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THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF LIFE

Phil Carver – September 2, 2007

I believe that the universe has a purpose and our lives have meaning.  Part of the human condition is to wonder about the meaning of it all.  Is the Hokey-Pokey what it’s all about?  Is there a higher meaning or purpose of our brief lives in a vast universe?  This culture makes kind of a joke of this issue.  Some people even have bumper stickers that say “the one who dies with the most toys wins.”  That does not seem like a fulfilling purpose.

Another view held by many religions is there is a vast awareness or god that has an intended purpose for the universe and our lives as part of it.  Personally, I have seen no evidence of interventions by a supernatural being.  But a conscious intent by a god is not necessary for the universe to have an ultimate outcome or purpose.  The outcome could be just a natural unfolding of the universe. 

I am going to examine what we know about the universe and the interdependent web of life to see if it is progressing towards an outcome.  And if so, what is the apparent role for humans and for us as individuals. 

I believe the universe displays at least two apparent purposes.  The first and most obvious is a place for life to flower.  Life needs no other purpose but to live and reproduce and be beautiful.  It does not need humans to perceive the beauty.  Buzzing bees are all the admiration that flowers need.   Flowers are over 100 million years old, but humans have been around less than one percent of that time.   As Roger Gillette has pointed out several times from this pulpit, all life has intrinsic value and meaning.

The second apparent purpose is more speculative.  Life seems to naturally evolve towards more awareness.  Even though evolution is not a conscious process, it seems to drive life to becoming smarter and more alert to its surroundings. 

This is not to say smarter is always more adaptive or successful.  Bacteria and insects are the most successful organisms on Earth.  But intelligence has evolved among a wide variety of lineages, not just among mammals.  Humans are smarter than other animals but only in degree.  The basic processes in our brains are the same as other animals. 

Other intelligent species include birds such as ravens.  Ravens can solve complex problems and bend wire to make tools.  Birds evolved from dinosaurs.  Mammals and birds went separate ways about 100 million years ago. 

Even more surprising is the intelligence of some mollusks, especially several species of octopi.  They have manipulative appendages and eyes that work as well as ours;  and they are very smart.  In laboratory experiments they can solve complex problems to get food.  They are roughly as smart as cats or dogs.  Mollusks and mammals went separate ways about 500 million years ago. 

This phenomenon is called convergent evolution.  Intelligence is adaptive for large omnivores.  If you want to survive in a complex and rapidly changing environment, it helps if you are willing to eat almost anything and have the ability to figure out what is going on.  That is what ravens, octopi, raccoons and humans do very well. 

The first evolutionary imperative for a species is to survive.  There are emerging threats to our survival.  There is a growing awareness of the extinction of species, global warming and other environmental problems among many religions. 

 A huge cultural transition needs to occur within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren.  If we don’t stabilize the amount of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 2040 or 2050, catastrophic climate changes are likely.  Not guaranteed, but likely.  This requires we reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent before 2050.  That is a very short time when buildings, power plants, roads and other basic infrastructure last 40 to 100 years.  We should not build another new freeway or coal-fired power plant from this day forward. 

The need to save the Earth does not mean there isn’t time to raise children or enjoy beauty.  I helped raise four children and they are doing fine.  I enjoy beauty regularly.  I have also worked on peace and environmental issues almost 40 years.  Raising children and working to protect the Earth have been the most fulfilling things I have done. 

If society does not seem to be changing fast enough, don’t despair.  Churches, especially progressive churches such as this one, can accelerate the personal and societal transformations that are necessary.  Knowledge of human psychology illuminates the problem and the possibilities.  There are many in this audience who know more about psychology than I do. 

As with biological evolution toward greater awareness, there is also a personal evolution toward greater awareness.  This is more than just the maturation from childhood to adulthood.  Not everyone attains the same level of awareness. 

According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, there is progression of awareness based on satisfying a hierarchy of human needs.  These needs are in two basic groups: deficiency needs and growth needs.  Among the deficiency needs, each lower need must be met before moving to the next higher level.

The four deficiency needs are:

1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.;

2) Safety/security: feeling out of danger;

3) Belonginess and Love: affiliation with others and acceptance; and

4) Esteem: to achieve, to feel competent, to gain approval and recognition.

These do not satisfy everything that people need.  People’s growth needs are as real as their physical and emotional needs, but individuals will generally act upon their growth needs only if they feel their deficiency needs are met.  There are surveys that can measure the levels of personal satisfaction based on satisfying growth needs.

The four growth needs are:

1) Cognitive: the need to know, understand and explore;

2) Aesthetic: appreciation of symmetry, order, and beauty;

3) Self-actualization: the need to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential; and

4) Self-transcendence: to connect to something beyond the ego and to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.

This last and highest growth need is also called the need for Spirituality.  When we are working on this, we feel part of a community and feel fulfilled.

Our culture promotes fulfillment through consumption and status.  These are lower- level needs.  It is a culture of consumerism promoted by corporations and based on greed.  Advertisements are designed to increase anxiety to encourage people to buy a product or service.  Churches and religion can counterbalance greed and consumerism. 

We will never find fulfillment simply from status, buying things and personal comfort.  I find fulfillment in working on environmental and social issues and giving time and money to this church and other organizations.  Churches and other organizations are crucial for this effort because they create the community that can satisfy our emotional and spiritual needs and empower us to action. 

Thus, the seeming separate efforts for spiritual growth and protecting life on Earth are closely intertwined.  We can make a difference by helping each other grow.  Our joint efforts can provide fulfillment, meaning and purpose to our lives. 

There are significant signs of hope.  The status value of big SUVs, MacMansions and other trappings of wealth seems to be declining.  Even those stuck on the fourth-level needs for status and recognition will find less satisfaction from excessive consumption if it provides less status.

I am not saying this transformation of our society will just be a love-fest.  Those who hold wealth, status and power in this society will not give up their dominant position in this society without a fight.  This does not mean the transition needs to be violent, but it will involve conflict and struggle.  Our opponents are not our enemies, but they will resist the help they need.

Frederick Douglass said:

“Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."
[Frederick Douglass, Speech, Canandaigua , New York , August 3, 1857]

I believe this struggle can be won through non-violent means.  There are numerous success stories:  the liberation of India and Pakistan from British rule; the women’s rights, civil rights and gay rights movements; and the overthrow of oppressive governments in Russia , the Philippines , the Ukraine and in many other places.  These were all non-violent revolutions. 

We have our template.  We have a lot of work ahead of us.  It will be hard work, but it will also be fulfilling work.  It certainly will be interesting work.   There is plenty of opportunity to find meaning and purpose in our lives. 

 Opening Words

As surely as we belong to the universe
    we belong together.
We join here to transcend the isolated self,
    To reconnect,
    To know ourselves to be at home,
    Here on earth, under the stars,
    Linked with each other and the web of life

Chalice Lighting

We light our flaming chalice
To illuminate the world we seek.
In the search for truth, may we be just;
In the search for justice, may we be loving;
And, in loving, may we find peace

The Offering

Every week in our church we take up an offering.  The offering is symbolic as well as practical. 

We pass the plate during our worship service to make a community expression of thanks for the blessing of abundance; to visibly bring in the harvest at this cherished hour.  I know that many of you have already mailed in your pledge checks. 

Our Offering says that giving is as essential to our spiritual well-being as anything else we do. After the basket is a passed you can come up front to put donation of food and money to the Marion-Polk Food share.  These offering are given and received in the spirit of grateful fellowship.