'''The Purpose Driven Life''' by Rick Warren http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0310205719.01._PI_PE_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg {ISBN: 0-31020-5719] The name of a book written by Rick Warren. It provides a template for living out one's life to the full. It should be good reading for people seeking a good example to follow, amongst various LifePatterns. http://www.purposedriven.com/ ---- Hi Everyone, It's good to have some place for discussion. After I have read the First Chapter of this book, it obviously has told more about my purpose and purpose of higher being "God". ''God is BigOmega. Not worth discussing.'' God is the creator of all beings. Therefore, He is higher than anything we know and tries to discover in our life. ''Beings create themselves. Autopoesis, love it or leave it.'' * Out of what? ''Same stuff anyone else would create them out of.'' ** Listen to what you're saying. By what means could anything create itself? God has no limitation, which is why it's impossible to know God without building a good relationship with Him. ''God is male, female, fat, thin, existing, non-existing, all of the above. Build a good relationship with life and forget about God.'' In this book, the first chapter is call "It all starts with God". ''Then where does God start? If God doesn't have a creator, then why not cut out the middle man and say the universe has no creator?'' * Or, consider that God is not constrained by time. ''Neither is the universe, although some things within it are.'' Question: In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself? ''FalseDichotomy. The easy way to ditch advertising is to throw away your TV.'' Ideas: As we know, all beings are created and driven by purpose. Without purpose, it has no reason to be anything. ''Make your own purpose. We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream.'' Just like the example of salt. If salt is not salty, then why should we call it salt or use it as part of a very important ingredient for cooking. ''WhatsaDistinction.'' Do we know the purpose of our life? ''The life you live is not your life. It belongs to all of us. And we demand payment!'' Is it worth while to live for? ''Live, don't live, your choice.'' Is it worth anything to others? ''$2.50.'' And most important of all, is it worth anything to our creator (God)? ''ThouArtGod.'' I know it's hard for people to believe, but truly there is someone higher than the "Big Bang" theories. Right? ''Yes. FredHoyle.'' ---- I was waiting for the author of this page to provide more details about this approach to life. It has been a few days. So I jump the gun and post a question or two for him. ---- Q: ''Is this pattern useful for persons not aligned with the fundamentalist ChristianCulturalAssumption?'' A: I see the term "God" as creator, there are many religions with a similar view. Therefore the answer is yes. ---- Q: ''Irrespective of religious conviction, some people with their own PurposeDrivenLife gave the rest of the world nightmares. Examples being the Nazi parties which started with their view of Christian God and man's purpose on earth, or the extremists with a different God. On balance, do we have a better world with more PurposeDrivenLife people around?'' A: There are no references in the statements about anything which places the individual having purpose at any position of superiority with regard to others except to be "worthwhile". No intolerance or hatred, only a desire to have an agreeable relationship both with man and God. To offer comparisons mentioning Christianity, Nazism and nightmares, is to miss the points made by the apparently sincere person who penned the statements. It is clear to me that sincerity and a willingness to be "worthwhile" and to live a purpose driven life in the context of the statements would tend to make this a better world. ---- Q: Here is a question for you: Is it more desirable that man have no purpose driving his life? A: It's impossible to live a life without purpose, because it's just like a Tree that has no roots. ---- Q: And another: If not purpose driven, then what would you substitute for purpose? A: Self-destruction. ---- '''Comments from the person who first posted the two questions''' I did not respond to your questions after you posted the two two ones. The person who created the page did and this person uses same IP address as me. My original question was intended to set a '''caution flag'''. Some people can be extremely dedicated to their cause, can be "free trade", "freedom of information", "advancement of science", "social justice", "Gods will on earth" .... you name it. Often their dedication creates terror to other people, because the dedication was there without sufficient attention to other factors that are important, humanity, reality, etc. You may agree with me that in the case of Christianity, there has been a tattered history. Example: A recent TV program attributed the extent of the Irish Potato Famine to the indifference of the well-off English, who had responsibilities for the poor Catholic Irish. I introduced the InTheNameOfWiki page during the early 2004 Wiki Edit wars. The name was inspired by "In the name of..." TV series. I am glad common sense allowed this page to survive. My views are, even people without a purpose often have "Eat, Drink and be Merry" as their life purpose, sometimes not consciously. And if we are honest to ourselves, sometimes our actions causes more damage to an otherwise "Noble cause", due to the lack of sense of balance. ''GoWithTheFlow'' is another common unrecognised purpose in many peoples lives. '''My conclusions are that we need purpose, and we need to periodically review our purpose and make sure we do not engage in acts of denial and SelfDeceit. See MeaningOfLife --dl''' ---- ''It's impossible to live a life without purpose, because it's just like a Tree that has no roots.'' Maybe this is just semantic quibbling over the meaning of 'purpose', but why (other than to fulfill analogy) is it impossible to live a life without purpose? I can agree that it's not optimal to live a life without some framework of thought, but I would probably call this a moral or ethical code, rather than a purpose. For me, at least, I find less satisfaction in the "why" of life (purpose) than in the "how" of life (principles), perhaps because I don't feel that principles necessarily derive from a grand purpose. Of course, either is a better guidon than the "what" of life--the superficial, daily, physical aspects. ---- Summed up for me by: ''To define is perhaps to value '' -- DonaldNoyes.20080502.2344.m05 ---- CategoryBook