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| My cousin's essay. (in response to my vision of a meaning of life) | ||
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| nostie |
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Registered Member #185
Joined: Thu Mar 30 2006, 10:42PMPosts: 3167 |
It is not our appearance or our beliefs that we should be judged for. It is our actions against which we are tested. What judgment is reserved for humanity? So little of our resources are spent on exploring new life while so much is spent on ending life. Whether it be out of greed, fear, or ignorance, the earth has become a breeding ground for hostility and aggression. We are spending more resources on military than we ever were in our existence. We make out our biggest threat to be our fellow man. In 5 billion years it is estimated that the Earth will be close enough, and the Sun large enough for the Earth to be consumed by the Sun. In 3 billion years it is estimated that the Andromeda Galaxy will collide with our own Milky Way Galaxy. Unless humans managed to travel beyond our galaxy, these cosmic events would wipe humanity from existence for eternity. What purpose is there in life if destruction is our fate? Modern man arrived 150,000 years ago if we are to estimate conservatively. By 10,000 years ago we were building civilizations. 100 years ago we were just beginning to fly. 40 years ago we were preparing to land a human on the moon. When compared against the rest of the events happening across the universe, humanity has only existed for a relative blink of the eye. We cannot begin to comprehend the potential humanity is capable of, or where we may be in the future. Yet despite this enormous potential to improve ourselves, we regress into competition and war with each other. Whether it be political, social, religious, philosophical, there has always been justification for murder. When an individual kills a man he is a criminal. When an army kills a man they are heroes. We dress up murder with euphemisms and lies to make it seem just. Duty, heathens, martyrdom, terrorists, honor, redcoats, enemies are words of the same coin. Words trick us into believing that killing something less than a human makes us less than a murderer. We have grown no the wiser despite generations of war, and generations of dead. Military is still the largest industry in the world, an industry whose sole purpose is to manufacture tools designed to destroy life. The situation is growing worse. The world population is rapidly increasing. Space is running out. More and more countries are gaining access to nuclear weaponry. Still we preoccupy ourselves with killing each other, still we fail to see our mutual problem. There are no more frontiers to explore, no more havens to find asylum in. The only frontier left to us is space. Still we are spending a tiny fraction on space exploration when compared with military. Because military is our largest industry, it makes it difficult to adapt our infrastructure to peaceful application. With so many people involved in manufacturing, engineering, and serving for the military, it seems unrealistic to expect a change from this path. We must learn to accept that our long term existence is more important than our short term wealth. Eventually we will all die one day. Because we are mortal, we must find purpose in our life. Wealth has no importance when you reach your death bed. It will not comfort your passing or buy you immortality. Our only impression to the world upon our death is the children we bear, and the world we leave to them. While we may die, our ancestors will live. Thousands of years from now your home will be destroyed, your name forgotten, perhaps even your lineage ended. The only immortality you can hope to possess is the consequences of your actions. The responsibility is ours. Let those who inherit this world judge us accordingly. Robert Millinghausen |
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| gLiTch |
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Anal Assassin
Registered Member #455
Joined: Mon Oct 09 2006, 04:58AMPosts: 3848 |
deep. One of the deepest things ive read ever. And all very true. But most likely impossible to cure. We are all not perfect. And not everyone will listen. Two words is all i need to say that proves we will never work together to save our existence. Humans are born with natural Selfishness and Greed. To preserve your own life. Basic "animal" instinct. I must say that this was well written. I enjoyed it. Its true, if we only spent as much money on space exploration as we did military we might actually be able to travel to other galaxies, harness different energy's and resources. If you really think about it. There are aliens out there somewhere. Has to be. Why would we be the only living beings. What if living was something different in another galaxy or universe that was unforseen. Un-noticed. Anything could be possible. Venus had life like earth once long time ago. I forget wat happened, if it got too close to the sun or it was destroyed by a meteor or comit. You look at star wars and star trek and all that shit and theres ppl int he movie on different planets and galaxies and shit. Space stations the size of cities. It could be possible if we were to control and harness a different type of energy. But without the funding it will never happen. Until mankind realizes that we are all doomed unless we pull together, then we have already decided our own fate. |
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| Pockyninja |
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Ruler of all that is pocky
Registered Member #28
Joined: Mon Nov 28 2005, 11:17PMPosts: 704 |
While a lot of this is true and all good and all I think you overlooked something huge. The fact that war is what has gotten us everything for our survive. You talk about exploring space and saving humanity that is a great idea. The thing is that we wouldn't have explored space as quickly if we weren't competing with the Russians in the cold war for it. The Idea behind the rocket itself was designed from missiles which were made to fight wars. All the modern conviences come from something used in a war that got converted. Our need to compete with others and our war has and probably will continue to help humanity survive. I love how people say how wonderful things would be if we never had war and everything was all peaceful but then praise the efforts that only came about becouse of war. War is something horrible and should be a last resort taking a life is never something good but sometimes it is nessary. Also without war our problems with population would have come a lot sooner. I dont praise war I am the first to tell people to talk things though. It is simply human nature to fight it is what drives us. That being said You talk about the meaning of life and how we are just a blink in the exsistance of time. Your absolutely right we are nothing and our only goal in life is to become immortalized. Personally I always felt there was no defined meaning to life. It is something that everyone must find for them selfs because there is no one answer. If there is a god then I think that is something smart he did. We would do nothing if we had a specific goal half of our accomplishments woull be for nothing. As fpr us being a blink we are nothing a speck in reality we are the smallest of the small but you know what that isn't important. Sure we are nothing but do we need so much more then that? We have such little time why waste it on worrying about how small we are it seems like a waste of what we have. Just a thought. |
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| Noname|Boom |
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That one guy...
