Our Purpose?

[Charan Singh]

(03-02-2015, 11:51 PM)Pckts Wrote: I occasionally think as to why we evolved to be the way we are. Why we strive to constantly gain knowledge and grow as a species.
This thread is for anybody who wants to share their idea as to why we evolved to be "human."

I'll get it started,

I think mankind has evolved as a protector to Mother earth and even the universe. I think that while we destroyed and harmed the earth early on, we are now growing and becoming more global and universally aware of the repercussions and the actions needed to fix our mistakes and make it better. I think we actually needed to make those massive mistakes to learn as much as we have as well as get actual evidence to help us grow. I think we are the earth's "Protector," if you look at the earth as a mother to us all, then maybe she gave us the ability to protect her from lets say (asteroids, global warming, supernovas etc.) All normal things that happen in our universe but cause the "death" of a planet. Maybe if we look at the earth as a supreme being, her goal is to survive. Like a queen ant, she cannot do it alone, she needs "soldiers" who will protect her because it also protects themselves. The true solider doesn't do it for monitory value but rather for the betterment of themselves and their "family and home."
Its just a theory but that is more or less my feeling about the most asked question
"What is our Purpose?"
 
I would love to hear anybody else's hypothesis' or theories as well.

I think this is nice start to the thread  and is exactly what I think, but adding a few points to same and few point raised in the thread replies.

As it has been correctly said, "economics and governments are nothing but man made concepts", further evolution is nothing but the results of the previous actions and will of the animals to be better (Karma in one word) - example: why the length of elephant's nose (trunk) is long? Because elephants felt the need for long noses and worked towards it and chose sexual partners accordingly to this requirement. Going by the same concept, Elephants in Africa has realised that they being hunted (proached) for tusk and now slowing tusk are getting smaller and at times some elephants don't have tusk at all (few years of humans action have brought about evolutionary change).

I'm giving few links to support the statement made above.

https://www.awf.org/blog/going-tuskless
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima...or-change/

Now, coming back to the question - 

In my view, purpose of life is to reproduce and give a better future of next generation, and attain salvation.

To salvation, I'll come later.

We humans are no different than any other living being and our life has same value as that of any other living being. Just like any other animal life revolves around copulation and then raising the young ones, in same way humans life does (passing the gene). The way elephants are now  making a evolution in by shrinking their tusk, humans evolved by changing their thinking and becoming more efficient via making new tools so much so that we are now challenging not only human limits to adapt to these tools & to consequences of humans actions (which were ironically made to assist us) but all other living being are having to do same. 

Humans needed to bigger brain because humans weren't fast or physically strong enough compared same sized animals and growth is way to slow, babies are nursing for 3 years, too much dependency on other humans. But having bigger brain become a boon, and we wandered off too far and expanded our control to all known horizons. Here comes the twist, humans used their trait to no limits and here we are. Since we have bigger brains we take more decisions but our decisions aren't limited to our need but to make our current life more convenient, but are far stretched in wrong direction. Tools (humans inventions), we are making give us small time satisfaction but give pain in long term and this pain isn't restricted to us but to all living being.  
 
Since, we are thinking animals and can certainly foresee the consequences of our actions yet we go on and take decisions that aren't overall beneficial example 5G, it'll have very strong radiations which impacts over health adversely and small birds can't survive it - yet most of us are looking forward to it instead of looking for alternate solutions.

I agree with @Polar, except for so be it part and believe as @Pckts said responsibility comes to humans to strike a balance between us, other living being and nature. We need to start with amending our catastrophic mistakes. Problem we have, right now, is "so be it thinking", and allowing others to do what they do, not judging others. Judgment is a trait nature provided us, just like intelligence. Problem with judgement is that we start condemning other humans instead of educating them about the consequence and reasoning ourselves, education system needs to be changed for the same. 

This type of living - using our intelligence, judgement, morality and ethics gives us the Salvation. Salvation is nothing but living a life such that we experience minimum pain - not only humans but all living being and sources of life (earth, sun and air) aren't impacted negatively, and salvation has to here on earth, not in heaven or in afterlife or in next life.

Salvation and this lifestyle are the bases of all religions of the world - giving back what we take from universe and striking a balance with universe. Pain is inevitable but certainly it can be minimised by changing our lifestyle and thoughts. Reply