The alleged meaning or purpose of all existence.

[JGL53]

I've no doubt this "problem" of the monotheists has been addressed on this forum before, but this comes up on a regular basis in debates and the statement below is a edited copy of my reply in another forum to a christian's question of "meaning" in life in general:

"....The Hindus see our existence as having no great meaning or purpose - it is play, e.g., like music or art, the play of the Divine Self.

You have trouble understanding pantheism/monism because you are still at the level of strict dualistic conceptualization, with the parent god in the sky and his earthly human children, i.e., what has been taught to you all your life. Monotheism is just not plausible anymore, anymore than animism. It's time to come into the light.

Part of "dying unto yourself" is letting the old man with the white beard up in the sky die also. You need to find a better mythos than the lost - saved paradigm and find the light that is within - the meaning of Enlightenment.

Put down your KJV and expand your reading into authors like Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Lama Surya Das, the Dali Lama, D.T. Suzuki - or start off at first with some Christian "mystics" like Meister Eckhart, St. Dionysius, or maybe Thomas Merton."

Comments? (Was there a better way to address this question?)

[abaddon]

I've no doubt this "problem" of the monotheists has been addressed on this forum before, but this comes up on a regular basis in debates and the statement below is a edited copy of my reply in another forum to a christian's question of "meaning" in life in general:

"....The Hindus see our existence as having no great meaning or purpose - it is play, e.g., like music or art, the play of the Divine Self.

Hindus will answer this, and I'm 100% open to revising my input when they do, if I'm wrong... But I thought the main purpose of meditating/learning through a series of incarnations within an "illusory" world was to eventually realize the unity of one's Self (not the ego but the Atman) with The All (Brahman), which is more "real" than our ego-centric conceptions ("illusions") of about the world.

You have trouble understanding pantheism/monism because you are still at the level of strict dualistic conceptualization, with the parent god in the sky and his earthly human children, i.e., what has been taught to you all your life. Monotheism is just not plausible anymore, anymore than animism. It's time to come into the light.

"Still at the level of [dualism]." Hmm, you make it sound like monism is some kind of Law of the Universe. It isn't. Monism/dualism are metaphysical speculations still up to debate, and several contemporary naturalist philosophers, like David Chalmers for one, have taken up a naturalistic dualism when confronted with the difficulties (apparent impossibility) of figuring out the body/mind question using just a materialist-monist stance.

So the Christians are not automatically wrong for not being monists, and not even for being supernaturalists. That science has loads of evidence about how nature works and hasn't stumbled across a supernature (while looking strictly at nature and disregarding what isn't amenable to quantification) is not the last word against supernature. I have strong doubts about supernature, but my reasons are only tentative philosophical reasons because science cannot answer this metaphysical question; science has deliberately set it aside (except for some scientists-turned-propandists who want to publicize their metaphysics and politics... but, that's not science).

In sum, not everyone is aiming to be monists or naturalists, and however strongly you and I might be convinced that our philosophy of monism and naturalism is correct, there are still viable philosophical alternatives. I'm not saying they're equally strong arguments, they're just "viable" (worth keeping in consideration, and not dismissing out-of-hand). More, Christians don't aim to rise above the "level" of dualism. They actually aimed from the start directly at it. They're supernaturalist dualists not just because we name them so (because of our philosophical leanings to another direction), but because THEY named themselves so. They're at the "level" they want to be, they're not stuck there and unable to "progress."

Personally I think monotheism's main problem is that it induces intolerance of other views. One God = One Truth; all non-believers are "deluded." The problem rages in our scientistic secular community, not just among religious monotheists. There's something about EuroAmerican culture that makes it ideologically totalitarian, from our earliest colonizations to our current globalization. It's evident just as much in evangelizing atheists as in crusading theocrats; and along with our world-conquering techno-corporate economics, they all rather play well together for globalizing ("making American") the world, even if superficially they seem distinctly at-odds.

Part of "dying unto yourself" is letting the old man with the white beard up in the sky die also. You need to find a better mythos than the lost - saved paradigm and find the light that is within - the meaning of Enlightenment.

