What is the purpose of human existence?

[Fek]

You should develop and take care of both. The place to it is here. The time to do it is now.

Taking good care of one's temple ensures a much easier time - absolutely. Watching what one eats and thinks, etc.

maybe it’s to experience and learn.

Personal experience is the best (and quite possibly only true) teacher. I would suggest you know the answer already; it's just the lingering doubts clouding things up a bit.

You (and anyone reading this) are far wiser than you may lend yourself credit, fren. That quiet guiding voice on the fringes of your consciousness knows that.

 

[Lemmingwiser]

Taking good care of one's temple ensures a much easier time - absolutely. Watching what one eats and thinks, etc.

My view of it is more challenging. The more you refine your spirit, soul and body, the more challenging things you can (and should) take on. It's not about developing ways in a way that you find an easy equilibrium. Rather, it's about constantly challenging oneself and one's loved ones to the degree that they can manage to take on and only fail part of the time.

People that never fail are living too cautiously.

 

[Core Theorist]

I think when the foolish monk asked "does a dog have Buddha nature?" and the wise monk said "Muu", he was right on the money.

In other words, "What is the purpose of human existence?" "Not applicable."

What's the 'purpose' of gravity, or purple? Is there a purpose to fire? Human beings are an emergent property of incredibly complex natural phenomena. There is no obvious purpose no matter how high or how low you go. You might say "the purpose of the universe was to produce humans", but that runs into questions of the anthropic principle and such chicken-and-egg problems. Smaller masses of matter orbit larger ones, energetic materials react, fizzle and burn, life exists as an emergent property of such natural systems.

"Life's purpose is to sustain its own existence" is a reasonable conclusion, but on the other hand people shove pool cues up their assholes and rip their guts up or whatever other mental malfunction like you can see across this very site, so I wouldn't be too convinced that there's a universal overriding purpose of the universe made with any actual intent.

If there really is a God, they would be so above us and probably unconcerned with us as we are with atomic quarks. Despite the principle of 'omnibenevolence', a deity would still have infinitely more free will than we do. Even the undeniable singularity of the human consciousness would seem more like an easily predictable and ultimately "meaningless" chemical reaction than a comparable mind worthy of anything but dismissal.

I find the deistic mode of thought more reasonable for what I see in the world. I think if there is anything larger than life or the universe, like a divine purpose, we've been set aside as a simulation (not to say a computer simulation, more like practice, like a prototype) and left to run to our conclusion. The data will be filed away to be used later as reference for the next one, but the actual contents of the test have no meaning. A single watch in a cabinet somewhere, ticking along until something breaks, to be analyzed later until the watchmaker gets it right, one day.

But does the ticking of the prototype watch itself, never to actually be used, have a purpose? Muu.

Either that, or it's the best reality TV show in the multiverse.

EDIT: typos

 

[Divine Power]

Serving God

 

[UtadaWasabi2]

Ruin everything?

 

[Divine Power]

Making life better

 

[Pedophobe]

Gathering resources and energy in order to discharge them

We convert nature into garbage.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Why are we here, what’s the purpose of our lives, and how should we live to make our time meaningful?

You're getting a lot of unserious answers, but the real reason we're here is to create plastic. The earth needs plastic, but it's not naturally occurring and no other animals were smart enough to create, so that's where we come in.

So you are part of something much bigger - when you consoom you're helping the planet and eventually the universe in it's neverending quest for more plastic. Take pride in that, your legacy will live on long after you're gone. Plastic that you have used will out live you, and somewhere on a remote shore of the ocean or maybe even into the deep recesses of our galaxy, your role in helping that plastic get to it's destination will never be forgotten. So cheer up, you do matter.

 

[We Are The Witches]

This is such a cliché question, and it invites a cliché answer.

The "purpose" as a subjective notion will depend on yourself and what you value, outside of that, there is nothing else that dictates what it should be.

To some it will be to further the species, they could argue that, for others it will be to serve god, or to make positive impacts in this world, etc. All of that comes from their own values and desires, without it, there's no purpose, life simply exists. But you can make it as how you want it to be, if you don't want anything as a purpose, you'll still live and be part of the natural rules of this universe the same way.

The purpose that I personally have chosen for this life is to achieve happiness, what my own idea of happiness is, to be strong (as an individual, not physically), and to live with beauty (in the way that I love and respect, how I want to be & how I want to act).

 

[Divine Power]

Enjoying life as much as possible with lovable ones