on the meaning of life............(from the thread "Finding Meaning in Life") support forum
i think a couple of these quotes deserve to appear in a walk-away members quotes. it may be too fiddly to do so but i thought it might be cool to put a few of these quotes around the website......a featured quote of the day from a vast sea of past insights? some of my own thoughts at the time were a little...unevolved, i think. oh well, at least i am not staying in one place i guess:-)
"Life is beyond meaning. It is too big for that. Meaning is something our minds create...............asking for meaning in life implies that life [is not] truly important..............I do not find that the problems in life or its transient and changing nature detract from its significance." - Coffee (16/8/2001)
http://www.aimoo.com/forum/postview.cfm?id=319472&CategoryID=11636&startcat=2041&ThreadID=60174
"The human mind craves order and meaning. We can not even look at the chaotic scattering of the stars at night without concocting constellation ?ictures?out of them ??ictures?that are not really there ?only in our minds. It soothes us somehow. It certainly soothed the ancient peoples who came up with the stories (and the gods) to go with them. But, the awesome beauty and magnificence of the universe, to me, is greater than these little man-made stories." - St. Thomas (16/8/2001)
"I've always known the meaning of my life. It is to create beauty in myself and the world around me. I strive to do that everyday.
I do not presume to think that this is the purpose of life or other people's lives...but in a wider scope, I think that we are all pieces of a sentient Universe (a la Babylon 5) that is trying to understand itself..our most basic purpose is to know and express ourselves." - Cyranothe2nd (18/7/2001)
from Looking too hard to find an Answer support forum
in defence of agnosticism.........."The biggest change in thought for me was the realization that I don't know the answer". ?A-train (8/9/2001)
Mog, CurtX...message for you here.... the lion's den
on walking away..................
"I think it's safe to say we're all sick and tired of being treated as if we never tried. No matter how many years you spent, how many hours in prayer and in Bible study, how many times you went to church, how much money you gave, how many tears you shed for your sins, Christians always assume it just wasn't enough." - Voltaire (31/10/2001)
"We feel the way we now feel, think the way we now think, and speak out the way we do because we have come to face an awful reality in our lives..........We came to see that the facts of our experience did not match what the Bible said about our faith and our God. We came to see that the Bible does indeed contradict itself...We came to see through the very words of the Bible itself, that the God of the Bible... is not a God worthy of love, but rather he is to be despised for the way he has treated his creation. All this and much more, in turn has lead some if not many of us to realize that the God of the Bible is not God at all. " - Zthor (1/11/2001)
"Mine was an agonizing seven year period of seeking and not finding, asking and not receiving, knocking and never having the door opened. I recall one of my prayers regarding what Jesus said about asking God. He said words to the effect of, "which among you would give your child a rock when he asked for bread or a snake when he asked for a fish. As much as you love your children, how much more does God in heaven love you and give good things to those who ask." It got to the point where I was telling God that I would settle for the snake or the rock. I remember praying to God and saying, "Silence is not an answer!!" It was a deafening silence. Occasionally, I would think I had received an answer from God, only to find out that it lead to another empty path. I slowly began to realize that my invisible friend was simply an imaginary friend." - Kicker04 (1/11/2001)
" I'm not mad at God. I'm mad at the fact that I wasted that much of my life chasing some pipe dream." - Stymie (10/11/2001)