What led you to God?

Quite right (at least for me). And I thought it was great fun, too (sorry Phat).

We live in a world full of wonders. Some people look at the wonders and decide that those wonders are God. Others look at the wonders, and see those wonders as the creation of God. Others just see the wonders.But all of them see the wonders. So there is something there, whether or not you believe it has to do with God. Our purpose in life comes from within ourselves.

Let's start by putting this is perspective.In a number of posts, in several threads, prophex has been saying that purpose comes only from God, and that atheists lead purposeless and meaningless lives. I have been challenging prophex over that. It's fine for him to believe that his purpose comes from God. But it is demonstrably wrong to claim that atheists lead purposeless and meaningless lives.If prophex wants to go into philosophy and theology, as he has hinted, that's his choice to make. I wish him well on whatever he chooses. But I hope his choice is made with his eyes fully, and not based on faulty premises.That's why I replied to prophex. Now back to the question. You and prophex are both Christians. I am keeping my religious views private (not part of the debate). As Christians, you believe that you have souls. When I suggested that our purpose in life comes from within, then you could take that as saying that purpose comes from the soul.Some atheists might also believe that they have a soul, but their concept of a soul would be very different from yours. For atheists with such a view, it would still be reasonable to say that purpose comes from the soul. Other atheists deny that there is a soul. They can take my statement as saying that purpose in life comes from their personality and from the choices they make in their lives. Yes, you are correct. And some of those people are Christians.The medical evidence seems to be that depression has physical causes. I guess I have been fortunate. I have always had a positive outlook, even in circumstances that could lead some people to despair. Yes, that's correct. But what you describe can happen just as much whether you are a Christian, a Buddhist, an atheist, ... Some of us are fortunate, others are not so fortunate. Whether the choices we make in our lives can affect this, I do not know. It may be impossible to know.

Then we disagree on that. You might actually be right on that. I expect robinrohan the nihilist would approve. No need to apologize. If everyone agreed on everything, there wouldn't be any interesting discussions.

I don't see any problem there. Purpose is inherently subjective. I am suggesting that we were born to be able to make choices, and to establish our own purposes by means of the choices we make. Beasts of the field also make choices, although the choices available to them are more constrained than those available to us.

These are what I am talking about. I cannot find any basis for what you call "capital-P Purpose". Many of our abilities are acquired, so not something we are born with.We often ascribe purposes to things, creatures, etc. I suppose one could call that objective, to the extent that people agree. But we also ascribe purposes to ourselves, and I don't see how that could be other than subjective.

Your "argument" is very weak.If the significance in our lives is apparent, then it is apparent due to the evidence we see around us. That evidence has nothing to do with an afterlife. Your inference to an afterlife has no basis.

Sorry, but I disagree with that.Both "meaning" and "purpose" are inherently subjective. Talk of "objective purpose" is itself meaningless.

Now you are back to "intended use", which is clearly subjective.I suppose by "formal purpose" you might have meant something like "purpose derivable from form." I don't actually believe that purpose is ever derivable from form, and your example of a car illustrates this.What you probably mean, is "conventional purpose". That is, you want to go by a consensus opinion. Perhaps that's what prophex means, too. Maybe when prophex says there is no purpose without God, he is really saying that there is no purpose unless he is a member of an organized religion which adopts a convention with respect to purpose.It is reasonably easy to have people agree on a conventional purpose for a car, because a car is relatively simple. A human is very complex, and can do many different things. The lack of a conventional purpose is just a reflection of the fact that there are multiple purposes that could equally be argued for.A question for you. Isn't what you consider "formal purpose" inconsistent with having free will?

Robin seems to be saying that a car has purpose, but a person does not have purpose.If we look at a car, we can give an entirely mechanical description of how that car behaves. The behavior is fully explained by the action of its mechanical components. We can explain the behavior of the car without any reference to purpose.If I try to explain the behavior of a person, say robin, I cannot do so with a mechanical account. What mechanical explanation is there for the message to which I am responding? What mechanical explanation could there be for robin's often somewhat poetic writing style? The only kind of explanation we can give for robin's behavior is in terms of purpose. That is, we can only explain his behavior in terms of his carrying out one or more purposes.It's that way for just about everything we see. Mechanical system can be given mechanical descriptions. But some systems defy a mechanical account, and require explanation as purposeful behavior. And it is only in biological systems that we see such purposeful behavior. Among biological system, humans probably exhibit purposeful behavior more than any other system.Robin says that a car has purpose, but that a human does not have purpose. Is robin saying that on purpose, and for what purpose is he saying it?

We could test that, by observing your behavior. If we discover that you are the CEO of a corporation that makes its income by ripping off poor people, we would have excellent reasons to dispute that it is your purpose. Here is how to determine the purpose of a car.Start the motor. Put the car in gear. Then jump out. Now watch the behavior of the car as it carries out its purpose.After that test, I think you might agree that a car has no purpose. It has a use (for us), but not a purpose.What you are calling a "formal purpose" of the car is really your purpose for the car. It isn't the car's purpose at all.Humans don't have a formal purpose (as you use that term), only because we don't have purposes for other people. There were times in the past when it was common to have purposes for other people. But, thank God, slavery was abolished and we don't do that any more.

It would be better to say that humans are above mere formal purpose.It isn't a lack of anything.

I agree. The whole idea of "formal purpose" is silly. If there is such a thing, then robinrohan should be able to write down rules of form that could be mechanically applied to determine the formal purpose of an object. I doubt that he could.In Message 289, I was pointing out that even if there were such a thing as "formal purpose", then not having one would be a benefit, not a lack.

We choose our purposes of our own free will. I suppose you could call that "ultimately arbitrary," but thats an unusual way of describing free will.

If there is no way to determine this alleged purpose, then there is no basis for saying that there is such a thing. If there is a way of determining it that is independent of whether a Martian or anybody else, then determining the purpose should reduce to mechanically applying rules.