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Atheists: Does Life Have Meaning For You?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
Smoke
Done here.
If you mean, do I have an answer to the old catechism question, "What is the chief end of man?" -- no. I don't think life has that sort of meaning, or ought to.
But I do find life personally meaningful and significant, perhaps all the more so because I don't believe it's a brief interlude preceding a more significant afterlife.
But I do find life personally meaningful and significant, perhaps all the more so because I don't believe it's a brief interlude preceding a more significant afterlife.
I agree such a question is of limited value, and that value is mainly in whether it teaches us how foolish such questions are.
kadzbiz
..........................
Was that someone an atheist themselves? I believe my spirit, soul, life energy, whatever one wants to call it, will continue on after my human body is no longer able to. I believe that "soul" will do one of two things; move into another plane of existence or return to Earth's playing field. To move on to another plane. one must achieve the enlightenment of what living on Earth is about, not necessarily the same thing as buddhists refer to. Achieving this enlightenment is our life's meaning, on this Earth at least. Beyond that I obviously cannot comment.
rojse
RF Addict
If such rot was true, why would all atheists not have killed themselves, considering that life has no meaning?
You make up your own meaning. If you are religious, you can even get someone else to make it up for you.
eudaimonia
Fellowship of Reason
No, life has meaning for me. I take "meaning" here to "mean" a purpose that matters to oneself. My life matters to me in the most fundamental and objective sense -- it is my very existence. A purpose that contributes to my existence as a living human individual matters to me. This goes deeper than my feelings about the subject. I am not talking about a feel-good subjectivism. Life is an end-in-itself.
That set of hypothetical purposes that can make a positive contribution to my life (those which help me to survive and flourish) can matter to me. Out of those hypothetical purposes, the ones that I have chosen and pursue are my meaning(s) in life.
Death does not alter my view of meaning. Since life is not just a means to some future eventuality, such as an eternal afterlife, and is instead an end-in-itself, it is fulfilled as it progresses. LIfe is a journey, not an infinitely far off destination. And so any life ending in death had meaning. That it doesn't mean anything after death is besides the point, since there is no one left to cry "Boo hoo! My nonexistence has no meaning!" Meaning is not erased simply because it existed in the past. To living people, life can have meaning.
Because some atheists claim this(!), including prominent and influential intellectuals. I'm sorry, but atheists (some of them) are to blame.
eudaimonia,
Mark
BucephalusBB
ABACABB
I don't see the meaning of theists either. getting through life to get to heaven isn't a meaning in my opinion.. 
But indeed, life has no more meaning than non-life, wich is both most valuable to me..
But indeed, life has no more meaning than non-life, wich is both most valuable to me..
blackout
Violet.
ROFL!!! Frubals!
Yes. We give our own meanings to life!
That's what makes it so much fun!:rainbow1:
(or not.
)Life has more meaning, if I had eternal life or unlimited life I could never be unique or value anything precious. If I wasn't an atheist chances are I wouldn't have ever seen the world, learned new things met new people with different ideas and as my wife puts it been a gypsy.
McBell
Resident Sourpuss
I would rather make up my own than rely upon the faulty meanings of people who died thousands of years ago.
At least mine are up to date.
BucephalusBB
ABACABB
rojse
RF Addict
If you died and nothing happened, it would be hard to be bitterly disappointed, wouldn't it?
rojse
RF Addict
It's like saying because people do not share my own goals of personal intellectual development and study, then they must have no meaning to their life, when they could have completely different goals in life than myself.
wednesday
Jesus
Im speaking hypothetically. You'd be a little ticked off if you spent your whole life trying to impress God and then he turned his back on you wouldn't you? Its like getting kicked in the teeth for 70+ years of kissing A$$, unfortunate i say.
Meaning and purpose are easily manufactured individually.
The great function of religion is that it gives us significance. Insignificance seems to be profoundly disturbing to our species. We will react violently against the notion that we are not the center of the universe or God's special project.
The great function of religion is that it gives us significance. Insignificance seems to be profoundly disturbing to our species. We will react violently against the notion that we are not the center of the universe or God's special project.
logician
Well-Known Member
kai
ragamuffin
without a celestial overlord, life itself becomes the whole meaning