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Thoughts on the Purpose of Life

Eric B

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I have been able to put together a proposal of a short outline of what the purpose of life is from a particular perspective (explained a bit in the last point), which actually appears to offer answers as to long standing questions as why things in life and with God look the way they do.

I was weighing whether to post here, but figured, it would be interesting, plus, it also has helped me a bit in my understanding of the unconscious in relation to archetypes that I wanted to add to the archetypes thread, so I can reference back to this. (i.e. the ego struggles against some of these points, especially #4, and this creates part of the battle with the unconscious complexes and functional perspectives of the shadow).

It is basically from a Biblical theistic view, but one that differs from conventional Christian eschatology and penology (doctrine of retribution).

(I should also add, that as an Ne "Good Parent", a lot of my ideas are what you can consider proposals. Most of it is not purported to be certainty. Though when things seem to be fitting, I might often hype it as if it were such.
This I realize, from having some people challenge some of my ideas, and their objection seems to almost hinge on it being some solid certainty, but they don't realize that the theory has a built in allowance for possible error).

•The purpose of life is for God to make and remake man in His own image (i.e "become like Him").

•The purpose of evil being allowed to exist is Grace. (Rom.5:15-21, 11:32) God has grace towards our sin, and we in turn are to have grace towards others.
This is the means by we are "made like Him". Thus, when we suffer, we "partake in His suffering".
Justice will likely involve people (who've done evil to others, or thought they were good before God) realizing just how much grace they received. Even without sentencing to eternal torment, this will be quiet humbling.

•The purpose of life being left in a "painful" state is that it provides opportunity to love and serve others, again, making us like Christ.
It seemed this would make eternity better and more appreciable than an existence in which everything had always been "perfect".

Also, much of our pain is more likely from our own perception of life, based largely on a survival/procreation instinct gone wrong. (e.g. our desire for comfort and ease, to have our own way, gratify insatiable hormonal desires, etc. These often lead to gluttony, greed, sloth, vengeance, depression over past, heartbreak, abuse and infidelity, etc and thus the psychological and emotional problems that result. Basically, an overreliance on self-protection that makes pain and discomfort less tolerable).
If it wasn't for all of this, thorns & thistles, hard work, sickness, physical injuries, death, etc. would still be less than comfortable, or painful, but they would not cause so much emotional stress and then become added to any perception of "fallenness"; that the physical world in itself is corrupted.

•Our need for Equity [and perhaps other ontological needs; identity, competence, significance etc] is connected with the "fruit of knowledge of good and evil". This is one of the main causes of emotional pain (and hence, a greatly heightened, overly vivid perception of "wrong" in life). It is what drove Satan to rebel, and lead man to fall with him. It leads to all our wars and crime.
While these needs are genuine, still, we were never given the capacity to know how they should truly be met.

Our sense of guilt from sin is itself also a product of knowledge of good and evil. After all, it was then (after originally taking the fruit) that we sensed we were "naked and ashamed". We have a sense of good, but know deep inside that we do evil.
Hence, the loss of "equity" in man's relationship with God (to a state of being in debt, and feeling the need, somehow, to make/prove ourselves right, even if by denying any problem altogether). Hence, grace undoing this, leaving only the Tree of Life. (Rev.22:2).

Satan's tactic (as with Job) is to convince us we must secure these things for ourselves now (also like his temptation of Jesus), or we are being punished, either rightly (accusations of sin) or wrongfully (denial of sin).

•God has ceased special revelation to as part of Grace, to protect us from the "unpardonable sin" (rejection of special revelation carries a more severe penalty; "to whom much is given, much is expected").

•God has obscured general proof of Him and knowledge of the afterlife, because if people knew for sure there was "a better world" beyond this one, more would be killing themselves when life got too difficult here. (He did not put us here to just escape into the next world).
It would also skew our motivations for doing good here and now. It would be about "gaining rewards" (for self) rather than love. Hence, it is by "faith".

•These premises only work under a "Fulfilled Grace" paradigm, where forgiveness through Christ's death has spread to all unconditionally (with no "requirements" of any sort placed on man, leaving most still "lost" and forfeiting this grace. The Law man was condemned under was finally abolished upon the destruction of the Temple in AD70, after three decades of overlapping with the New Covenant).


