Life is Predatory, there is no divine purpose..

[Zzzzz]

The belief that there is some kind of mysterious purpose to life is the greatest enemy of the right to die movement. "Don't kill yourself" they say. "Life has meaning." They say. But where is the evidence for this belief? It's nothing but superstition. What meaning? Evolution is a violent, inherently predatory natural system where misery and death are commonplace. Laws should never be made on subjective opinions and unverified beliefs. It's okay for people to believe what they wish. But it's not right to impose such beliefs on others. I know that fear is a big part of this belief. People are afraid of upsetting some cosmic Deity. They think Death is a Mystical thing that mere mortals have no authority to choose for themselves. It is in God's hands, they say. A god who has no evidence of even existing, much less has given anyone it's views regarding suicide. The laws are based on Superstition. It's a gross violation of the US constitution which says no laws shall be made respecting specific religions or religious beliefs. If the constitution was truly followed by Americans, then euthanasia would probably be considered basic human right

 

[WornOutLife]

And that's what's making me go crazy.
Why exist if we have no purpose? Shouldn't there be nothing rather than something? I hate to be a goddamn ape who will never get the answers or at least something that makes sense about the meaning of existence.

My existential crisis will be with me until I finally pass away.

#F*ckLife

 

[demuic]

The "purpose" of life is to stay alive long enough to pass on your genes via reproduction.

 

[Some1's_Wasted_Fetus]

I agree. Purpose is subjective and unique to each individual. Life only has whatever purpose an individual gives it. Outside of that it's silly to project our own personal thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about the purpose of life onto everyone else and assume life has purpose/doesn't have purpose for everyone else. It's funny because "normal" people do this all the time. "You have so much to live for", "you were placed here for a reason", "it's not in God's plan" blah blah blah. Just because they have something to live for and higher meaning/purpose to their life doesn't mean everyone else does/should

 

[JD8080]

There is no purpose !

 

[Zzzzz]

The "purpose" of life is to stay alive long enough to pass on your genes via reproduction.

I think you have a fair point. The focus on survival and reproduction is precisely what makes life so predatory and abusive. A better title is that life has no "divine" or "benevolent" purpose like most people believe. The problem with life is not necessarily logical, but moral. To say life is good, is to say that dying and predatory behavior are acceptable.

 

[Beachedwhale]

The "purpose" of life is to stay alive long enough to pass on your genes via reproduction.

Yes. And it was ever thus, since the first strand of RNA reproduced itself in the oceanic heat vents billions of years ago.

I would say though that the purpose is to live as close as possible to our hunter gatherers ancestors lifestyle. That is how we have lived for 95 percent of our species history. They were quite healthy and contemporary ones seem pretty chill. The evolution of society happened too quickly for our bodies to catch up. And if you look at all the things we do nowadays to obtain happiness, they seem to be adaptations of that lifestyle.

Hunter gatherer societies also have virtually zero suicides.

 

[Zzzzz]

I think it's worth mentioning that the purpose of life is not that Each individual life reproduces, else why do most animals that are born die shortly after birth. Also nature creates gay people, antinatalists and other people who have no desire or ability to reproduce. There seems to be no objective purpose of evolution other than "survival of the fittest" which is basically natural eugenics.

 

[motel rooms]

Yes. And it was ever thus, since the first strand of RNA reproduced itself in the oceanic heat vents billions of years ago.

I would say though that the purpose is to live as close as possible to our hunter gatherers ancestors lifestyle.

I wouldn't idealize that lifestyle. Hunting is exhausting & dangerous, they suffered immensely. Don't forget that they were also constantly preyed upon by other animals. And I'm sure that they abused each other both physically & psychologically. Can you imagine living in a small tribe & being forced to conform to some asshole chieftain's random rules?

 

[Beachedwhale]

I wouldn't idealize that lifestyle. Hunting is exhausting & dangerous, they suffered immensely. Don't forget that they were also constantly preyed upon by other animals. And I'm sure that they abused each other both physically & psychologically. Can you imagine living in a small tribe & being forced to conform to some asshole chieftain's random rules?

I'm no anthropologist but I've read a lot about it and thats not quite true. On average they actually didn't hunt for very long, maybe 3 or 4 hours. They tended to have more leisure time than we do. Total work including hunting and gathering, toolmaking, house making, cooking etc amounted to at most 8 hours...whereas we tend to have 8 hours of work before all of our other chores and commutes and exercise.

Also, they didn't have a separation of work and leisure as we think of it today. Would you call cooking or sharpening arrows around a fire while singing and joking work? They also are not stalked by predators as one would think and have so much knowledge so as evade such situations. Their knowledge of plants and animals and their environment is amazing and they were nomadic which made it easy to find food And their work involved tons of physical activity...the thing that we strive so hard to do at gym or else our bodies decay. We are designed to be moving a lot and lifting heavy things and running and squatting, not sitting on our asses for 8 hours a day.


Skeletons showed they were generally quite healthy and you can see that in contemporary ones. Childbirth hadhigh mortality rate but after that they lived quite long.The size of the bands were generally small enough that individual members could be held accountable. There tended to be a lot of egalitarianism, even among genders despite homo sapiens tending to have gender segregated work roles. They didn't have such a rigid hierarchy as civilisation does and so theydidnt have the same kind of rules. It's hard to have rules and their enforcement when there is no property or possessions and the bands are small enough. And generally different bands would be in. Lose enough proximity that if you didn't like one you could join another one.

 

[motel rooms]

I'm no anthropologist but I've read a lot about it and thats not quite true.

They were human, so there was certainly violence & pressure to conform. How much? Enough to make life shitty enough. IMO no animals have ever led a life worth living & they were no exception

Violence in Human Evolution

 

[Beachedwhale]

They did have high rates of violence of I recall. On the other hand look at all the conflict and war and gang violence happening today. Also, there is a lot of subtle violence in the form of class warfare which leads to such horrible things as poverty and homelessness and all the physical effects of that, and childhood and emotional abuse that leads to trauma and the physical and psychological effects of that trauma. Including suicide.

There is even evidence that hunter gatherers took care of disabled members. You would think that theyd just leave them to die. I imagine if they had to travel then that would happen. But why would you want to live if you were that disabled anyway? And if you could be disabled but still be cared for sufficiently that would be amazing. On the contrary look at how terribly so many disabled people are being treated even in some developed countries.

Once again we lived as hunter gatherers for 95 percent of our history. That's what our bodies are evolved for and that's why when we go too far away from their lifestyle we get sick, depressed and kill ourselves.

 

[motel rooms]

Once again we lived as hunter gatherers for 95 percent of our history. That's what our bodies are evolved for and that's why when we go too far away from their lifestyle we get sick, depressed and kill ourselves.

They still suffered too much. Life was hellish enough for them too. That's my only point.

 

[FuneralCry]

Yes, as humans we need a right to die. It should be a basic right. We suffer for the sake of suffering as life is basically pointless. think people use religion as a way to add a meaning and give themselves a reason to live when they are otherwise living an empty existence.