Atheists and Agnostics: What gives your life meaning?

[SigurdReginson]

One thing I hear from some folks who are religious is that life without a god or spirituality has no meaning. Since leaving my faith, I've found this idea to ring very hollow. If anything, it's given me more appreciation and thirst for life. I realize not all atheists and agnostics feel this way. Some feel life is meaningless when met with the idea that in the end the universe may face a heat death anyway, despite our efforts. Still, we choose to plug along in life.

What gives your life meaning, enjoyment, or depth? Is it simple, complex, or just personal?

For me, I have many things I enjoy doing, but when all the fluff is scraped away, what's left is an insatiable curiosity for everything that exists in the world. I love learning, I love testing what I learn, and I love walking into new situations just to see what comes of it. I also love being a positive influence on the world. I value seeing a job well done, I value the wellbeing of people around me, and I want to see the world change in a positive way. Lastly, I just enjoy experiencing life; a simple walk in the woods does wonders for my psyche.

What about you folks?

 

[joe1776]

I figured it out. The purpose of life is moral progress, to become a better human being. The pain-pleasure functions in our brains punish us with guilt when we act immorally and they reward us with pleasure when we treat others with kindness. As we make moral progress, we are rewarded with increasing contentment.

As evidence, I offer the fact that we humans are treating each other better now than at any time in the past. However, this is a deceptive measurement problem and most people think that humanity is in a moral decline. I posted a thread some months ago supporting my position.

Religion isn't necessary for moral progress. It might even be a hindrance. For example, you won't find support for these moral advances in the sacred texts:

equality for slaves
equality for women
equality for homosexuals
equality for the children of the poor
equality for the insane or the handicapped
equality for all minority groups

 

[icehorse]

For me it's mostly altruism and learning, with a dollop of hedonism.

 

[ChristineM]

Humanity will be long gone before heat death ( assuming that's how the universe ends). Entropy predicts that life is only viable for a small percentage of the 10^100 years of the estimated life of the universe

Note, a recent prediction only gives the universe another 5 billion years, i have not looked at it yet so i don't know how the idea is worked out

As for meaning, life to me has probably the same or perhaps more meaning than the average believer in an afterlife. There is of course the daily meaning, children, husband, friends, etc we all have... Just doing the best you can. But overall, i believe non believers in an afterlife have more vitality, they have only one finite life and tend to live it with gusto. Those who believe they will be saved in an afterlife have no reason for such drive.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It is, in my opinion, a very false notion that my life entails a "purpose" that is not entirely my own. It assumes that my life somehow devolves from something else, and that this "purpose" of my life is not mine, but belongs to that something else.

I'm going to take the liberty of repeating a post here, that I wrote some time ago, because it is a perfect fit:
====================================================

1. Meaning and Purpose for the Secular Humanist
   
   “Life’s a b!tch, then you die.”
   
   I have long gathered, from believers I've known, that the only true meaning in life, and the purpose for our existence, has been provided for us by a “higher power.” As an atheist, I ought to concur with the nihilist view expressed in the opening quotation, yet I do not. But I've also never understood the religious view either. In this essay I hope to show that neither is true.
   
   Created for a Purpose
   
   Imagine that the universe and all it contains was created by an “intelligent designer.” Such a designer would surely have had reasons for such an effort, a purpose for the creation. Mankind, no more than a miniscule part of that creation, is unlikely to be able to grasp the fullness of the purpose for it. The best we should hope for is that we can muddle through and get it basically right – that we will fulfill our assigned bit of the overall purpose. But while we live, we can not know whether we have or have not done so.
   
   Believers will tell us we have guides. The Torah, Bible, Qur’an, Vedas – whichever scriptures are believed – contain the plan and purpose for us to read and understand. For the secular, however, if these scriptures are meant to provide guidance, each of them constitutes among the worst instruction manuals ever conceived. Each of them is understood differently by every single reader. The best evidence of this is the proliferation of sects within every faith, based on alternate readings.
   
   Yet even if we were able to discern completely our assigned purpose, that purpose would not be our own, but the designer’s. Consider for a moment the Belgian Blue cattle, bred by us to be double-muscled to provide more meat per animal. It is unlikely such an animal would be better off knowing for what purpose it was created. Those extra muscles have value for us, their designer, but none for the creature in its own right.
   
   The same must hold true for me. As a creature with a purpose valuable only to another (the designer), I am stripped of value in my own right.
   