I see the "lost-saved" western paradigm as a variant on the "ignorant-enlightened" eastern paradigm. They have a different way of saying things. "Sin" is a goofy (unclear, overly moralistic) way of saying "Unmindful" (separated from God, from knowledge of unity between Self and All). Finding the "old man" is the equivalent of finding the "light within" -- it's an extroverted rather than introverted viewpoint. If God is All, then we're God too, we just need to know it by being "saved/enlightened." So I'm not sure if they're saying anything so drastically different from [my understanding of] Hinduism. Of course, I'm taking a more esoteric, or gnostic, or "deeper" and more philosophical take on Christianity than most of the Christian literalists take. But maybe the Christian literalists are not wrong for being Christian, but only for being literalist; in the same way that a Buddhist who thinks he's going to be born into a new body is not wrong to be Buddhist, but is just wrong about deeper Buddhist philosophy (he's being too literal about "rebirth").

Put down your KJV and expand your reading into authors like Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Lama Surya Das, the Dali Lama, D.T. Suzuki - or start off at first with some Christian "mystics" like Meister Eckhart, St. Dionysius, or maybe Thomas Merton."

All good recommendations! Though I don't know that they need to put down their Bible, but hopefully just expand their conceptions about it by loosening up the literalism with wider readings in mythology studies and some alternative views, like eastern philosophy and science and western philosophy (which many of them do anyway; it's not safe to presume they're ignorant just because they're supernaturalist-dualist Christians).

Comments? (Was there a better way to address this question?)

I don't know what his question was, so I can't know what a "better way" would have been; I can just comment with my own take on the subject.

----------------------------

Hopefully the mods won't construe the OP to be about Abrahamic religions and move the thread. I see the OP as a Pantheist (a Non-Abrahamic) initiating a discussion among Non-Abrahamics about Non-Abrahamic philosophies, and using Christianity only as a contrast to Pantheism and Hinduism (and maybe Buddhism and other). Christianity itself is not the central topic, if I understand the OP correctly.

[perfectbite]

If the question was 'What is the meaning of existence (life)?' such questioning pre-supposes that existence (life) in some sense must have or, at the very least should have, a meaning that eludes us.

Re-stating the question to; 'Existence (life), can it be meaningful?' re-states the question into something that isn't so nebulous and elusive.

Hedonists already have an answer.

Perhaps a reformulation of the original question is the next spiritual and intellectual evolutionary step and the grab bag of answers ranging from what the most hedonistic of the Epicurists presented to the experiencing of pain inflicted by serious self flagellants on themselves that blotted out all other awareness and was done not to get their jollies off but with a distinct (perhaps even otherworldly purpose) would be the smorgasbord of answers to choose from.

A little table off to the side would cater to true sado-masochism and such, although seemingly existent, could (properly in my view given Galen's dictum of 'First do no harm'.) be treated as abberant.

[French Prometheus]

The answer is 42.

[abaddon]

Sorry, I addressed only JGL's comments to the Christian, with a purpose to raise doubts about how wrong Those Crazy Christians are, and never answered the "problem" of Christians that's named in the title of the thread.

Frankly I don't know or give a damn about a meaning or purpose to existence. I'm just a weed and I like it. I suppose that (when I'm merely human and not just a "weed") I give my life meanings, but I try not to...

Zhuang zi tells how someone challenged him and said, "Look at that twisted old tree. It's so gnarly and there's no straight bit of wood on it. It's grown ancient so it has no value to anyone, no reason to exist, because nobody will use it! Your philosophy is like that... Just good for nothing!"

Zhuang zi replied, "Yeah, the tree is useless. That's why it's still alive."

I dislike Christian's attempt to endow meaning on the world by saying "It has meaning because God does, and so he gives meaning to his creation." God-centric and human-centric values (rather than values just centered on the intrinsic nature of things-in-themselves) both lead to cutting down all the trees.

For Daoists, the universe is Self-So. It makes itself to be just what it is.

