I do? My questions are very straightforward.
- Do I have a purpose? The answer is either yes or no. Yes would require elaboration. No is very succinct and requires little to none
- Is the propensity for pain greater than that for pleasure?
- It is possible to obtain satisfaction without any effort?
- If I have no purpose then what am I enduring the pain for? (pain is inevitable and pleasure/satisfaction is always temporary)
I've pondered over these questions since childhood and had I not found a purpose I would most likely not be here today or at least not in my existing capacity i.e. entirely unhappy, depressed etc. Now I understand that my "purpose" could be entirely subjective and I could be fooling myself in that the end of my existence is purely "the end" i.e. my efforts are ultimately entirely futile and inconsequential. At present, however, the evidence I've encountered supports the former.
I'll break it down for you, because your post was broad, as was my reply, and I'll be specific to save time. These quotes are taken from your original post:
"Belief is a necessary thing. Much of what we accept is not based on our own experience but rather through the acceptance of testimony (verbal and written)."
Belief is essentially accepting a statement as true. We believe everyday statements from others because we subconsciously evaluate statements for likelihood and act based on those prior probabilities. If my wife asks me to go to the store because we are out of milk, I will usually believe her claim. Why? Because running out of milk is a common issue in our house, because I've known my wife for years and she has demonstrated continual trustworthiness based prior claims, because I looked at the level of milk yesterday and it was a quarter full, etc. The evidence for the claim satisfies the low requirements for belief.
If a stranger on the street tells me I'm out of milk, how likely am I to believe them? Not likely, of course.
In fact, we do accept things based on our experiences. Most all of what we come to accept as true is based on our own learned experiences. You are more likely to trust the claim of a close friend over a stranger. You are more likely to trust a source that has proven reliable over an unknown source. We filter claims based on internal criteria constantly. Eventually, we hopefully come to realize that our experiences and senses can also be wrong, and we learn to apply an additional layer of claim-evaluation: critical thinking.
"My perspective is simple, do I (we) have a purpose? If not then I see no reason for continuing to consciously exist." - You have some loaded presuppositions underneath this. Does a purpose require an external source? If it does, why? Why is a self-defined purpose of less value than an externally defined purpose?
"Why? Because the propensity for pain is far higher than that for pleasure due to the accident of birth. I.e. 9 times out of 10 pleasure/satisfaction requires effort yet pain is achieved regardless of effort."
You presuppose that the totality for human experience is reducible to a pain/pleasure dichotomy. Even given that premise, you do not factor in qualitative outcomes in that dichotomy (e.g. the temporary pleasure of a high pain/effort situation outweighing the effort/pain input).
"If I have no purpose then what am I enduring the pain for? For what am I striving? To what end? "
Your question begging here assumes that a given purpose would be a reward for pain/effort. What if your externally-derived purpose is to suffer? What if your externally-derived purpose is to feel fleeting moments pleasure only to immediately feel lasting pain? What if you are a modern Sisyphus, damned to push a 1988 Honda Accord up a hill for all eternity?
"If existing models are to be believed then the universe will simply eventually collapse and all actions, no matter how great or insignificant, would be for nothing. All the knowledge accumulated, all the progress achieved... Nothing."
You presuppose that the only way to have significance is through an "objective" external source. Why? There is no particular reason to assume that an individual's brief existence is meaningless unless given a stamp of approval by an Arbiter of Value.
In most of the world, people operate under the theistic assumption that life is given meaning by an external source - generally a monotheistic God. We do this whether or not we consciously realize it. If a purpose is necessary for continuing life (is it?), what makes a meaning that you define for yourself worthless?
As an aside, I have had clinical depression off and on for most of my life, both with religion, and now without it. The insidious thing about depression is that it disguises actual reality with depression-goggles. That is, you think you see the world for how it really is, but it's really the inability to either feel joy, or the inevitable return to a lack of feeling, that skews the world view more than anything else could. This may or may not be something that you relate with, but regardless, I figure I'd put it our there.
I find this quote wanting. For an entity to be all encompassing it would have had to create everything and that includes both good and evil (and every different shade of gray in between). It would be the originator of objective morality. In other words without an entity to enforce the rules/laws of good and evil neither actually objectively exists. It's all subjective in such an instance
Of course you would find the problem of evil wanting if you assume that the God it addresses does not have those characteristics that the trilemma contains. If God is not omnibenevolent, then the problem is "solved". Now try solving it when you believe in an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God.
The existance of God is not provable.
No line of thoughts can possible end up at the absolute certainty of Gods existance.
If you possess absolute certainty of Gods existance, then that is because God himself just defined it to be so.
No other reason is possible and thus the absolute certainty of Gods existance is never acceptable to anyone who doesn't possess it him/herself.
And so all arguing is pointless.
Absolute certainty is a red herring. We can't be
absolutely certain about anything.
Of course, we can be
relatively certain. and we can be so relatively certain of the truth of a thing that that thing might as well be functionally, absolutely true for daily life. Now, we cannot disprove or prove the existence of all gods for all universes, but if we are presented with claims about God X, and those claims are testable, we can absolutely find out if it is (relatively) true that that God exists or doesn't.
