What 's It All About? By Julian Baggini

In Larry Lankton’s text, “Beyond the Boundaries” we gradually enter an unknown world that is frightening yet filled with immense beauty for miles. Due to the copper mining industry, a gradual increase of working class men and their families start to migrate to the unknown world with unsteady emotion, yet hope for a prosperous new life. In “Beyond the Boundaries”, Lankton takes us on a journey on how the “world below” transformed the upper peninsula into a functional and accepted new part of the world.

In Richard Taylor’s chapter “Meaning of Life”, he concluded that objectively, life is meaningless. He stressed his opinion by arguing that life tends to be a cycle of goals that cumulate to nothing. These goals require sequences of exhausting work and attempt that will continue throughout the rest of life but will have no meaning. As one goal is reached, the next is sought out for, forgetting the one that was just achieved. I do not support Taylor on his objective meaningless of life. Life has a meaning, even if it is just being alive, we were created by God and he has a plan for us. Goals help us become better people and they are important to us. Taylor explained that we can find meaning in our lives when a will is put behind our actions. This means that meaningfulness can be found within the veins of anyone. I agree with Taylor, that our actions should be of interest to us, yet his account fails to show that they will make our lives have a meaning. There is no validation, that a change of the state of mind will cause our lives to achieve meaning.

To share the Cosmic Plan with children we present a wide overview, looking back to how it started and asking, How? and Why? questions about the relentless experimentation of creation with shape, form and colour which she believed went beyond mere Darwinism survival.  The childrens attention is drawn to how creatures have reproduced with great variety (e.g. multicellular organisms, hard coating of shells, internal structures bones, lungs, uterus and flowering plants).  At first glance mans goal might appear to be the satisfaction of immediate, physical needs, but she also sees it as part of a greater plan, taking the view of the Ecologist or Geologist rather than the Biologist.  While the Great Stories follow the pattern of the Genesis story

The story of creation has been a topic of speculation for decades. The people of many generations have asked questions like, “How did we get here?”, “How was the earth made?”, “How was Man made?”, and “Is there a higher power responsible for all of this?”. These questions we not really answered until the theories of modern science were proved in the 1800’s. However, before this, people created their own stories or myths to explain creation as it related to their world and culture. Every culture was thought to have its own, unique creation myth. These stories are associated with rituals and beliefs of their unique culture.

In the article “A New Normal” John-Pierre Joyce writes about Homosexuality in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Doctors and homosexual men were very desperate to find a cure for what they considered a disease at the time. In 1957 a doctor went on TV to publically state that he was a homosexual and wanted to become normal and to be cured. This was contradictory to a report published called the Wolfenden Report. In the report it was concluded that there was not enough evidence to prove that homosexuality was in fact a disease. Also Alfred Kinsey did research on how homosexual tendencies could be found in all humans throughout a persons’ life-time, reinforcing the fact that being gay was not a disease.

Why Come Back? by Mónica Lavín is the story of Victor and Marta, a married couple struggling to overcome a rough patch in their marriage. Lavín narrates the story through Victor’s perspective, with a stereotypical machista ideology. Marta and Victor have been married for 35 years, and one day she left Victor for another man. Three months later Marta has come back to try and reconcile with her husband, but Victor is hesitant in his decision to let her back into his life and he keeps asking himself why she would come back. Lavín strategically uses silence and language in Why Come Back? to emphasize the theme of female submission in a patriarchal environment through Marta’s compliant behavior and Victor’s dominant and resentful attitude.

Philosopher Elliott Sober’s argument regarding Darwin’s theory and 20th century perspectives on Intelligent Design supports that evolutionary theory does not involve the existence of God, but rather is trying to determine how life in the universe started and how organisms have evolved overtime. During his argument, he made statements that were beneficial to his argument of Darwin’s theory and 20th century perspective on Intelligent Design. Prof. Sober first defines evolutionary theory and explained that Darwin tried to point out that present species trace back to common ancestors and that evolutionists try to trace-back where species originated from, rather than trying to start up from the few start-up species. His statements are beneficial

Another way that “the argument from design” can be viewed is analogically. To begin, it is significant to understand the connotation behind the term analogical. For an argument to be analogical, it must be drawing parallels between two apparently dissimilar objects. Thus, it could be inferred that “the argument from design” is trying to draw parallels between humankind and the characteristics of nature (Ratzsch, 2005). The purpose of analogical arguments, particularly “the argument from design,” is to use analogies to confirm an idea. “The argument of design,” draws the analogies between humankind and nature in order to show that nature and human beings were both designed in such a complex manner that there had to be a supernatural being that designed both nature and mankind.

How were human beings created? How has life come to be? How was the earth created? These are some very important questions that humans have tried to answer for ages. In an attempt to answer these questions, different cultures around the world developed different beliefs. Some believe that they are many gods watching over them, while others believe that there is only one supreme God. Some believe that humans were created by an explosion while others believed that a God or gods created them. Today, I will be analyzing two different creation stories, Genesis, the Christian creation story and “The Creation and Emergence” story by the Jicarilla Apaches. While some differences between the two are evident, the similarities are noticeable.

While looking at one’s ancestry and roots reveals where a person is originated from and the route that lead them to where they are today, it does not necessarily reveal the reasoning as to why they are in their current reality. Baggini explains this by stating, “It is perhaps surprising how often it is assumed that a look back to our origins will lead us to the meaning of life . . . if we take a long, cold look back to our origins, we just find ape-like ancestors and an evolutionary trail that leads back to the big bang.” Whether an individual believes

During life, you are faced with questions that have no answer, like is there life after death, or how big is the universe, or even how our world was created. The problem is, is that there is either too many answers that you’re unsure of which one is truly the answer, or everyone just stays quiet so there is actually no answers, wrong or right. Today I am going to be focusing on the last question. Over your life, have you ever asked yourself, who or what created the world? While reading this paper, you will be shown one of the many possibilities of how this world came to be.

The idea of the intelligent design, which is the main subject in all assigned articles, presents our world as a product of the action of a higher, superior Being. This religious and somewhat creative outlook on life differs from the general idea of evolution which states that life is all related and has ascended from a common ancestor. These articles present views that support the notion of the intelligent design and challenge the universally common theory of Darwin’s evolution.

Humans by can sense their natural connection to the animal world via comparisons with nature. We have realized that we are unique and are highest on the ladder over the rest of the natural world. Over time critical questions concerning our origins have been made with respect to the context of our habitat, of the Earth and the universe. From the philosophical point of view, the distinctiveness and the development of the human race have become visible in many different ways. This is shown in the way we are able to adapt to their habitats in a convenient way for that specific individual; the development of language which allows us to communicate through both verbal and non-verbal forms; our ability to comprehend the natural world in a way that allows us we to predict certain behaviors and make the adaptation process easier and finally our ever-growing impatience when it comes to discovering the secrets of the Earth. These qualities have allowed us to produce culture mainly from a religious aspect leading to the speculation of our existence, autonomy and the beginning and the end of all things. Various religions have developed in the years which explains why the meanings of origins may be radically different from one another. The "tales of origins" that is told in the different religions worldwide mostly speak of a connection

In the beginning people had trouble understanding how the world was created, and how humans evolved. As the world grew and species of all kind grew with it, humans created different theoretical explanations on how the; World, People, Animals, Plants, etc, was created. Charles Darwin a famous scientist created the theory of Evolution, Darwin is known for this.

Life is a complicated twist of suffering, laughing, and learning all merging to tell a great story - or great many stories. Based on this view, "it is not the end goal or outcome of life that gives life meaning but rather the quality of the story, the quality with which one lives out and develops his or her role."