[adren@line]

monism is the law of the universe on the physical level. Everything is energy. Even where nothing exists except space, there is vacuum energy.

And yes, monotheism is extremely flawed.

[Breath]

monism is the law of the universe on the physical level. Everything is energy. Even where nothing exists except space, there is vacuum energy.

And yes, monotheism is extremely flawed.

prove it, via a real-word applicable definition that is used by someone who is qualified to assess that monism is the law of the universe.

Other than that, this rampant use of the word "energy" on these forums is done so by people who largely misinterpret the word and use it with little idea to the fact that "energy" is not a religious term.

But I suppose the hundreds of atheists on this forum who whore that word out must all have PHD's.

[adren@line]

prove it, via a real-word applicable definition that is used by someone who is qualified to assess that monism is the law of the universe.

Other than that, this rampant use of the word "energy" on these forums is done so by people who largely misinterpret the word and use it with little idea to the fact that "energy" is not a religious term.


a basic tenet of physics is that at the fundamental level, everything is essentially energy.

There was no false gross generalization, no lack of logic or reason in that statement, unlike your statements regarding Buddhism, and since monism means "all is one", this holds true in regards to physical monism.

try again.

[Breath]

a basic tenet of physics is that at the fundamental level, everything is essentially energy.

There was no false gross generalization, no lack of logic or reason in that statement, unlike your statements regarding Buddhism, and since monism means "all is one", this holds true in regards to physical monism.

try again.

At the risk of further derailing a thread about the meaning or purpose of all, I do not agree that "a basic tenet of physics is that at the fundamental level, everything is essentially energy".

Since you are asserting that it is the case, the onus of proof is on you. Simply repeating it is not proof. Oh, and just in case you want to bring E=mc2 into it, that equation does not remotely suggest that everything is energy. It only states the way in which and energy are interchangable. Until you come up with a solid foundation for your assertion that everything is energy, your thoughts about monism are pure speculation.

[perfectbite]

To say everything is energy misses the point that what is being said is that everything material is energy. (Just the material)

Are emotions energy? are dreams energy? are wishes energy?

If they are energy then are they the same energy as that energy that the material is made of?

The blanket statement that everything is energy (quantum or otherwise) is quite insufficient to explain all phenomena (even readily available phenomena) in the universe.

Let's take a really simple example: Hunger.

Simple quantum mechanics you say.

The body needs food and lets you know through the mechanism of hunger.

Not so fast I say. What of the feeling of hunger?

Must the result of a quantum state also be a quantum state too?

And you say ...

[adren@line]

At the risk of further derailing a thread about the meaning or purpose of all, I do not agree that "a basic tenet of physics is that at the fundamental level, everything is essentially energy".



then what do you believe in otherwise?

and by everything, I was referring to everything physical/material, hence physical monism.

[adren@line]

To say everything is energy misses the point that what is being said is that everything material is energy. (Just the material)

Are emotions energy? are dreams energy? are wishes energy?

If they are energy then are they the same energy as that energy that the material is made of?

The blanket statement that everything is energy (quantum or otherwise) is quite insufficient to explain all phenomena (even readily available phenomena) in the universe.

Let's take a really simple example: Hunger.

Simple quantum mechanics you say.

The body needs food and lets you know through the mechanism of hunger.

Not so fast I say. What of the feeling of hunger?

Must the result of a quantum state also be a quantum state too?

And you say ...

i was referring to physical monism.

[perfectbite]

I thought 'monism' was an all encompassing view of the universe?

No wonder I'm confused.

[adren@line]

I thought 'monism' was an all encompassing view of the universe?
.

that would be more akin to pantheism. Im pretty sure monism deals with reality in many applications, especially religious. In scientific applications, it is physical/material.

[premjan]

Physical monism nowadays would correspond to a grand unified theory of physics. This is still in the works.

[perfectbite]

Thank you. Perhaps I had mistakenly taken the extended idea of monism from 'mono' (single or one).

I have taken Pantheism as being 'across' the one. I.e. significant facets of the one.

