One of the main problems with the human race

[IWantGod]

We do not have a strong united ideological goal.

We are just a bunch of individuals trying to live with each-other, and the goal, if there can be said to be one at all, is the fulfillment and expression of an individuals desire, and governments seem to exist in-order to better facilitate and govern human expression. Despite being in agreement that we all want to express and fulfill our desires, there is war and conflict.

While much of that conflict and territorial behavior is down to our fallen natures from a strictly Christian perspective, i also think much of it is down to the fact that we don’t have a united purpose, a goal, a dream for the future involving all of us.

The “why are we doing this” question seems to be pushed aside for the convenience of consumerism. Consumerism is the goal, and there doesn’t need to be a grand purpose to it. But i think this is a sign of our immaturity as a human race. I think our territorial nature, the fact that we have not yet resolved our differences, and the fact that there is a rampant strain of extreme individualism in human culture, all testifies to the fact that we have not yet grown up as a human race. As a human race i would argue that we are still in our infant years.

In purely human terms I use to think that science would be the goal that unites us, and i think the scientific ideal was a good sign of what could unite us and provide for us a united purpose that goes beyond mere consumerism and waste management.

So i ask you all, why are we doing this? What is the goal and purpose of the human race? (our need for salvation aside)

.

 

[Benadam]

To what end ? In my opinion.

To those without faith;
Regaining what was lost by the fall of man without God.

To those who do have faith
Regaining what was lost by the fall of man with God.

 

[Ecclesiastes]

I believe that we are here to bring the world to its completion so that the prophecies in Revelation, Chapter 22, can be fulfilled. Other than that I simply do not see a purpose and I believe that God would quickly thwart any of our man made goals that we come to value and actively pursue, especially consumerism for the sake of consumerism itself, unless it promotes our true destiny during a given part of human history. Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity!

 

[IWantGod]

@Benadam and @Ecclesiastes.

I agree that the religious dimensions of our lives, our salvation, is the most important thing. I also think that whatever we do ought to be ordered towards that which is good. God should be in everything we do. However, the idea that man made goals, the human imagination, and non-religious expression, doesn’t have a role to play in what is good is a mistake in my opinion. We have souls, we have a spiritual nature, but we also so have a physical dimension to our lives. I do not believe that the universe is just a waiting room with pamphlets detailing the path to salvation. The Universe is here to express all of our good and i think a united goal as a human race would allow us to better express certain kinds of good especially when it is something that everyone can agree with…

 

[po18guy]

Oddly enough, “to know, serve and love God” seems trite, but all else follows from it. Or should.

Concupiscence pretty well sums up the human condition.

 

[Benadam]

The Universe is here to express all of our good and i think a united goal as a human race would allow us to better express certain kinds of good especially when it is something that everyone can agree with…

Addressing the physical only. Survival of species with certainty and without injustice. Survival of species unites people naturally. But that sounds so… cliche

 

[Rhubarb]

There is no goal or purpose to life.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Are you a Catholic or a Christian?
Because in that case, the purpose and goal is to unite oneself to God

 

[Nyx]

I think it is one of the greatest thing about human existence- that we can create our own goals, purposes and in a pretty limited way determine our own future (yes, in a limited way but I wouldn’t take it for granted. There were time periods and even areas today where with few exceptions your future was “assigned” at birth).

And yes, we are a territorial species, we have our own interests which sometimes are in conflicts with the interests of some other people, we have different beliefs, opinions, etc. I would totally distrust any ideology/institution/person who promises people a “grand purpose who unifies everyone”. It was tried before with the result that it created an appearance of unity and total belief in the “cause”- as long as you didn’t pay attention to those dead, in prison or too afraid to manifest any disagreement.

I don’t think the human race has any goal or purpose unless you consider the biological “goal” of reproduction and survival (as a group).

 

[Aloysium]

What is the goal and purpose of the human race?

We are to tend to the garden that God has created, sharing in His glory. Since the fall we have been moving towards that end in and through the Way that is Jesus Christ. We do so doing God’s will to love one another, holding Love above all else.

 

[Wesrock]

So i ask you all, why are we doing this? What is the goal and purpose of the human race? (our need for salvation aside) .

I understand entirely what you’re asking with this, but can we answer this question apart from the greatest commandments?

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Insofar as we love God, whether we acknowledge it or not, we are in a constant pursuit of the good, the truth, the beautiful. Mankind is driven to pursue such things (as they draw us closer to God). The more secular, scientific part of me dreams of Star Trek-ian future in which poverty is eliminated, all of human kind is united as one, in which our curiosity pushes us further and further out into the stars and in scientific pursuit. It idealizes human curiosity and human resilience.

Realistically, and theologically, these are true to a point. They’re true parts of what a person should be (and not as ends in themselves but as part of what points us to God), but I don’t think we’ll ever shake the stain of original sin in these times.

Jesus also prays to his Father:

that they may be one, even as we are one.

And this of course is for the Church, but which, like the parable of the mustard seed, starts small and spreads over the whole world, encompassing all human kind. May mankind be one. May we all love our neighbors as ourselves.

Maybe on a secular forum I’d have left out the theology, I don’t know. I’m in a mood.

We are here to love one another, and driven to seek the good, the truth, and the beautiful.

 

[Genesis315]

Yep, we have a common origin in God and are called to a common destiny in Him. That is where the unity of the human race is found.

 

[STT]

So i ask you all, why are we doing this? What is the goal and purpose of the human race? ( our need for salvation aside )

We need to evolve more. We are still in tribe mind state of living.

 

[Bradskii]

As a race, the only thing that will theoretically unite us is survival. And I mean survival as a race/species.

So reaching for the stars (we can’t stay here indefinately) might be the only thing we can do in that regard.

 

[o_mlly]

Unique to humans is an intellectual life characterized by reason, imagination and, most importantly, free will. These unvarying properties may exist as only potentialities at various stages of actualization (as in the unborn, catatonic, or demented) and, even if only pure potentialities, still constitute a human being at all times. Any understanding of satisfying our purpose must provide satisfactions to these, our highest, faculties. Our intellect seeks “truth”; the truth about everything. Our free will always seeks the “good”.

All animate objects seek a contented co-existence with their environment. The non-human animal is content if its physiological needs—its hunger, thirst and its sexual needs—are satisfied. Since we are partly animal, we also have these needs and seek to satisfy them. But, inasmuch as we are also human, the satisfaction of these instinctual needs is not sufficient to make us content; they are not even sufficient to make us sane. Born into this world at a time and place not of our choosing, we realize we will leave in much the same manner. The animal “is lived” through the biological laws of nature and is in harmony with the world, never needing to transcend it.

Humans, “life aware of itself”, know themselves to be in the world but not of the world; partly divine, partly animal; partly infinite, partly finite. The contradictions and contingency of our existence cause us anxiety and create our need to find ever-higher forms of unity with the world, with others, and with our Creator. This impulse to understand the world, the Creator’s plan for us in this world, and to do so within a frame of reference that is always in the world, requires that we somehow make the Transcendent immanent; make God immanent in us.