Is mans propensity for belief in a higher power just the minds self-defence against the pointlessness of life?

Answer 1

Yep. Some people just can't face the fact that they might be responsible for their own consequences!

Answer 2

This is just in fun. Philosophy requires that you validate or prove every assumption before you can pose a question to be reasoned. Firstly, define "life" or that part of it you wish to examine in more depth. Then define "pointless". Do you mean without purpose or without a conclusion? Next, argue and justify the assumption that that part of life you have defined is pointless in the way that you define that word. Then go through the whole procedure defining "self-defence" and argue why people should need to create a defence against the pointlessness you have argued exists. Then define "belief" and "propensity" and then show how human beings have a propensity to believe what they cannot detect with their five senses or measure or observe with equipment such as one finds in laboratories, equipment that can prove the existence of phenomena that a human being's five senses cannot detect. When you have got that far, define "a higher power". Why "a higher power" and why not "higher powers"?
Then, ask the question again and ask respondents to argue and prove why they agree or disagree - and then you will have a university standard essay that is bound to get an "A".

Answer 3

It could be, if that higher power represented an ultimate benefit with little or no demand placed on the believer to change one's life. The understanding of religious faith as a kind of escape, expression of inauthenticity, or as a kind of narcotic meant to dull one's senses in regards to reality represents the ideological construel of religion by modernity. However, do any of the perceptions correspond to the actual beliefs and practices of any religion? A phenomemonlogical approach to religion reveals quite the contrary. Religion has actually served as one of the great witnesses to the truth of existence. Modernity resents this because religion is a rival to its absolutist claims.

In terms of your perception that life might just be pointless, one might assert that their own life is pointless, but to abstract from the particular to the general has more to say about the particular than the general. Further, the fact that one might find that life is pointless begs the question of the intelligibility of one's own existence-- that one knows that life is pointless, means that life is intelligible, and as such, cannot simply be relegated to being meaningless.

Answer 4

Life is not pointless quite the reverse in fact. Life can only veer towards the pointless when someone presses their self-destruct button by abusing the mind and body.
The belief in a higher power can be true conviction, blind faith or maybe it's a softener for that final step towards death and what comes after.

Answer 5

i dont think so, for many, i know i dont see life as pointless, but as an experience
i also feel that if you believe in a spiritual side of the human, that is not bound by this physical body, then it becomes an easy step to believe in a spiritual higher power
so it , to me, really comes down to if you limit yourself mentally to this physical world, and what is currently popular concepts, or go beyond it
for instance, esp, some people have it in differring forms, i think most all of us have met or heard of someone who knew something in advance, they imagined it or dreamed it or just knew it, somehow they had information other then what they could of learned or observed in their physical body,
or when you meet someone and get that "feeling" that they are a bad person, its not anything they have said or done, something is going on there beyond just this physical life
i use those two examples to show that its all much more complicated and diverse being a human then the physical
there is something within us , which i think of as our spirit, that goes beyond the physical
and if this is true, if we are spirits inside our physical bodies, why isnt it a possibility that we have a spiritual leader?

Answer 6

There is a very strong argument for yes. We seek a reason for our existence by sighting a higher power, when the possibility that we are by chance of evolution can be depressing. Is life pointless though? I would say no.

Answer 7

Yes, logically there is no point to life.... so man kind invented god, religion and some Utopia, a notion about the after life..... in heaven. God can also be blames for all the bad things man kind does. All the unfairness and injustices. No one wants to face up the the pointlessness and hopelessness of existing.

Answer 8

Its a lack of knowing who they really are as an individual and in relationships. The only way is to live ones life as best as he/she can, and hope all the experiences built up over ones life helps them except the inevitable(death) when it comes. Good luck, may the force be with you, and finally live long and prosper!!!, and remember "life's a box of chocolates you never know what life will bring"

Answer 9

Interesting view, possibly, and it beats the view that some have that man made it all up just to keep people from killing each other.

There are so many views out there....but life becomes what you make it, live here, live now, it's only pointless if you make it so.

Answer 10

Quite the opposite, in fact. Man's mind is a chaotic undisciplined place which mistakenly considers itself the center of all things and is often consumed with pursuits of its own gratification. Man's capacity for faith however, transcends his "humanity" and supercedes his consciousness in an effort (however fleeting) to be at one with his Creator. It is precisely BECAUSE life isn't an exercise in futility that this is so.

Answer 11

Definately.