Hinduism/Yoga would call the physical/material aspect of pantheism praktri. They would also call the physical/material aspect of monism praktri.

(Or, as Aupmanyev would have it; praktiri.)

[premjan]

Purush is the mental aspect of nature. Psychological or ideological monism would correspond to this part
Prakrti (note r before t) is the physical aspect.

[perfectbite]

Purush is the mental aspect of nature. Psychological or ideological monism would correspond to this part
Prakrti (note r before t) is the physical aspect.

At least for the English tongue 'praktri' is a lot easier to say than 'prakrti'

There should be a vowel or an abrupt break in the sequence of consonants to smooth the way for English speakers so perhaps Aupmanyev's rendering is not just useful but is more than acceptable as in 'prakriti'.

(I have tried but my word processor computer won't give the single dots above the 'prkt' form in just the same way as it won't give the single dots above the name Krsna.)

But isn't prakrti what is investigatable of nature through intellectual means?

That which is presented to us?

If 'Purush' is the mental aspect of nature does that not mean that what it perceives is also the investigatable part of nature and it is a very small step from there to the investigation of praktri or is Purush limited only to pure sense impressions and is incapable of investigating what it perceives?

Where is the dividing line?

[premjan]

Prakriti is certainly acceptable. I am not an expert on Purush vs. Prakriti but it was the sacrifice of Purush that created human society (described in the Purushasukta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purusha_Sukta)). The purushamedha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purushamedha)(an actual or symbolic human sacrifice like the Celtic wicker man) was supposed to be a reenactment of the primordial sacrifice that produced the rest of creation. This theme is a favorite of Jung apparently and is there in Persia (Gayomart) and China (Pangu). Maybe there is a relation to the Norse giant Ymir. In the Greek version the original human was female - Gaia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Man

The fact that the Mayas, Aztecas etc. practiced human sacrifice indicates a universal human obsession with the action of entropy in destroying structure and form.

The sacrifice of Jesus is absolutely the same sort of thing. In fact it may have been a far-sighted attempt to purge humans of their sense of guilt from whence probably arises the need to sacrifice. Likely akin to the belief of a child that it is responsible for its parents breaking up etc.

[aupmanyav]

Abaddon, what kind of hindu are you talking about? Generally, hindus would like to accumulate + points by fulfilling 'Dharma', so that they be with their God (in case of monotheists, polytheists, etc.) or they are united with their God (in case of monists). IMHO, the only purpose given by nature is biological, learn, procreate, support and educate, die, which all is illusion (Maya). The biological purpose is possible if we live in peace with other people, be honest in our dealings, etc., which is 'Dharma'. Therefore, now that we are here with no other purpose than the biological, let us follow 'Dharma'. I suppose that is Hinduism.

Perfectbite, I agree with your modification of the question. Emotions, dreams, wishes, all are fleeting feelings of fleeting beings, even more unreal. Hunger also is a fleeting feeling. Nothing much happens if one dies of hunger, the fields rearrange themselves. These things have importance to us as persons, they do not have any universal importance. So what happens, if the mammoths and dinosaurs are no more?

'Praktri' would be an incorrect pronunciation, it can either be 'Prakruti' or 'Prakriti'. I have seen purists and linguists write it as 'Prakrti'. It is the Krsna problem. There are a few vowels of which we have lost the pronunciation, 'iyan', which comes after cha, chcha, ja, jha, is another. 'Gna' as in 'Gnana', 'gyana', 'jnana', is still another. This is the result of Aryan language spoken by other people. Prakriti can be investigated by intellect, even quantum fields can be. I do not think there is anything which cannot be.

Adren@line, outside the Einstienian universe, space also does not exist. Perhaps it is a closed universe. What is the other kind of monism, if it is not physical?

Breath, energy, Maya, Shakti, they are all religious as well as scientific. God, on the other hand, is religious only. Please tell us, in what way we are misusing the word? If there is nothing else in this world other than energy which also is substance, how can we avoid using the word? No, we are not PhD's, give us a better explanation if you are (or otherwise also). Everything in this world and beyond is a play of quantum fields.