   Now, most notions of a purpose given by the major religions are woefully inadequate. That my purpose might be simply to "believe," or to live a blameless life, so that I might be rewarded later for doing so (or punished otherwise), is a pretty weak basis for so great an act of creation. The idea that any god needs human praise, worship or service (God needs domestics?) is just plain silly. That these are what creation is about is simply ludicrous.
   
   Then Why Am I Here?
   
   There are endless answers to that question, all of them external to me, and most of them merely causal. “Because my parents had sex.” “Because Canada paid a ‘baby bonus’.” “Because DNA insists on its own replication.” These are all answers to the question, but don't satisfy. Nothing in those answers provides me with any meaning. There is nothing there to give my existence significance. Even less elevating is the notion that I am nothing more than the end of a long, completely natural and completely arbitrary process. Whoopee for me!
   
   But perhaps, just perhaps, that is all that it is. The EvangelicalHumanist has never dogmatically denied the existence of an original creator, creative force or cosmic accident. EH doesn’t know how to understand the “first cause,” or even if there was one. But from that first cause on, there does seem to be sufficient evidence to explain a natural evolution from there-and-then to here-and-now.
   
   So is that it then? Is the nihilism of the opening quote justified? Is there really no purpose or meaning to my existence? What “meaning” can arise from a cosmic accident, or from a long chain of natural, random events? These, too, answer the “why am I here question” in a merely causal sense, but not in a purposive way and thus never satisfy.
   
   A Purpose of My Own
   
   I said earlier that I believe I am the end of a natural but random series of events. This is not quite true. Since the appearance of conscious thought, people have been making choices, and every choice has an impact on what follows. I am who I am, in the world that I know, because early people followed herds; because the barons stood up to King John in 1215; because great thinkers thought; because of untold important and unimportant acts – of kindness or cruelty, hedonism or self-denial, selfishness or altruism. Because of all these and more, my world is what it is. Almost – but not quite – random.
   
   But must that not mean that what follows me, how the world evolves from this very moment on, is to some extent – great or small – affected by me?
   
   Now, at last, I have come to, and can choose, a purpose, a way to achieve a meaningful life that is my own, in my own right. I know that there will be a world post-me, just as I inhabit a world post-Hammurabi, post-Caesar, post-Genghis Khan and Hitler and Churchill. As they have contributed to the world I know, I will contribute to the world others will know, though certainly not to such extents as they did.
   
   What will I do with that? What ultimate mark will my life leave on a world I shall never see, but will help to create?
   
   Could I ask for a greater purpose?
   

 

[epronovost]

Me. I give purpose and meaning to my life and that is subject to changes as my circumstances changes.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Here's another way to look at this question.

What if there's a man, a farmer, who owns a very large plot of land, rich and fertile, and wishes to make the most of all of it? This man feels that the way that he can best use this asset is to have several sons, who can help him to run it, work it, make it profitable -- and who will then have sons of their own to ensure that this valuable asset provides for the man's (genetic) progeny into future generations.

Now, what if one of those sons (or daughters) takes it in mind to become a brilliant neurosurgeon, and help untold numbers of people in the future. That was not, unfortunately, the purpose for which the father wanted children. Has this member of the family missed "his purpose?" Or only missed his father's purpose?

And how is it, exactly, that the father's purpose for any of his children is beholden on them? Are they not, when they come of age, their own persons, able to decide for themselves what their purpose is?

See, this is the problem: when you talk of "purpose," you have to talk of "whose purpose" that is. And you also need some way to know, with some clarity, what that purpose is. The king's purpose for one of his ministers may not coincide at all well with that man's purpose for himself. Which purpose ought to prevail?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

And "God's purpose" for you is absolutely without meaning, unless you have some way of knowing what that is.

And you don't.

 

[Vinayaka]

Here's another way to look at this question.

What if there's a man, a farmer, who owns a very large plot of land, rich and fertile, and wishes to make the most of all of it? This man feels that the way that he can best use this asset is to have several sons, who can help him to run it, work it, make it profitable -- and who will then have sons of their own to ensure that this valuable asset provides for the man's (genetic) progeny into future generations.

Now, what if one of those sons (or daughters) takes it in mind to become a brilliant neurosurgeon, and help untold numbers of people in the future. That was not, unfortunately, the purpose for which the father wanted children. Has this member of the family missed "his purpose?" Or only missed his father's purpose?

