Purpose of sex

[MarathonMike]

Yeah, it does. And how we look at it usually depends on the drugs in our bodies and our genetics. Some people seek the truth, most seek comfort and it's more comfortable to believe in a God who's looking out for us and giving us purpose than just "we're just science, biology"

Hence why religion exists.

Maybe God isn't "looking out for us" at all. Maybe we've always existed in a different sense and biological life is just a brief time to experience mortality. And maybe death is just returning to the existence that always was and always will be.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Maybe God isn't "looking out for us" at all. Maybe we've always existed in a different sense and biological life is just a brief time to experience mortality. And maybe death is just returning to the existence that always was and always will be.

So, there's a God, and he doesn't care about us, doesn't do anything at all. You can pray to him and he doesn't listen, you can murder people and he doesn't notice the difference between you and the holiest of nuns....

So what's the point of all this religion then?

 

[d0gbreath]

Yes, it is. But it's an individual purpose.

What's the purpose of humans as a collective? What's the point of you being born in the first place?

Is there any purpose to humanity? Doesn't seem to be.

The purpose of humanity is to destroy the planet, which by the way, never loses.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The purpose of humanity is to destroy the planet, which by the way, never loses.

Or just greed being a lot of people's purpose.

 

[GLASNOST]

Why do you think there's a purpose to life?

Good question.

If there's no purpose to life, then people can do whatever they want, or nothing at all. Including raping and murdering if that suits their fancy.

What is your point? You mentioned cavemen in your intro. Suddenly you want to dismiss them from history?

 

[MayorQuimby]

You are right we do CREATE a purpose (or purposes) for ourselves. Or we choose not to. No one knows why we are on this spinning rock sharing this collective moment in time experiencing biological life. And that's ok. We do know there's plenty are of things to experience, people to help, things to fix or create etc. Created purpose is still purpose.

I mostly agree with you and the frigid guy.

"Purpose of life"---if life has a certain purpose to a particular person, then life has a purpose to him, and that purpose is, well, whatever that purpose is. If another person doesn't feel that life has a purpose, then to him, life has no purpose.

This whole, "What's the purpose of life?" is a wrong, or, nonsensical question. The only things that can have a purpose are man-made things, such as, say, an organization. Life is not man-made, as such, it by definition cannot have any purpose.

This is sorta similar when people ask, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" This question is also nonsensical in the sense that these "Why" types of questions only work when directed towards humans. Only humans do things for certain reasons. The universe is not a human, therefore, "Why" types of questions do not apply. The proper question should be, "What caused there to be something instead of nothing?"

 

[MarathonMike]

I mostly agree with you and the frigid guy.

"Purpose of life"---if life has a certain purpose to a particular person, then life has a purpose to him, and that purpose is, well, whatever that purpose is. If another person doesn't feel that life has a purpose, then to him, life has no purpose.

This whole, "What's the purpose of life?" is a wrong, or, nonsensical question. The only things that can have a purpose are man-made things, such as, say, an organization. Life is not man-made, as such, it by definition cannot have any purpose.

This is sorta similar when people ask, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" This question is also nonsensical in the sense that these "Why" types of questions only work when directed towards humans. Only humans do things for certain reasons. The universe is not a human, therefore, "Why" types of questions do not apply. The proper question should be, "What caused there to be something instead of nothing?"

Some people can never come to grips with not knowing. Part of the "deal" of being a human is there are inherently a lot of things we just cannot know. Why are we here? What happens when we die? We were we always "alive"? No one knows. For me, not knowing is OK. For others, it is not.

 

[Monoculturalist]

Yeah, it does. And how we look at it usually depends on the drugs in our bodies and our genetics. Some people seek the truth, most seek comfort and it's more comfortable to believe in a God who's looking out for us and giving us purpose than just "we're just science, biology"

Hence why religion exists.

While some people do pursue religion for "comfort", that's not the reason why many others do.

I was an atheist for 27 years. After a lot of soul searching, I came to realize that human institutions cannot be trusted in most cases and that God is really the only entity you can unconditionally trust. Some might call that pursuit of comfort, but this realization is a lot less comfortable than still having faith in humanity.

There are a lot of things about our existence that are difficult to explain as just happening due to chance. Abiogenesis is the assumed position of atheists, but so far, it lacks convincing proof. Maybe we'll be able to prove it someday, but until then, this concept requires an amount of faith that is comparable to religion.

 

[Midnight FM]

While some people do pursue religion for "comfort", that's not the reason why many others do.

I was an atheist for 27 years. After a lot of soul searching, I came to realize that human institutions cannot be trusted in most cases and that God is really the only entity you can unconditionally trust. Some might call that pursuit of comfort, but this realization is a lot less comfortable than still having faith in humanity.