Oh yes, Premjan, it is very much in the works, but we do not have anything better. We would revise our views if science comes up with something better. Purusha sacrifice, Gayomart, Pangu, Ymir, Gaia, Jesus, are all nice stories.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Sorry, I addressed only JGL's comments to the Christian, with a purpose to raise doubts about how wrong Those Crazy Christians are, and never answered the "problem" of Christians that's named in the title of the thread.

Frankly I don't know or give a damn about a meaning or purpose to existence. I'm just a weed and I like it. I suppose that (when I'm merely human and not just a "weed") I give my life meanings, but I try not to...

Zhuang zi tells how someone challenged him and said, "Look at that twisted old tree. It's so gnarly and there's no straight bit of wood on it. It's grown ancient so it has no value to anyone, no reason to exist, because nobody will use it! Your philosophy is like that... Just good for nothing!"

Zhuang zi replied, "Yeah, the tree is useless. That's why it's still alive."

I dislike Christian's attempt to endow meaning on the world by saying "It has meaning because God does, and so he gives meaning to his creation." God-centric and human-centric values (rather than values just centered on the intrinsic nature of things-in-themselves) both lead to cutting down all the trees.

For Daoists, the universe is Self-So. It makes itself to be just what it is.

That helps me get up every day. I am. That's all. I was not, I am, I will stay that way for a whjile then I will be not. Like everything. Holding on to the impermanent is givng in to the illusory.

Oriental philosophy: It sends you back to life instead of sending you to hell.

[JGL53]

Good discussion, most on point, and I have no real disagreement with anyone's comments - maybe because I am too ignorant to disagree. :)

I was raised as a christian in the U.S. and both my knowledge and experience of Eastern Wisdom traditions are both quite limited. I have studied about 80 or so books on the general subject over the last decade, about half by Alan Watts, so I am not totally ignorant either.

As to my understanding of monism and pantheism I see the former as, e.g., the Nondual of the Zennist and the latter as, e.g., the Divine Self of the Vedic religion of the Hindu.

Or, looking at the definitions provided by Wikipedia:

"Varieties of pantheism:
• Classical pantheism, which is expressed in the immanent God of Kabalistic Judaism, Advaita Vedanta Sanatana Dharma, and Monism, generally viewing God in either a personal or cosmic manner.
• Biblical pantheism, which is expressed in the writings of the Bible with the understanding of personification linguistics as a cultural communication idiom in Hebrew language. [Isa 55:12]
• Naturalistic pantheism, based on the relatively recent views of Baruch Spinoza {who may have been influenced by Biblical pantheism} and John Toland (who coined the term "pantheism"), as well as contemporary influences.
The vast majority of persons who can be identified as "pantheistic" are of the classical variety (such as Hindus, Jews, Sufis, Unitarians, Etc.), while most persons who self-identify as "pantheist" alone (rather than as members of another religion) are of the naturalistic variety. The division between the three “flavors” of pantheism is not entirely clear in all situations...."


The Classic and the Naturalistic defined above - it is not so much that such does not make sense or seems absurd or that I just don't believe it, it is just that I find these ideas trivial - i.e., believe or not, the only effect is psychological. If belief gives one inner peace and beneficent feelings like utter connection or oneness or meaningfulness or whatever, then go for it. To me, if god is everything then problem solved - nothing to argue about, as god would be seen as arguing with him/herself. :)

Also from Wikipedia:

"Monism is often seen as partitioned into three basic types:
1. Substantial Monism, (One thing) which holds that there is one substance.
2. Attributive Monism, (One category) which holds that while there is only one kind of thing, there are many different individual things or beings in this category.
3. Absolute Monism, which holds that there is only one substance and only one being. Absolute Monism therefore can only be of the idealistic type.