You're talking about my life. A farmer dad, 4 sons, fertile land. One son took over that land for awhile, but eventually he too went on to his purpose.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Here's another way to look at this question.

What if there's a man, a farmer, who owns a very large plot of land, rich and fertile, and wishes to make the most of all of it? This man feels that the way that he can best use this asset is to have several sons, who can help him to run it, work it, make it profitable -- and who will then have sons of their own to ensure that this valuable asset provides for the man's (genetic) progeny into future generations.

Now, what if one of those sons (or daughters) takes it in mind to become a brilliant neurosurgeon, and help untold numbers of people in the future. That was not, unfortunately, the purpose for which the father wanted children. Has this member of the family missed "his purpose?" Or only missed his father's purpose?

And how is it, exactly, that the father's purpose for any of his children is beholden on them? Are they not, when they come of age, their own persons, able to decide for themselves what their purpose is?

See, this is the problem: when you talk of "purpose," you have to talk of "whose purpose" that is. And you also need some way to know, with some clarity, what that purpose is. The king's purpose for one of his ministers may not coincide at all well with that man's purpose for himself. Which purpose ought to prevail?

Especially when the farmer has five sons, who also each have five sons, who also have five sons each...soon, no matter how much land is available, the population keeps reducing the amount of land available to each son, then grandson, and so on. Soon, the population outstrips the ability of the land to support them...even improvements in technology may have limits, and the fifth grandson of the fifth son may feel and have no connection at all to the "original" land and purpose...in order to have any wealth of their own, they will either have to emigrate to find new land to exploit, or go to the cities and adopt some other purpose...such as medicine...or banking...

 

[Left Coast]

One thing I hear from some folks who are religious is that life without a god or spirituality has no meaning. Since leaving my faith, I've found this idea to ring very hollow. If anything, it's given me more appreciation and thirst for life. I realize not all atheists and agnostics feel this way. Some feel life is meaningless when met with the idea that in the end the universe may face a heat death anyway, despite our efforts. Still, we choose to plug along in life.

What gives your life meaning, enjoyment, or depth? Is it simple, complex, or just personal?

For me, I have many things I enjoy doing, but when all the fluff is scraped away, what's left is an insatiable curiosity for everything that exists in the world. I love learning, I love testing what I learn, and I love walking into new situations just to see what comes of it. I also love being a positive influence on the world. I value seeing a job well done, I value the wellbeing of people around me, and I want to see the world change in a positive way. Lastly, I just enjoy experiencing life; a simple walk in the woods does wonders for my psyche.

What about you folks?

I find meaning in a lot of the same things. To add to your list, part of my purpose is to leave the world a better place, even if in only a small way. I've never wanted to only work for a paycheck. I've always wanted my work to serve a purpose that truly helped people in need.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Especially when the farmer has five sons, who also each have five sons, who also have five sons each ..

In Canadian wilderness, there was not much else to do, that is why Vinayaka kept on and on, seeding his field.
Yeah, what gives meaning to life - food, sex, relationships, society, country.

.. part of my purpose is to leave the world a better place, even if in only a small way.

Never bank on that. The world is going to be more or less the same all the time.

 

[Left Coast]

Never bank on that. The world is going to be more or less the same all the time.

Nah, we make changes to it all the time. I don't have any delusions that I'll personally make some famous change that will be taught in history classes. If I can help make small, meaningful changes, or be part of a movement to make greater change, that would make me happy.

 

[McBell]

In Canadian wilderness, there was not much else to do, that is why Vinayaka kept on and on, seeding his field.
Yeah, what gives meaning to life - food, sex, relationships, society, country.Never bank on that. The world is going to be more or less the same all the time.

Change the world
move a rock

 

[Unveiled Artist]

One thing I hear from some folks who are religious is that life without a god or spirituality has no meaning. Since leaving my faith, I've found this idea to ring very hollow. If anything, it's given me more appreciation and thirst for life. I realize not all atheists and agnostics feel this way. Some feel life is meaningless when met with the idea that in the end the universe may face a heat death anyway, despite our efforts. Still, we choose to plug along in life.

What gives your life meaning, enjoyment, or depth? Is it simple, complex, or just personal?

For me, I have many things I enjoy doing, but when all the fluff is scraped away, what's left is an insatiable curiosity for everything that exists in the world. I love learning, I love testing what I learn, and I love walking into new situations just to see what comes of it. I also love being a positive influence on the world. I value seeing a job well done, I value the wellbeing of people around me, and I want to see the world change in a positive way. Lastly, I just enjoy experiencing life; a simple walk in the woods does wonders for my psyche.