Outlining these points is one thing; putting it into practice during frustrations in life is quite another.
So this is what I'll be looking into in my walk in life.

Does all of this make sense to anyone else?
 

Beargryllz

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The human superorganism survives longer when people hold each other's interests closer to their own. It's no wonder why a great god would command us to do exactly this. The truer a god is, the less likely we are to reject him/her/it, so this makes perfect sense. We don't need proof of GOD, we need proof that the dogma isn't full of shit if we're going to follow it. We see people helping people helping people and communities thrive. We're happier like this, working together, than we would be fighting each other. This isn't always true, but we can call this a deviance, not the norm, and it still functions. Religions and beliefs will be tested constantly to ensure that they maximize the functionality of the society they emerge in or otherwise influence.
 

Lark

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Absolutely excellent.

I'm a practicing RC so perhaps some of the language I would use would be different, although only slightly as the RCC is reconciled to much of the reformation's ideas about grace and justification or salvation (I trouble myself not about this and just read and reread Matthew) but I think you've digested a lot of the better Jungian ideas and presented them beautifully here.

I totally agreee, absolutely, and I think the best points are the nature of the reciprocity outlined in the first three subheadings and the one about the essential need for both God and the afterlife to be obscured preventing a lemming like destruction of mankind. Infact I would go so far as to say that those two points are what animate my own faith and lifes purpose.

I really want to thank you because of the essentially reasonable and reasoning approach you have adopted here, for someone whose faith as seriously rocked by an overload of NTJ not too long ago you speak with restoring words of fire in this thread and it has helped me find the path and hear the voice again. I am in your debt.
 

Eric B

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Thank you; glad to be of help!:)

But, the RCC still believes everyone is "lost" unless they convert, and also do good works, doesn't it? (Or is it a liberal strain that says people who are "good" will get to Heaven?)

I also forgot, on the last point,
This also maintains Christ as the only Savior, however, it eliminates the need for one group of people (nation, race, religion, denomination, sect/cult, etc) as the sole bearer of "the truth". This has ultimately led to self-righteousness, schism and strife in both covenants, with Church history being even worse in that respect than "unregenerate" Old Covenant Israel!
It thus ends the "scandal of particularity" that the world has been so put off by.
 

Lark

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Thank you; glad to be of help!:)

But, the RCC still believes everyone is "lost" unless they convert, and also do good works, doesn't it? (Or is it a liberal strain that says people who are "good" will get to Heaven?)

I also forgot, on the last point,
This also maintains Christ as the only Savior, however, it eliminates the need for one group of people (nation, race, religion, denomination, sect/cult, etc) as the sole bearer of "the truth". This has ultimately led to self-righteousness, schism and strife in both covenants, with Church history being even worse in that respect than "unregenerate" Old Covenant Israel!
It thus ends the "scandal of particularity" that the world has been so put off by.

No, I'm pretty sure that the RCC doesnt maintain that good works are a feature at all, conversion is more complicated, the church certainly does not maintain that all those who are not converts are condemned to purgatory or hell as it once did, that exclusivity is gone and it doesnt really pronounce on who is and isnt to be expected to be condemned or not.

The most recent example of this that I can think of, within the Christian fraternity, is that of the Anglicans who were permitted to join the RCC in order to maintain their traditions, such as a male priesthood, their conversion was much vaunted but not complete and total as they maintain traditions such as married priests.

Particularism is interesting, I do believe that you have a point.
 

Octarine

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To me it looks like just a whole bunch of unnecessary speculation, based purely on a western perspective.

To me it goes without saying, that the only purpose of life is to live.
 

Lark

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To me it looks like just a whole bunch of unnecessary speculation, based purely on a western perspective.

To me it goes without saying, that the only purpose of life is to live.


Elaborate please, this is interesting.

If as you say the purpose of life is to live then live to what purpose? What is the meaning? If speculation is pointless is all speculation pointless? Beyond a certain point it could be distracting but otherwise you're just existing, breathing and that is purposeless.
 

Mole

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A Work of Art

To me it goes without saying, that the only purpose of life is to live.

