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The Existence
(13 Messages in 2 pages - View all)
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1.       gokuyum
5050 posts
 20 Nov 2010 Sat 09:48 pm

They asked to Hodja : "What is the definition of unhappiness for you?" He answered "Not to understand the purpose of your own existence." According to the science the purpose of our existence is not different from other creatures. It is procreating. How can a person be satisfied with this when even some of smart animals cant be. This kind of answer never made any human happy. We always sought a higher purpose than this. Some of us believed there is a God and there is another world better than this; our life here is only a test.

Also many of us believed there is no God and there is no significant purpose of human life and we should make our own decisions. Especially existentialists thought that way. According to Sartre we are strangers in this world. We live in nausea because we are condemned to freedom in this meaningless world. And we don´t have any purpose. Camus calls this situation absurdity. According to him we live knowing we will vanish one day and trying to live like this is absurd. And only rational thing we can do is to revolt against life.

 

Some of us thought we have power to change the meaningless to significant and built utopias. For example Nietzsche always criticized people living like sheep. And he hated priests for running the morals upside down and changing them in favor of weak. According to him only powerful people should decide what is right or wrong. He always dreamed a world ruled by super humans. Or we can say super bullies. But Nietzsche was very different from this super human he imagined. He was a very sick person both physically and mentally. He was nearly blind. He was an intellectual rather than a warrior. And his ideas in his works contradicted one another many times. His ideas and actions also contradicted one another. While he was defending the right of powerful to do anything he wants in his works, he hugged crying the neck of a horse beaten by his owner. He tried to make human life significant but he even failed to make his life so.

If we think clearly we can see only a god´s existence can make our lives significant. It is not important whether a god exists or not. We need one. Knowing this, people created many gods. And these gods gave them a higher purpose. It is to improve themselves, to become a righteous person and win their approval. They also promised them endless lives and eternal justice. And believing these made people happy. It is not important they are true or not. Only important thing is having a higher purpose than procreating. So we can´t blame people who believe a god for being weak or irrational. It is a very rational thing to consider our lives more valuable than animals´ lives and it is not a weakness not to accept death. It is nearly an instinct and most natural thing to do, defending our existence against it both mentally and physically.



Edited (11/22/2010) by gokuyum

2.       barba_mama
1629 posts
 21 Nov 2010 Sun 09:39 pm

I disagree I don´t think everybody needs a god, and I also don´t think one has to be unhappy not knowing the reason for existence.

3.       vineyards
1954 posts
 26 Nov 2010 Fri 11:55 pm

Gokuyum, philosophy is a deep subject. If your statements about Nietzche were right, we would probably not call him a philosopher. Sophistication is a weird process, it may sometimes seem to be counterproductive. It is probably because there are big hollows behind perceived truth and philosophers aim to analyze what is beyond those hollows-a forbidden zone for ordinary people.

Think of the difference between a pastor and the Pope. How come some of us have to be rankless soldiers whereas some of us end up as generals determining our fates? Think of all those innovators and pathfinders and the contributions they have made to an otherwise clueless human population. Some of us produce ideas and the rest of us consume those ideas. Logically, better decisions can be made by people with greater intellectual capacities. Nevertheless, we humans seem to be only capable of achieving sophistication in a limited scope. Those of us excelling in a scientific branch for example, are not necessarily similarly adept at moral,religious or social matters. This is probably because society is technically more equipped, versatile, capable and therefore adept at any particular matter compared the mastery a single person or a group of people have.

 

4.       gokuyum
5050 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 04:16 am

 

Quoting barba_mama

I disagree I don´t think everybody needs a god, and I also don´t think one has to be unhappy not knowing the reason for existence.

 

 Well if you say so, i respect you. But I believe you may change your opinion when you are old. Because people start to analyze their lives when they are old and judge themselves for what they did or didnt. And even the biggest achievements seem small and insignificant to them. The reason of this is people never satisfy with what they have or what they have done. We always want or to do more. This is our nature. I believe our sole purpose is to improve ourselves. When people get old they have less possibilities to improve themselves. They all want to live more and be young. But this is not possible. This sole fact can easily make them depressed and unhappy. But believing a God also means believing an afterlife. This means you will live and you wont be old anymore after you die. You can still improve yourself without a limit in a different way. All happiness in this world is temporary. Because everything has an end. But the thing human desires is endless happiness. And only possible way to get this is to bet on God. You will not lose anything but maybe you will gain everything.



