“Without God, Life Has No Purpose, And Without Purpose, Life Has No Meaning

Skwim said:

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The whole quote:

“Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”​

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If by God, you mean Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, then yes, without that as the core of our lives, we are little more than just a consumption machine, scarfing down food, crapping, and then dying. But if by "God" you mean a Sky Dictator who watches your every move with a threat of hell for failure, then no. Fear and oppression saps life of meaning. To live free is to fulfill Life. To be yourself is to honor and worship Truth.

LuisDantas said:

Entirely untrue. Well, the first part, anyway.

There may well be people who need a god-belief to sustain their purpose, but that is rare and quite unhealthy.

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It's neither rare nor unhealthy.

I think it would be more accurate to state that for a great many people, "God" is a form of emblematic conceptual artifice that people use to represent what they find meaningful and purposeful in their experience of living. This is why "God" is so often referred to as being "love, wisdom, kindness, generosity ..." and so on. "God" is the conceptualized representation of the very things that theists experience as being meaningful and purposeful in their lives. So it's not at all surprising, then, that theists would refer to their "God" as being the source of their (or our) meaning and purpose, is it? Nor is it foolish or unhealthy for one to need and to use such a conceptual 'emblem' to help them articulate and focus on what is meaningful and valuable to them in their experience of living.

PureX said:

It's neither rare nor unhealthy.

I think it would be more accurate to state that for a great many people, "God" is a form of emblematic conceptual artifice that people use to represent what they find meaningful and purposeful in their experience of living. This is why "God" is so often referred to as being "love, wisdom, kindness, generosity ..." and so on. "God" is the conceptualized representation of the very things that theists experience as being meaningful and purposeful in their lives. So it's not at all surprising, then, that theists would refer to their "God" as being the source of their (or our) meaning and purpose, is it? Nor is it foolish or unhealthy for one to need and to use such a conceptual 'emblem' to help them articulate and focus on what is meaningful and valuable to them in their experience of living.

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Are you sure that you disagree with me? You have just stated a considerable part of my point.

LuisDantas said:

Are you sure that you disagree with me? You have just stated a considerable part of my point.

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If so, you need to write better.

" ... but that is rare and quite unhealthy."

PureX said:

If so, you need to write better.

" ... but that is rare and quite unhealthy."

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I think that is fairly clear. And you pretty much implied the same thing.

LuisDantas said:

I think that is fairly clear. And you pretty much implied the same thing.

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No, I stated quite the opposite. One; that "God" as a conceptual representation of meaning and purpose is very common among theists, not "rare", and two; that the need and usefulness of such a mechanism are not "unhealthy", but realistic and practical.

Skwim said:

The whole quote:

“Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.

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Without God everything ends and there is no way to spare anything good. That is why I understand, if some think there is no hope or significance. But I think everyone can choose purpose their life, even if they don’t believe in God. And I think best purpose is love.

night912 said:

It's only easy for those who believes that to be so. Those who believes that their lives are meaningless and/or can't think of any meaning or purpose except for one way, can easily fall into it. Even robots in a random universe can have meaningful life with purpose.

Is someone living in a random universe who cannot believe that there can be meaning in their life the actual robot? Are they a robot to their one and only purpose that they believe in, since they are born for that purpose only?

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Robots don't care about meaning or purpose as they have no self-awareness. They're just programs.

Trailblazer said:

No, because people without hope usually kill themselves.

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Are you saying it's dangerous to rely upon something else? Have your hope and eat it too.

Skwim said:

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The whole quote:

“Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”

–Pastor Rick Warren, in The Purpose Driven Life.​

True or not?

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One can find his own meaning to life.
The question of God is irrelevant to matter.
The problem is that when one decides on his own purpose, it might not be beneficial to the collective purpose we all share.

Segev Moran said:

One can find his own meaning to life.
The question of God is irrelevant to matter.
The problem is that when one decides on his own purpose, it might not be beneficial to the collective purpose we all share.

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And what is this collective purpose we all share?

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MonkeyFire said:

Are you saying it's dangerous to rely upon something else? Have your hope and eat it too.

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No, I said nothing about relying upon someone else, I was talking about having hope.
No, it is not dangerous to rely upon someone else as long as that someone is God.

Saint Frankenstein said:

Robots don't care about meaning or purpose as they have no self-awareness. They're just programs.

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What robots are you referring to? I thought the discussion concerned human beings.