There are a lot of things about our existence that are difficult to explain as just happening due to chance. Abiogenesis is the assumed position of atheists, but so far, it lacks convincing proof. Maybe we'll be able to prove it someday, but until then, this concept requires an amount of faith that is comparable to religion.

Abiogenesis, to my knowledge, did not create life. It merely created some of the components necessary for life.

 

[yidnar]

This is my general view on sex:

Sex and reproduction are not the purpose of life. Cavemen were more than capable of reproducing, but if everyone believed that was the only purpose of life, we wouldn't have modern civilization. Sex and reproduction may play a role in most people's lives, but the purpose of life is far more nuanced than that.

While the primary biological function of sex is reproduction, it isn't the only purpose of sex, and intimacy is arguably a superior purpose. While biological reproduction serves a survival function, the reality is that it is rare for people in the modern world to have to reproduce in order to survive, and most people who decide to have children don't do so in order to "perpetuate the human race" - they do so for more nuanced personal reasons.

So in essence, sex is something that people do simply because they're biologically hardwired to, but it doesn't always serve a specific purpose (such as in the case of people who have unplanned children), and if sex results in children being born into less-than-ideal circumstances, there can be consequences. And while the human race will always need some people to be having children in order to perpetuate itself, theoretically, many people could choose not to have children, and the human race would still continue to survive. A downsize in population wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, just as how people in the developed world are already having fewer children than they did in more primitive times where factors such as life expectancy were lower and rates of infant mortality were higher.

 

[frigidweirdo]

While some people do pursue religion for "comfort", that's not the reason why many others do.

I was an atheist for 27 years. After a lot of soul searching, I came to realize that human institutions cannot be trusted in most cases and that God is really the only entity you can unconditionally trust. Some might call that pursuit of comfort, but this realization is a lot less comfortable than still having faith in humanity.

There are a lot of things about our existence that are difficult to explain as just happening due to chance. Abiogenesis is the assumed position of atheists, but so far, it lacks convincing proof. Maybe we'll be able to prove it someday, but until then, this concept requires an amount of faith that is comparable to religion.

Sure, you can only trust someone who doesn't exist.

 

[Monoculturalist]

Sure, you can only trust someone who doesn't exist.

If you assume that God doesn't exist, then you have equally as much faith as I have, since neither of us can prove our stances. Agnostics are the only people who can claim to have no faith, because they don't make a definite assumption about the divine.

 

[frigidweirdo]

If you assume that God doesn't exist, then you have equally as much faith as I have, since neither of us can prove our stances. Agnostics are the only people who can claim to have no faith, because they don't make a definite assumption about the divine.

I'm open to anything, if a god suddenly appeared tomorrow, then I would accept that. My problem is that if I think about it, all I see is no god.

Why?

1) One has never appeared, except in stories written by humans. There are people on this forum who claim to have spoken to god.

2) God and religion is very, VERY convenient for humans. Christianity started with a god that killed all but 7 to 9 people, and most animals, put 2 million species on a board, long before anyone had figured out there were 2 million species, and these people had no way of having come into contact with most of these species. Then in the new testament god suddenly turns into this loving thing, so that people can, say, go kill people on a Saturday afternoon and get absolved of their crimes on a Sunday morning.

The Bible says "thou shalt no kill" and hardly any humans have taken this to mean "thou shalt not kill chickens", the number of chickens killed in a year on Earth is larger than the Earth's human population.

How convenient, it's all humancentric.

 

[MayorQuimby]

I'm open to anything, if a god suddenly appeared tomorrow, then I would accept that. My problem is that if I think about it, all I see is no god.

Why?

1) One has never appeared, except in stories written by humans. There are people on this forum who claim to have spoken to god.

2) God and religion is very, VERY convenient for humans. Christianity started with a god that killed all but 7 to 9 people, and most animals, put 2 million species on a board, long before anyone had figured out there were 2 million species, and these people had no way of having come into contact with most of these species. Then in the new testament god suddenly turns into this loving thing, so that people can, say, go kill people on a Saturday afternoon and get absolved of their crimes on a Sunday morning.

The Bible says "thou shalt no kill" and hardly any humans have taken this to mean "thou shalt not kill chickens", the number of chickens killed in a year on Earth is larger than the Earth's human population.

How convenient, it's all humancentric.

I think he's saying that you can have your reasons for believing that there is (probably) no God, but you cannot say for certain that there isn't, because you cannot prove God doesn't exist any more than he can prove that God does exist.

 

[Monoculturalist]

I'm open to anything, if a god suddenly appeared tomorrow, then I would accept that. My problem is that if I think about it, all I see is no god.

Why?

1) One has never appeared, except in stories written by humans. There are people on this forum who claim to have spoken to god.