Edited (11/27/2010) by gokuyum
Edited (11/27/2010) by gokuyum

5.       Daydreamer
3743 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 11:57 am

Gokuyum, what you wrote sounds like accepting delusion only because it helps you do avoid the fear of dying. I suppose many older people suddenly turn very religious (regardless of the religion they follow) because they begin to be afraid of their mortality. And, rather than accept the fact that everything comes to an end, everything dies, they choose to believe in something that gives them hope of living forever. Yet, they fact they are afraid does not make the idea of God more real or more credible. It´s the same with people who were lost or ill, many of them claim that it was their faith that helped them to get back on the right path or to get better. This, however, is not a proof of god´s existence.

Faith is an individual matter and if it was possible to convince believers that god doesn´t exist or non-believers that god does exist, there wouldn´t be so many books, philosophical movements and religions. But there are So the only thing we can be sure of is that it is all up to interpretation. You either choose to accept there is a deity whose existence cannot be proven. Or you choose to reject a belief not supported by evidence

6.       barba_mama
1629 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 01:22 pm

 

Quoting gokuyum

 

 

 Well if you say so, i respect you. But I believe you may change your opinion when you are old. Because people start to analyze their lives when they are old and judge themselves for what they did or didnt. And even the biggest achievements seem small and insignificant to them. The reason of this is people never satisfy with what they have or what they have done. We always want or to do more. This is our nature. I believe our sole purpose is to improve ourselves. When people get old they have less possibilities to improve themselves. They all want to live more and be young. But this is not possible. This sole fact can easily make them depressed and unhappy. But believing a God also means believing an afterlife. This means you will live and you wont be old anymore after you die. You can still improve yourself without a limit in a different way. All happiness in this world is temporary. Because everything has an end. But the thing human desires is endless happiness. And only possible way to get this is to bet on God. You will not lose anything but maybe you will gain everything.

 

I think a lot of what you say here is about unhappy people. The day my grandfather died he said he was proud of what he had done with his life, and he was ready to go. He was never a religious person, and he didn´t believe in god. He had a long life, he used it well, and he was done. Some people are happy with this, they don´t need to have more. He had raised his children well, all his grandchildren had also become adults with good jobs and happy lifes, and he even had wonderfull times with his great grandchildren. Perhaps it´s hard for some to believe, but he didn´t need the notion of heaven to be okay with the idea of death.

I don´t think "betting on God" is a win-win situation. Sometimes people use the idea of heaven to not do anything about making the world better today. They limit their good deeds to not creating a better world, but to getting "plus-points" on the scoreboard to heaven. Parying five times a day at home for plus-points, instead of going out in the real world and helping people... That is why I don´t count on the idea of heaven. If I would do that, I would accept all miserable things in life and not try to make them better. I would see life as a waiting room, instead of the wonder that it really is. I don´t want to live my life like that. I believe, if you get the best out of your life itself, you don´t need to believe in afterlife to be happy.

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7.       gokuyum
5050 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 01:23 pm

 

Quoting Daydreamer

Gokuyum, what you wrote sounds like accepting delusion only because it helps you do avoid the fear of dying. I suppose many older people suddenly turn very religious (regardless of the religion they follow) because they begin to be afraid of their mortality. And, rather than accept the fact that everything comes to an end, everything dies, they choose to believe in something that gives them hope of living forever. Yet, they fact they are afraid does not make the idea of God more real or more credible. It´s the same with people who were lost or ill, many of them claim that it was their faith that helped them to get back on the right path or to get better. This, however, is not a proof of god´s existence.

Faith is an individual matter and if it was possible to convince believers that god doesn´t exist or non-believers that god does exist, there wouldn´t be so many books, philosophical movements and religions. But there are So the only thing we can be sure of is that it is all up to interpretation. You either choose to accept there is a deity whose existence cannot be proven. Or you choose to reject a belief not supported by evidence

 

 I want to tell if believing a God makes people happy what is wrong with it? What if this world is some kind of an illusion can you prove the opposite? If you cant you should accept there is a possibility that you are the delusional one instead of believers.I guess we can only learn the truth when we die.