Trailblazer said:

No, I said nothing about relying upon someone else, I was talking about having hope.
No, it is not dangerous to rely upon someone else as long as that someone is God.

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Your right, but people with hope are definatly happy.

Skwim said:

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The whole quote:

“Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”

–Pastor Rick Warren, in The Purpose Driven Life.​

True or not?

.

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Not true at all. Silly, in fact. Just take a look around, or google famous atheists. It's insulting to all those people who helped humanity in just wars, all those volunteers in third world countries and charitable causes, all the philanthropists. How anyone can take this stuff seriously is astounding. Classic projecting your own simplistic view on to humanity.

Not only that, but it's His version of god, so he's telling me and you and a whole lot of theists as well that our lives have no meaning.

There's tremendous purpose and meaning in believer's lives when the God they serve is actually worthwhile and just. Unfortunately I have seen a lot of God's I can definetly live without.

Believers that absolutely know God exists are extraordinarily healthy when they believe in a worthy God. They have a whole new level of hope and certainty about life then the average atheist. Only trouble is that there is no proof nor evidence of any God whatsoever. I would love it if a worthy God existed. Because by one definition of God, God has no limitations.

I had my bouts of faith, and I never enjoyed losing faith whatsoever. It's quite nice to have one's own purposes. And I see a lot of atheist's have fulfillment in there lives, and some have more than heart can wish for in living their own purposes. As for me, it's an allmighty letdown knowing there ain't no God.
Finality sucks! And I certainly don't want to be in a rush to live this one life.
It's fun beyond belief living for the pursuit of eternity. But that's the past.

I still live for eternal purposes though. Even if there is no such opportunity. I've reckoned that I have just this one life though.

osgart said:

There's tremendous purpose and meaning in believer's lives when the God they serve is actually worthwhile and just.

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I believe my God is worthwhile and just but that is just my belief. I cannot actually prove that.

osgart said:

Believers that absolutely know God exists are extraordinarily healthy when they believe in a worthy God. They have a whole new level of hope and certainty about life then the average atheist.

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I always knew my religion was true and that God existed but I never took it very seriously. Since I started to study it and understand the implications of God's existence I take it seriously and I now have a whole new level of hope and certainty about life. I understand what matters and what does not matter, so I worry much less about the material world things that I know are transitory. I look around and see people who are attached to the material world and it is strange to me. What is there in it to love? I love people and I love animals but I cannot love an object like a car or something that can be purchased with money.

osgart said:

Only trouble is that there is no proof nor evidence of any God whatsoever. I would love it if a worthy God existed. Because by one definition of God, God has no limitations.

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It makes me sad to know you feel this way osgart. If God exists it only makes sense God is worthy, but I am going by the scriptures of my religion, so I believe that even though I question it at times, given all the suffering I see in the world.

osgart said:

I had my bouts of faith, and I never enjoyed losing faith whatsoever. It's quite nice to have one's own purposes. And I see a lot of atheist's have fulfillment in there lives, and some have more than heart can wish for in living their own purposes. As for me, it's an allmighty letdown knowing there ain't no God.

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Don't give up hope, there is always hope if you are sincere and seeking God.

osgart said:

Finality sucks! And I certainly don't want to be in a rush to live this one life.
It's fun beyond belief living for the pursuit of eternity. But that's the past.

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I guess you mean in your past as a Christian. That might be in the past and you might be where you are today, but there is always a future and none of us knows what that future holds. I had all but given up on God too, even though I believed He existed, and I never thought I would be where I am today a few years ago. But I worked very hard to get here and I work hard to stay here.

osgart said:

I still live for eternal purposes though. Even if there is no such opportunity. I've reckoned that I have just this one life though.

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I live for today, with eternal purposes in mind.
I see, you have not given up hope. There is a part of you that knows.

Saint Frankenstein said:

Robots don't care about meaning or purpose as they have no self-awareness. They're just programs.

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So you are not self-aware?

Saint Frankenstein said:

Pretty much. It's easy to fall into nihilism and existential despair if we're just meaningless meat robots in a random universe.

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Sure. Lucky I'm not a meaningless meat robot then. Also, not sure how belief in God helps with that, but it appears a very common assumption that it does, so I might just be unable to process it.

SomeRandom said:

I don’t find that many nihilists amongst my atheists friends. Though in saying that, perhaps we just happen to be happy drunks.

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Guilty.

But you're Australian, me too. Might be an occupational hazard.