Quite so, life is an end rather than a means.

For instance, do we live to work or work to live?

Or do we abandon alienated work entirely and do things for their own sake? Do we make our life a work of art?
 

xisnotx

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To me it looks like you have presented things that are to be taken as true and then extrapolated other truths from the original "truths".

But I don't get what makes the original "truths" true in the first place? If I am to blindly trust that these truths are in fact "true" then why should I pick this over orthodox religion? Because it works better?

A bit of a tangent...an objective purpose in life is unknowable. We can choose to give our own individual lives some meaning but I personally would rather live a meaningless life (and keep a look out for a possible "objective" purpose) than live a life that is essentially a lie because it's easier. I think that's weak.
 

Lark

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To me it looks like you have presented things that are to be taken as true and then extrapolated other truths from the original "truths".

But I don't get what makes the original "truths" true in the first place? If I am to blindly trust that these truths are in fact "true" then why should I pick this over orthodox religion? Because it works better?

A bit of a tangent...an objective purpose in life is unknowable. We can choose to give our own individual lives some meaning but I personally would rather live a meaningless life (and keep a look out for a possible "objective" purpose) than live a life that is essentially a lie because it's easier. I think that's weak.

Well that's essentially the athiest-existentialist perspective which to me is part of the western tradition of philosophy, I've highlighted the portion of your post which I think makes sense but I would suggest that you could discover as the "possible 'objective' purpose" the religious message which the OP outlined, and that discovering that and maintaining instead a meaningless athiest perspective is weak.

Why this an not orthodoxy? Well that's a question which I believe any individual has to answer for themselves, personally I believe that orthodoxy and religious tradition is about more than simply spiritual insight and providing clues as to the purpose of life, its about transmitting generational learning from one generation to another, I think that some of the schisms within Christendom can be explained by congregations believing that the spiritual and purposeful aspects were eclipsed by orthodoxy and tradition or those things became obsticles.

My own feeling is that orthodoxy can only really behave as a spring board to people motivated to think about these things and focus on their development.
 
T

ThatGirl

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Just because we are able to create the cognitive idea for 'meaning' doesn't mean there is a purpose. The universe is a lot larger than any of our contributions are going to make in the long run. In the end it is only about the contributions you make to those who are affected by the existence you lived. That is the purpose of life.
 

Eric B

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Do you believe all that, Eric B?
I struggle with it. The entire "faith" in general, basically.

Looking at it typologically, I have come to realize that when my primary perceptive perspective is one where things are tentative, (i.e. Ne) then I generally "try on" abstract ideas to see if ithey fit or work. So I can intuitively "try on" the faith, or this particular idea about it, but I will need concrete evidence in order to be more sure. (Part of this seems to be the Se "Trickster" complex that tries to turn the tables when the ego feels double-bound). Else, it feels like a "possibility" that I cannot verify; just a nice idea, hypothesis, theory, and it is hard for it to draw my full emotional investment (as it does for more fervently "religious" people).

But for now, this does seem to explain things in a logical coherent fashion. I had come out of a typical evangelical environment that basically claims the purpose of life now is for us to "win" the world to "salvation", and yet, I could not prove it to anyone, especially with all my own doubts, and it seemed counterproductive, if so many were still ending up "lost" anyway.
To me it looks like you have presented things that are to be taken as true and then extrapolated other truths from the original "truths".

But I don't get what makes the original "truths" true in the first place? If I am to blindly trust that these truths are in fact "true" then why should I pick this over orthodox religion? Because it works better?

A bit of a tangent...an objective purpose in life is unknowable. We can choose to give our own individual lives some meaning but I personally would rather live a meaningless life (and keep a look out for a possible "objective" purpose) than live a life that is essentially a lie because it's easier. I think that's weak.
Yes, this basically takes for granted the given "truths" of a Biblical world-view. It just differs on some of the the interpretations of it. It was really written for those who already believe in the Bible, and I weighed whether to share here, but then, because I do reference it in the Archetypes of the Functions thread (as it helped me articulate something I realized about the ego and the shadow), and I figured it might interest some, since some here do seem to have a biblical or at least theistic perspective.
 
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