8.       gokuyum
5050 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 01:29 pm

 

Quoting barba_mama

 

 

I think a lot of what you say here is about unhappy people. The day my grandfather died he said he was proud of what he had done with his life, and he was ready to go. He was never a religious person, and he didn´t believe in god. He had a long life, he used it well, and he was done. Some people are happy with this, they don´t need to have more. He had raised his children well, all his grandchildren had also become adults with good jobs and happy lifes, and he even had wonderfull times with his great grandchildren. Perhaps it´s hard for some to believe, but he didn´t need the notion of heaven to be okay with the idea of death.

I don´t think "betting on God" is a win-win situation. Sometimes people use the idea of heaven to not do anything about making the world better today. They limit their good deeds to not creating a better world, but to getting "plus-points" on the scoreboard to heaven. Parying five times a day at home for plus-points, instead of going out in the real world and helping people... That is why I don´t count on the idea of heaven. If I would do that, I would accept all miserable things in life and not try to make them better. I would see life as a waiting room, instead of the wonder that it really is. I don´t want to live my life like that. I believe, if you get the best out of your life itself, you don´t need to believe in afterlife to be happy.

 We have different approaches to religions and afterworld concept. Here read this: http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_48678 

I dont want to talk after a dead person so I will not make a comment about your grandfather.

9.       gokuyum
5050 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 01:38 pm

I will write more about this issue when i have time.Keep following.

10.       Daydreamer
3743 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 03:15 pm

That´s exactly what I wrote - neither side can prove anything to the other. hence we have to rely on our common sense and estimate probability within the capabilities of our brain. Agnostics assume they cannot know the truth, atheists state the probability of there being a god is too little to consider it. If lack of evidence is enough to convince you - fine. It does not work for me.

And nowhere have I stated that believing is a good or bad thing. It´s a lifestyle choice. If you feel better thinking you´re going to heaven if you bend down to pray 5 times a day - do it. Just don´t make me believe the same. And don´t threat to kill people who think it´s not bending but rocking that takes you to heaven. Let all people choose their own paths. that´s all I want. I don´t need people to agree with me or support my beliefs or lack of them. Let´s all believe whatever we want and don´t force our views on others.

11.       barba_mama
1629 posts
 27 Nov 2010 Sat 09:59 pm

 

Quoting gokuyum

 

 We have different approaches to religions and afterworld concept. Here read this: http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_48678 

I dont want to talk after a dead person so I will not make a comment about your grandfather.

 

I used my grandfather as an example because you said something about old people all wanting to be young again and live more. In my experience (with my grandfather, but also his father, and other older people that I have watched) this is not always the case. Yes, there are older people who are like this. But people who are happy with what they have accomplished don´t want to go back in time.

12.       gokuyum
5050 posts
 28 Nov 2010 Sun 03:02 am

 

Quoting barba_mama

 

 

I used my grandfather as an example because you said something about old people all wanting to be young again and live more. In my experience (with my grandfather, but also his father, and other older people that I have watched) this is not always the case. Yes, there are older people who are like this. But people who are happy with what they have accomplished don´t want to go back in time.

 

 There are people like your grandfather who seem happy with their  achievements in the past. But what about majority? What can console people who think their lives are completely a failure or people who think if they had more time and energy they would do lots of things they always desired. Can death and being nothing console them? No on the contrary this will make them unhappy and depressed.Am I wrong?

13.       barba_mama
1629 posts
 28 Nov 2010 Sun 02:13 pm

 

Quoting gokuyum

 

 

 There are people like your grandfather who seem happy with their  achievements in the past. But what about majority? What can console people who think their lives are completely a failure or people who think if they had more time and energy they would do lots of things they always desired. Can death and being nothing console them? No on the contrary this will make them unhappy and depressed.Am I wrong?

 

You are not wrong to say that some people feel like this. If this is the majority is a question. The majority in my family was content when they died. The only person who I can´t say that about was one aunt who died very suddenly at a young age, so she wasn´t aware of what was happening.

I hope I will follow the example of my family, and be content with my life once it has reached it´s end. I don´t want to believe in heaven, simply because I´m unhappy with my life.

 

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