and it's been years since I had any thoughts questioning the meaning of my life, what I'm doing or my journey. I couldn't be further from nihilism.

I don't wake up every day trying to help as many people as I can... but I know that my life improves others' lives in small ways, so there is a quiet confidence carried with me that my existence matters.
Reply 19
Original post by Kanairee
Excluding religious arguements (no offense intended), do you think there's a purpose to life?


Your question is often accompanied by a sense of "why should I do anything?"

To answer that question, I believe that we have objective reasons for action, as the late, great Derek Parfit (considered the greatest moral philosopher of the 20th and 21st Centuries by his peers) argued in his three-volume work, On What Matters. Long story short, some facts give us reasons to act in certain ways, where reasons can be defined as 'counting in favour' of something. In particular, the intrinsic nature of happiness gives us strong normative reasons to want to pursue it, and the intrinsic nature of suffering gives us strong normative reasons to want to avoid it.

For a while, this was difficult to get my head around, but it now seems to me obvious that the nature of agony 'counts in favour' of wanting to avoid agony, and that the nature of happiness 'counts in favour of' wanting to pursue it or maximize it. And given that happiness and suffering/agony aren't just experienced by me, I have an obligation to not only maximize my own happiness and minimize my own suffering, but to do so for all sentient beings.

These reasons exist regardless of our whims or emotions, just as, in a valid deductive argument, the premises give me decisive reasons to believe the conclusion. The premises 'count in favour of' the conclusion.

Edit: I see that Miser has outlined a similar viewpoint to my own. I, too, believe that my life has a purpose: to maximize the happiness and minimize the suffering of all sentient beings, precisely because I believe that I have objective reasons for action. Ethics is about answering the question "how ought I to live?", and I believe, as outlined above, that there is an objective answer to this question.
(edited 6 years ago)

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