Monism is further defined according to three kinds:
1. Idealism, phenomenalism, or mentalistic monism which holds that only mind is real.
2. Neutral monism, which holds that both the mental and the physical can be reduced to some sort of third substance, or energy.
3. Physicalism or materialism, which holds that only the physical is real, and that the mental can be reduced to the physical.
Pantheism literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that natural law, existence, and the universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of 'God'.

I have no problem with the Substantial and Absolute definitions, and also have no problem with the Neutral and physicalism/materialism definitions.

IOW, I just don't see any substantial difference, thus no real argument. There is only one eternal (actually timeless) and infinite "something" - we could call it a "substance" or an "energy" or an "It" or "the Nondual", etc., etc. What the frig difference does it make what word we arbitrarily use to point to THAT which is beyond standard dualistic logic and conceptualization?

I just take a laid back attitude toward the whole subject, aping my cultural hero Alan Watts. But if another person is into a suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy life to the fullest, then go for it - as in the Spanish aphorism "Take what you want and pay for it."

[adren@line]

Physical monism nowadays would correspond to a grand unified theory of physics. This is still in the works.

well, I think that would be monism applied to theory, not applied to material existence.

In terms of the latter, there is physical monism already.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

• Biblical pantheism, which is expressed in the writings of the Bible with the understanding of personification linguistics as a cultural communication idiom in Hebrew language. [Isa 55:12]
• Naturalistic pantheism, based on the relatively recent views of Baruch Spinoza {who may have been influenced by Biblical pantheism} and John Toland (who coined the term "pantheism"), as well as contemporary influences.


I contend that Biblical pantheism comes from ignorance. The Hebrews believed there was a god who commanded them to stone adultresses, cut their prepuces, etc. That is not pantheistic. A god that wants some things and leaves out all the other.

Other than that, they would attribute thunder, natural disasters, the origin of stuff, to their god since they had no idea of how anything at all worked.

On the other hand, modern pantheism, like Einstein's, comes precisely from a great knowledge of how things worked, so much, as to know there was no personal god there. The Universe at large has all the atributes commonly attributed to the divine. The universe itself is equivalent to the deity. Biblical ideas can only get to almost panentheism, much less pantheism.

[abaddon]

To me, if god is everything then problem solved - nothing to argue about, as god would be seen as arguing with him/herself. :)

That's a great insight.

Maybe in Christianity, striving for "atonement with God" is a way to resolve the (illusory) feeling that we're separate. Doesn't seem to work very well, except in a few of their mystics.

In Buddhism, meditation is to overcome dualism, which in Buddhist terms is the (illusory) notion that there's a separation between observer and the observed. Though we're inseparable from the processes of the whole universe, just as a wave in the pond is not separable from the pond, still we tend to feel separate. We feel like chauffeurs (an "I" stuck inside the head) and driving a car (our body) in a spooky and strange place (that's seen as mechanical and dead -- thanks to Hebraic mythology and its later Newtonian revision --, so we need to control it to make it safe; by controlling it we destroy it). We feel we got dumped into this nasty place (like Adam), when actually we sprang from it; like any rock or plant, we are "of" the world, not "in" the world. (You may recognize that my metaphors are borrowed from Alan Watts).

There is only one eternal (actually timeless) and infinite "something" - we could call it a "substance" or an "energy" or an "It" or "the Nondual", etc., etc. What the frig difference does it make what word we arbitrarily use to point to THAT which is beyond standard dualistic logic and conceptualization?

No point... except maybe 1) to enjoy playing with the words (dancing in Samsara) and 2) to deconstruct the concepts so we can see just how lame they all are. Isn't it better to make the insights into a living experience, in preference to only just knowing them (conceiving them)?

[premjan]

well, I think that would be monism applied to theory, not applied to material existence.
In terms of the latter, there is physical monism already.
What is monism applied to material existence? A single material substance? You mean like protons, electrons and neutrons?

[aupmanyav]

'Material substance', now what is that and what is not that? That is Newtonian and not Einsteinian (of course, Buddha and Hindus knew it all the time). Does monism necessarily mean a God? Does pantheism/panentheism necessarily require a God? Atheism is not confusing.