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Topic: Christian Studies - Philosophies Assignment: The Meaning of Life (Read 1207 times) |
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Lukian The Wizard
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Christian Studies - Philosophies Assignment: The Meaning of Life
« on: 2002-05-28 04:55:02 » |
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Hermit recommended I post this in order to benefit the Virian Commmunity.
It's rather crappy and is only a quickly done assignment, so I don't really remember or agree with everything I said, it just had to be done 
hmm.. I don't seem to have the critera sheet anymore, hope you figure out what it's about 
Postmodernists believe that “All claims of truth are equally valid”. And they also believe that tolerance and acceptance should be commonplace in the world.
Postmodernism can not actually be defined, as it is a ‘new age’ way of thinking.
This so-called ‘new age’ is rooted in sources such as astrology, evolution – though this view is apparently from the actual organic evolution to the psychological and spiritual evolution. New age thinkers claim their world view has its roots deep in human history, such as the system of Hindu thought. Basically any person can be part of this post-modern society without any conflicts.
The meaning of life does not directly impact on people’s lives, however it is often thought about in a lot of people’s spare time, or quite possibly when they are feeling any level from extremely high to rock bottom low. Quite large discussions are often commonplace from time to time and are thoroughly meaningful and enjoyable for some. While it is not a day to day question for everyone, it has been made quite interesting thorough movies like Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning of Life’ and even ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Trilogy in Four parts’ by Douglas Adams. The latter a very interesting book explores a lot of issues and actually gives you the answer to ‘Life, the Universe and everything’.
I am, since birth, a Lutheran, I have been baptized into Jesus Christ. However, I do not believe I can be categorized that deeply, I can however be classified as a Christian – because this is a global religion encompassing many sub-strands such as Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican and others, even those that can’t be classified deeply. Although Christian, I am also virian. The Church of Virus is a neo-cybernetic philosophy for the 21st century. A virian is defined as ‘of or relating to the Church of Virus.’ The church of virus is by definition an atheistic religion, but it and Christianity can happily co-exist, though the Christians or others may be less ‘enlightened’. The Church of Virus even has a saint. ‘Charles Darwin was illuminated as a saint of the Church of Virus on February 12, 1996 on the 186th anniversary of his birthday for his contribution to the Theory of Evolution making him perhaps the most influential memetic engineer of the modern era.’ While I have not been a virian for very long, virians are extremely intelligent lot, and have the greatest way of ‘new-age’ thinking ever seen!
Truthfully, as a Christian I did not understand the question ‘How do you think life should be lived?’ I turned to the virians for some help and found it very enlightening.
After 2 hours of discussion with Hermit, including a series of questions and well in place questions (eg. Text role plays). I discovered that in summary, life should be lived seeking to feel good and according to the virtues of Reason, Empathy and Vision (See Appendix A).
However, to fully understand this you would most likely need to go through the same process I did (or at least read Appendix B). I felt good the entire time I was discussing about life, except when an <hermit> Aaaargh! of frustration (I believe) was emittedJ. Anyway make sure you feel good in life, and you follow the virtues to ‘Live your memetic life!’
That surely is the meaning of life – I think J.
Postmodernism is a view of the world, originally a style or genre of art.
There are two main bits to understand Postmodernism. One is sort of an Existential view of the world. The protagonists of Post modern literature, theatre, sculpture and comics generally feel that Life is crappy, God is dead (or at least really quiet lately, and why is that?), and therefore the True Meaning of Life is up-for-grabs. Postmodernism doesn’t give the meaning of life and last time I looked about two minutes ago neither does Christianity. The true meaning of life must be found for yourself and for all people, that is if you wish to philosophise down the foundations of Science and Rationalism.
You might accidentally end up producing "Post modern" art, or art that expresses your confusion, your search for meaning, your inability to find meaning. Even ones who believe in God have there opinion of God and their meaning of life changed.
Christianity also doesn’t give a ridgy didge 100% correct meaning of life, while weeding through the ton of junk on the internet, such a shocking source for matters like the Christian view of the meaning of life, pity really, the best meaning I could actually find was someone saying ‘the meaning of life is to store up treasures in heaven’. This is in absolutely no way the meaning of life; we are put here for a greater purpose than to do something as stupidly simple as that. The meaning of life, when you personally find it, will not seem correct straight away, you may not even understand or even see it instantly, while doing this assignment over the past five hours (mixed with 4hrs of surfing). I may have found a meaning to life but it just isn’t dawning on me yet if I actually have. The Christian meaning of life will take some finding, the Postmodernist meaning of life doesn’t even exist as of yet.
Appendix A: The Virian Virtues
Appendix B: not included in this post (a few pages long  )
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Kharin
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In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
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Re:Christian Studies - Philosophies Assignment: The Meaning of Life
« Reply #1 on: 2002-05-28 05:24:19 » |
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Quote:| Postmodernism can not actually be defined, as it is a ?new age? way of thinking... The Postmodernist meaning of life doesn?t even exist as of yet. |
No, it isn't. The central concept of postmodernism is suspicion to all meta-narratives rather than any attempt to embrace any new overriding narrative. It is in essence post-marxist and existentialist. In other words, it is rather the point that it does not define any meaning to life, since it denies that any such meaning is possible.
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David Lucifer
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Enlighten me.
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Re:Christian Studies - Philosophies Assignment: The Meaning of Life
« Reply #2 on: 2002-05-28 12:07:02 » |
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For those not familiar with postmodern jargon, "meta-narrative" is roughly equivalent to "paradigm", or the base framework of memes that defines your perspective. Religion and science are the two most common meta-narratives. Postmodernists deny that either has a special claim to truth. In other words, they are maps, not the territory. OTOH, I think most postmodernists would agree that some maps are more accurate than others.
BTW, the question "How should life be lived" was the final exam question in the recent made-for-TV miniseries Dinotopia. Coincidence?
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