Mailbag: Meaning of Life
Subject: Life is Meaningless
Life is meaningless wy should i or any one else try to make scence of jesus or any other god. ultimatly being a athiest leads you to this view if your about seeing truth, of corse one can find meaning in life, or can he If there is no good then there is no evil, so there's no wright or wrong ultimatly we must except this if there is no god.
Life is meaningless only if we want it to be meaningless or let it be meaningless. Meaning cannot be imposed from the outside - nothing that any outsider, human or divine, can force a life to be meaningful or to have a specific meaning. If a person's life has meaning, it is because of what that person values - and that, in turn, relies upon the character and experiences of that person as an individual.
The existence of good and evil, right and wrong, are also independent of gods for very similar reasons. Just because a god says that something is good or evil cannot make it so - otherwise, morality is just a matter of obeying the arbitrary commands of this god. Being moral would simply be a matter of being obedient - and that's no credit to anyone's character.
you look so proud as i look at your picture you look for truth in this world but you cant even understand there is none. your view will insure this, next time you see your child or some one you love holding somthing or doing somthing they love so much, tell them what you realy beleave, say thats meaningless what your doing take a good look at what your views leave you with. ''Nothing is what'' that makes you happy im sure, your wisdom walks hand in hand with your foolishness
Curious... if there is no truth in this world, and Dave's message is in this world, then there can be no truth in Dave's message. Therefore, if Dave's message is right then I should ignore it... and if Dave's message is wrong, I should also ignore it. Either way, Dave's message is of no real value except perhaps as an exercise in faulty logic.
At any rate, a person holding or doing something they love is not meaningless in the absence of any gods; on the contrary, the absence of any gods requires that we find meaning in precisely what we can hold and do. My views don't leave me with nothing - instead, they leave me with quite a lot which I can hold and do.
More selections from the Agnosticism / Atheism Mailbag...
Comments
As a once Christian now none believer, I certainly do not think that Atheism leads to a feeling that everything has no meaning. in fact, ever since officially turning in this Theistic business,(around a year back) I find life has more meaning, and every day is special and every interaction is important, mostly because it’s the only life we have and we should make the most of it.
What I find odd is that there’s nothing inherent about theism that requires one to believe that one cannot also make life meaningful in a manner independent of whatever deity or deities one believes. I don’t believe that it’s a part of any Christian belief system that experiences are incapable of having any meaning if God doesn’t exist.
I made my life more meaningful when I was able to stop working full-time 6 years ago (I now work part-time) and begin doing things to enrich my life and the lives of others. I do volunteer work with several area school and brought back to life a dormant hobby. My atheism has NOTHING to do with any of this.
It is what you DO, not what you BELIEVE which makes your life rich and fulfilling.
Gotta love rednecks who can’t spell.
Perhaps not enough reading, writing, and arithmetic?
I have to say that although I understand the reason for it, it’s very painful to read some of these posts in their original, unedited form. It’s almost cruel to leave the extensive grammatical and spelling errors in place. I cringe and can’t help but connect the obvious lack of education/intelligence with the faulty reasoning. In the case of “Dave,” I have to say that some lines seemed to make no sense at all, even after I reread them.
The truth is that there are many religions and philosophies that offer meaning to people who wish to adopt them. Or, any individual may reject those and create their own (although I suspect that it would be hard to come up with something completely new). Being social animals, we’re already predisposed to appreciate certain things. We value our social groups and families. This can be overridden, for sure, but it’s an inherent part of our brains. Even an insect will protect its own life—why? It’s a basic biological reaction to avoid death and prefer life—even if the organism isn’t likely able to reason out that’s what they’re doing. Just “wanting to live” is a “meaning” of sorts. It starts a basic value of “I prefer life over death.” Again, this can be overridden, but the it’s an inherent value to want to live. We also have an inherent drive to want to reproduce (and again, I know it can be overridden). But even if we aren’t the most philosophical of creatures, our most basic biology provides us with some values just to get us going with some “meaning.” Where we take it from there is really up to us.
The “there’s no meaning without god” argument is disingenuous to me, mainly because you never see Xians saying this about Buddhists or Taoists. If I am a Buddhist atheist, nobody seems to assume my life has no meaning. If I’m a Taoist atheist, same thing. But if I’m a secular atheist, suddenly my life has no meaning? I don’t get the logic there. If nobody questions Buddhists’ and Taoists’ life meanings—why do they question mine?
Eric Said:
What I find odd is that there’s nothing inherent about theism that requires one to believe that one cannot also make life meaningful in a manner independent of whatever deity or deities one believes. I don’t believe that it’s a part of any Christian belief system that experiences are incapable of having any meaning if God doesn’t exist.
I think it depends on the flavor of theism, of course, combined with how literally/seriously you take the writings/commands of ‘god’. For example, to stick with the common christian theism we all know, the entire reason people were created was to do god’s will, so that’s our ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ - and thus not living as god (or his people on earth) command IS ‘living without purpose or meaning’. Even those who accept that man was given free will by god to be able to choose one’s own way of living say that the ultimate goal is to honor/worship god with the way they live.
The meaning of life can be found in annoying Republicans.
Where did this come from? The post from Dave….
It’s funny. Ever since I broke away from a supernatural worldview and recognized that when we die we really die, I have developed more respect and more awe for life than ever before. Knowing that each day could well be my last (accidents and medical emergencies do happen after all) the world around me has become a celebration of what is right now. In fact, my knowledge of impermanence and transitoriness has caused me not only to respect myself, but to respect others as well, and to recognize the surreptitious and reprehensible mindset that embraces a belief in life-after-death, retributive justice, and otherworldly reward. It is this same mindset that allows young men and women to go off to war to be killed because, after all, they won’t really be “die” but be magically transported to heaven.
From a cosmic point of view, our lives are meaningless. From a personal point of view our lives are meaningful. I think we live our lives from a personal point of view, whether we are atheists, theists or something else.
I have to say that responding to Dave’s post at all, never mind a public response, does seem a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
What is the meaning of life?
answer: 42
:)