Registered Member #250
Joined: Tue May 09 2006, 11:59PMPosts: 2603 |
:( thought this was a thread from Wu about his cousin.... Oh well. p.s. - this meaning of life thing hurts my cranium. just live life!!! >EDIT< well i read what you guys wrote, and i think all of you have a good philosophy. and pocky has a good point on the war stuff, we got to this space exploration stuff from wars, even though the cold war wasn't a war with mass killing in it. something to think about... Edited Wed Jan 17 2007, 02:06AM |
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| Knightrider |
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Meteor 2016
Registered Member #316
Joined: Mon Jun 26 2006, 09:14PMPosts: 3503 |
Pockyninja wrote ... The thing is that we wouldn't have explored space as quickly if we weren't competing with the Russians in the cold war for it. The Idea behind the rocket itself was designed from missiles which were made to fight wars. All the modern conviences come from something used in a war that got converted. Our need to compete with others and our war has and probably will continue to help humanity survive. Word that Pocky. War may be wrong to many others, but it also gives us a chance to expand technology wise. Our Navy is full of Technology, also noted as the most powerful in the world. We competed with British back then to build the most powerful Navy, and through war, we gained technology. You talk about the world that is growing? Might sound selfish, but War is a neccessity. If you're so worried about overpopulation, then why worry about war? People die heros, its a great way to die. Sure, America's idea of going to war isn't all what it's thought out to be. But what if you're protecting yourself from invasion? What if you're standing there to defend your countryside from the bad? Just like the Americans did in the Revolution. Sure, it's tragic. Many lives were lost. But as he had said about overpopulation, it does get rid of a mass amount of people. People are evil anyways, some deserve to die. Sure, there's religeon, there's the UN, there's peace movements. There is nothing going to stop people from hating each other. It's just the basis of life, it's how it is. I know the object of my religeon is to spread the word of God to as much people as you can, but to me, that just disturbs more things and makes things worse. Religeon should be taught to those that are willing to follow it. There might not be wars had it been that others had to be invented over the truthful one. Why couldn't it just stay with the one that started? Why did people have to go and start other religeons? That's why it's hard to know which religeon or faith to choose, because there is such a large diversity of it. You don't know which one is right or wrong. But because of that, war has arised, and that's how it is. Men have greed as said above, we looked to expand just to have the bigger empire. It's been evident in the past and it's still evident now. I think I pretty much summed everything in the other thread about this topic. This is just my response to this dude's essay. It was well written, but there are some shallow parts. |
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| -Fux0r- Eric |
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Registered Member #523
Joined: Thu Dec 28 2006, 10:40PMPosts: 33 |
I love this meaning of life talk, it really makes ya think, nostie you said your cousin wrote that? Very very deep stuff Well written, and good responses, haha i really dont have much to say...sorry -Eric |
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| Wildcard23 |
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Registered Member #514
Joined: Wed Dec 20 2006, 06:33AMPosts: 1067 |
My Turn. Not that this is entirely unexpected that I would weigh in on this discussion. I entirely agree that competition is human nature. Being better than someone else drives us. Technology comes from that same drive. Every country tries to develop new technology to make their own lives better and if necessary, end the lives of those who threaten our existence in the case of the military. But the military's job is not soley to end lives and I feel as a former member of the military that I have to address this topic. The military was created to DEFEND OUR RIGHTS. To look at it in any other way would be shallow and shortsighted. If it wasn't for the military, we might still be under British rule, the British might be speaking German, the French would be eating wienersnitzel, and the atrocities that occurred to the Jewish at the hands of the Germans might still be going on. The military is in place to preserve and defend. Sometimes you have to go on the offensive to defend what is yours. Fighting isn't always the answer but if nobody fought for what they believed in, then we would never survive. Everyone would just get pushed over and agree to something someone else said. Sound familiar? Hitler, by chance? I would picture a world where someone like Hitler would come to power again simply by pushing everyone over. Those in the military stand for everything that our country stands for. They are all willing to die for that cause. They are all heroes and should be considered nothing less. nostie wrote ... This statement does nothing less than infuriate me. It has no grounds, no place, and no backing to support the allegation. It is a typical statement from someone who has zero life experiences and has never fought for anything they wanted. They were either given everything in their life on a silver platter or just don't care what happens. I understand this is your cousin Nostie, but I feel sorry for your cousin. If the world were full of people like that, the world would get nothing accomplished. Everything would get brushed off as too much effort so why do it. We dress up murder with euphemisms and lies to make it seem just. Duty, heathens, martyrdom, terrorists, honor, redcoats, enemies are words of the same coin. And how dare you ever associate the word terrorist with honor and duty. HOW DARE YOU!! Soldiers live their lives under honor and duty to protect what is