What about you folks?

I told my therapist recently that I'm not really one to have a purpose. I've always attached that to fate or having some ultimate goal fashioned for us in this life. That, I never had.

I compared it to a skating rink. I love to skate. We just go around in a circle skating to music; but, I have a passion for it it doesn't seem that way.

I'm starting to see life the same way as the skating rink. I'm going in circles and the best way I can live until I can't get up (I fallen so many times) is to improve and grow in skills, do what I can, and keep moving. When I think of it linear, purpose doesn't make sense. It's taking life for granted. When I think of it circular, I don't need to "go anywhere".

I took the 16personality test and got Adventurer. I was looking up purposes under it and goals and it said I learn better by setting actions around my experiences rather than a STEP plan.

So, I guess that's my purpose: to experience.

We live in a goal-oriented world in our abrahamic religions to just setting up for retirement and such.

As for what music is playing in the background, the Adventurer personality sums it up. If I went on about art, nature, etc, it would bore people to sleep if they aren't asleep already reading this.

 

[blü 2]

What gives your life meaning, enjoyment, or depth? Is it simple, complex, or just personal?

It's built in by evolution. We come fully equipped with a set of instincts that, taken as a whole, provide (in broad terms) the sense of a life path. We have strong reactions to lack of air, water, food, shelter. We identify harm coming and react to the threat. We're social creatures and we're by and large drawn to seek a place in our societies. We have very strong instincts around our sexuality. For most that will result in children and their nurture and raising, usually with a sense of the importance of that project.

And if we get these things right, our lives will largely feel purposeful and with ordinary luck provide a sense of fulfilment.

(You didn't ask what can go wrong, so I'll stick to the positives.)

 

[Mock Turtle]

One thing I hear from some folks who are religious is that life without a god or spirituality has no meaning. Since leaving my faith, I've found this idea to ring very hollow. If anything, it's given me more appreciation and thirst for life. I realize not all atheists and agnostics feel this way. Some feel life is meaningless when met with the idea that in the end the universe may face a heat death anyway, despite our efforts. Still, we choose to plug along in life.

What gives your life meaning, enjoyment, or depth? Is it simple, complex, or just personal?

For me, I have many things I enjoy doing, but when all the fluff is scraped away, what's left is an insatiable curiosity for everything that exists in the world. I love learning, I love testing what I learn, and I love walking into new situations just to see what comes of it. I also love being a positive influence on the world. I value seeing a job well done, I value the wellbeing of people around me, and I want to see the world change in a positive way. Lastly, I just enjoy experiencing life; a simple walk in the woods does wonders for my psyche.

What about you folks?

For me, it is in recognising the limitations of being human, and we should deal with this rather than going for the big explanations (religions and such). We should recognise our inheritance, from the past, how this affects how we think and act, and look to what we could be in the future. So more about freedoms and choices as to what we want life to be than anything else. If we don't believe that we can affect the future then we will probably just reap what we sow. I would hope that we are a little more intelligent than this though since we likely do have the means of producing a better life for us and all other life if we act accordingly. Hence that is the meaning in my life - to enhance the lives of all, and of other lifeforms (as best we can), whilst at the same time making sure we do not destroy what enables us to thrive - our planet.

I feel much the same as yourself though, in that there is always much to learn, new experiences to have, and plenty of activities to do that don't harm others or damage the environment. One can't feel that guilty walking and enjoying nature or sailing a yacht, and where all that one experiences mainly enhances one's own life and that of one's companions.

 

[Notanumber]

As an atheist, I am glad that I do not have a religion to defend.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Change the world, move a rock

Is it that simple! Think in terms of Quantum Mechanics. Nothing has moved. Energy field at two places has been modified. The characteristics of field of energy at one place have been transferred to another place. And your body has lost some energy in accomplishing that. That something has been moved is just an illusion.
(Trial post )

 

[McBell]

Is it that simple! Think in terms of Quantum Mechanics. Nothing has moved. Energy field at two places has been modified. The characteristics of field of energy at one place have been transferred to another place. And your body has lost some energy in accomplishing that. That something has been moved is just an illusion.
(Trial post )

Define "modified"

I ask because in order for your claim to hold any water, you have to use a definition other than:

make partial or minor changes to (something)​

Change the world
Move a rock