2) God and religion is very, VERY convenient for humans. Christianity started with a god that killed all but 7 to 9 people, and most animals, put 2 million species on a board, long before anyone had figured out there were 2 million species, and these people had no way of having come into contact with most of these species. Then in the new testament god suddenly turns into this loving thing, so that people can, say, go kill people on a Saturday afternoon and get absolved of their crimes on a Sunday morning.

The Bible says "thou shalt no kill" and hardly any humans have taken this to mean "thou shalt not kill chickens", the number of chickens killed in a year on Earth is larger than the Earth's human population.

How convenient, it's all humancentric.

Everything has a context. When it comes to being forgiven by God, you have to be sincere in your intentions. You can't just kill someone and assume you'll be forgiven. You must repent and pray for forgiveness from God while truly feeling remorse.

As for "thou shall not kill", that's actually a common misconception. It's actually "thou shall not murder" when looking at earlier translations. The distinction is that you can lawfully kill, like in self-defense or defense of others. The same applies to killing animals for sustenance.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Everything has a context. When it comes to being forgiven by God, you have to be sincere in your intentions. You can't just kill someone and assume you'll be forgiven. You must repent and pray for forgiveness from God while truly feeling remorse.

As for "thou shall not kill", that's actually a common misconception. It's actually "thou shall not murder" when looking at earlier translations. The distinction is that you can lawfully kill, like in self-defense or defense of others. The same applies to killing animals for sustenance.

Doesn't really matter, "lawful murder" is what? When we decide it's okay. Great. Who gets to decide?

 

[MayorQuimby]

Doesn't really matter, "lawful murder" is what? When we decide it's okay. Great. Who gets to decide?

You're right to ask who gets to decide; although I will add that we actually already engage in lawful murder. The execution of death-row inmates is a form of lawful murder. Political assassination is, too. And so is soldiers killing enemy combatants.

 

[Monoculturalist]

Doesn't really matter, "lawful murder" is what? When we decide it's okay. Great. Who gets to decide?

Ultimately, God does, but from a human perspective, that's always subject to the local government. With or without religion, every society must make that judgment call, because killing is an inevitable part of life.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Ultimately, God does, but from a human perspective, that's always subject to the local government. With or without religion, every society must make that judgment call, because killing is an inevitable part of life.

And who decides what God says?

 

[JohnDB]

This is my general view on sex:

Sex and reproduction are not the purpose of life. Cavemen were more than capable of reproducing, but if everyone believed that was the only purpose of life, we wouldn't have modern civilization. Sex and reproduction may play a role in most people's lives, but the purpose of life is far more nuanced than that.

While the primary biological function of sex is reproduction, it isn't the only purpose of sex, and intimacy is arguably a superior purpose. While biological reproduction serves a survival function, the reality is that it is rare for people in the modern world to have to reproduce in order to survive, and most people who decide to have children don't do so in order to "perpetuate the human race" - they do so for more nuanced personal reasons.

So in essence, sex is something that people do simply because they're biologically hardwired to, but it doesn't always serve a specific purpose (such as in the case of people who have unplanned children), and if sex results in children being born into less-than-ideal circumstances, there can be consequences. And while the human race will always need some people to be having children in order to perpetuate itself, theoretically, many people could choose not to have children, and the human race would still continue to survive. A downsize in population wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, just as how people in the developed world are already having fewer children than they did in more primitive times where factors such as life expectancy were lower and rates of infant mortality were higher.

Physical intimacy is the result of emotional and intellectual intimacy....it is a result and not a goal...

It's often viewed as a goal because of hormones that drive a desire for physical intimacy....but we are more than brute beasts with nothing but instincts and hormones driving our behaviors. (Despite all the hype from the porn industry saying otherwise)

Also,
Because of the lack of relationships the population is in decline. Birth control methods are more prevalent and obtainable than ever before. Men of high moral character are more inclined to practice abstinence...refusing willing women.
Meaning those children born outside the constraints of marriage are fathered by a few. Studies have shown that polygyny has a dampening effect on the total number of children born. (Men, generally speaking, do not want to parent other men's children and single parent women, generally speaking are more reluctant to engage in permanent relationships with men regardless of their exhibited behaviors)

And because of the proliferation of birth control methods and waning influence of the Catholic church....women are refusing to have children unless they are married.

Meaning....
Unless we as an Entire World embrace marriage and nuclear families once again....we are going to die off. Currently the only ones who are procreating are those in sub Sahara Africa and India who are practicing sibling and first cousin marriages. (De-evolution is happening rapidly in those cultures as well due to the practice).

Some countries like South Korea have an inverted pyramid for showing the ages of their existing population. Meaning that unless drastic changes happen practically overnight, there will no longer be any South Koreans in 50 years. They will be extremely rare in 25.

Other countries are in similar condition. Even China is not immune. Nor is Russia or Iran or the USA.