right as layed out by our founding fathers. Our job is preservation of peace. Our job is to fight so that you can live in this country without fear. So that you can go to the beach without fear that warships are going to roll up and invade. So that you can go to work without the fear that planes will be flown into buildings and then have the buildings come crashing down to the ground. We kill those who threaten our way of life and threaten our own lives. It's called preservation of life. The military attempts to avoid all non-combatant casualties during a war however innocent people will be killed because TERRORISTS are cowards and hide behind them. They believe by killing others who differ from their beliefs and are spoiled that they will go to a place where they can have 100 virgin wives waiting for them. Good freaking luck. Hope you enjoy having a pitchfork stuck up your ass. What gives anyone the right to kill someone on the basis that believe in a different God or are spoiled? If this were the case, then we could all kill everyone who makes millions because they are spoiled. BUT IT WONT HAPPEN BECAUSE IT'S WRONG. If you did then you a murderer. If you did it on a large scale then you are a terrorist. Get it through your head. The majority of people work hard for their money and show more desire and drive to get what they wanted than you. You would have zero right to kill them. You would be a murderer. Murderers kill for fun or because they are greedy. Instead of working hard they don't learn from their mistakes and find it easier to blow someone's brains out in a 7-11 store and steal a couple hundred dollars from the register. It disgusts me to know that Soldiers are dying to allow you to have such a shortsighted and incorrect view. Grow up. That is seriously all I can tolerate to write on that subject without losing it. I do agree with everyone in here that war promotes technology. But as I said earlier, it can all be related back to our human nature. We want to be the best and we don't want to die. That is human nature. Look back in the history books. Humans compete for everything in life. That is life. And we don't like to die. We find ways to stay alive through the worst situations. That's why we are a great society. Space exploration is great and came about from our development of rockets. But let me ask you why are we exploring space. If everyone thought like Nostie's cousin then we would have already given up on the Earth. This is our home. And at least for the next 3 billion years before it gets destroyed we need to give everything we have to this world. Space is a great idea to find aliens that may present us with better technology and provide us with a neverending fuel source. But stop thinking 3 billion years from now and start thinking now. "Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but doesn't get you very far." - Van Wilder We wont have to worry about the Earth being destroyed if some moron in North Korea decides that he doesn't like anyone different from him and pushes the nuclear button or if a group of terrorists decide to set off a few nuclear weapons inside the United States. Think it's too far away? Think again and open your eyes? People in power that are not responsible to handle the power they possess need to be removed from power. I agree that we are judged on our actions. All you have in this world is your word. Your honor to do something you said you would. Actions speak louder than words and talk is cheap. If you want a solution for the world running out of space. Let's stop dumb people from breeding. There. Simple and easy solution. Then we'll have more room and the smart people can figure out ways to capitalize on the room we do have left. nostie wrote ... You are wrong about dying but right when you say it doesn't matter whether you die rich or poor. It matters when you look behind and see what you've accomplished in your life. Were you able to get up everyday and look in the mirror to say I gave it my all and I'm happy with the life that I've led? It matters for the legacy you left behind that does not only include your children but so much more. Were you part of something great? Did you stop the Germans from commiting atrocities in Europe? Did you help stop a plane from being flown into a building? Did you help make a computer company the best in the world? Did you invent an alternative fuel? Did you design a new cell phone that allows those in business to communicate quickly and efficiently? Or did you simply put money on the table and raise your children with a high level of values so that they can go out in this world and survive the right way? You leave so much more behind than just your children. Open your eyes and see that.Our only impression to the world upon our death is the children we bear, and the world we leave to them. nostie wrote ... The only person who has a right to judge us is God.
Edited Wed Jan 17 2007, 04:35PM
Let those who inherit this world judge us accordingly. |
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| Pockyninja |
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Ruler of all that is pocky
Registered Member #28
Joined: Mon Nov 28 2005, 11:17PM Posts: 704 |
I got to say nice work wild card I cant think of anything more to add to this topic. | ||
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| nostie |
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Registered Member #185
Joined: Thu Mar 30 2006, 10:42PM Posts: 3167 |
Wildcard23 wrote ... nostie wrote ... The only person who has a right to judge us is God.Let those who inherit this world judge us accordingly. GAHHH don't press your beliefs on me or I'll cut you! |
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| Knightrider |
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Meteor 2016
Registered Member #316
Joined: Mon Jun 26 2006, 09:14PM Posts: 3503 |
Hmm. Goose or Wildcard to write my reports. Dunno, both of them are very smart. Good post Wildcard, basically sums up everything that I would say had I not been hyped up on Mountain Dew. |
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