May 15: Discussion on meaning of life

We were thinking of showing the film "the Message" based on the founding of Islam by Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) and its early days (at least i brought my laptop and the DVD). However, it was a bit long and some of us had already seen it, so we shelved the plan. I have a DVD that was kindly given by the Islamic society (or it could be didsbury mosque) so if any of you want to borrow it, it can be arranged. For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Message_%28film%29
For those interested in many religious films, you can see the list at http://www.adherents.com/movies/

We started with Oxana sharing some Buddhist jokes from http://www.serve.com/cmtan/buddhism/Lighter/index.html (some of the jokes might need a bit of knowledge about buddhist world to appreciate)

After that we started with a discussion on the meaning of life, sharing our own views. There were various views from different perspectives discussed as to what is the meaning of life, including to get rid of suffering, to live in the fullness of life, to get close to God, to obey God's laws and his messengers, to live and not try to live, to simply exist, etc. We also spoke on how it would be to exist for a child in darfur for example. We also spoke about maths and physics and reality (inductive and abductive arguments, that there is no such thing as a perfect circle) and skepticism (that everything that is spoken is within some axioms out of which no communication is possible) and bayesians and meditation and drugs and a popular catholic priest called Brian D'arcy.

After the discussion, some of us went to falafel for some food. We decided that we would keep these meetings going for next few weeks, as long as people are happy to come along.