Finding meaning in your life without god
 

Interesting problem. People that have a belief in God or even a continued existence after death can find purpose to their lives, owing to the fact that their accomplishments might be useful to them after they die. But a person that believes that death brings obliteration has a difficult time finding meaning to their life.

To the Atheists, Agnostics, and Existentialists out there:

How do you guys overcome the absurdity that is life? Where do you find your meaning?

To the God-fearing members of the board:

Have you ever had doubts about continuing after death? Any fear that when you die, you might just end everything right there?

Re: Finding meaning in your life without god
 

Life is absurd, and it's that way wether you believe in god or not (I assume as I can only look in from the atheist side).
Religious people often comment that things are the way they are because God (insert deity of choice as applicable) meant them to be that way.
I actually favor the idea that things are not meant to be this way, they just "happened" to become like this. If life is determined by God, who am I to choose my ways? To please Him? Why?

I find meaning in building a nice comfortable life for myself and my friends. Study, find a job that suits me, make a reasonable living and be able to enjoy the little things in life. I'm no selfless individual that volunteers at the local homeless shelter every week, but I'm no scrooge either. I try to stay in between, enjoying my life while trying to help others enjoy theirs.

Finding meaning in life is a crutch for the weak minded. ;)

Why does life have to have a purpose?

For me life is like a long train voyage. There are many stops but no final destinations.

The meaning, if you will, is in the process rather than some reward at the end.

You didn't answer the question. :P

Charlatan, I didn't mean to say that life needs to have a purpose to find meaning. I just wanted to say that purpose in life will give meaning to it, and Religion provides that purpose, that goal to achieve.

I was trying to ask those without God if they found life meaningful without that purpose, or if they found another purpose for life.

Silvy, you didn't really answer the question. The things you do have meaning in themselves, but how do they give your own life meaning? Why do you do them, if in a few years you face obliteration and none of it matters anyway? How do you overcome the objective perspective that what you do in your life is so inconsequential?

Yes, I've had doubts, but even if I am wrong and there is no God, I've lived a good life and I won't ever know I was wrong.

What's not to love? :D

I really do think that I'm personally no better or worse of after I die regardless of how I lived. (as in: I'm dead either way, end of story, kaput)

But, my life has had meaning when I can look back and say: I've enjoyed myself.
That's it.
Enjoyment in and of itself is what gives life meaning. Wether the enjoyment is in life or after doesn't matter.

And I find enjoyment when I'm able (have been able) to make a decent living etc. as posted above. I do not need a prize at the end to congratulate me.
Oh and btw, "in a few years you face obliteration" I hope that's at least 50 years away :)

I believe that it shouldn't matter whether or not their is a god--that you should do the 'right' thing either way. To me, it seems very selfish to do good acts to others if your motivation is to get yourself to heaven. Why not do those same things because people need your help?

What purpose does believing in God give? I missed something. I mean, there is "avoid hell, and win the heaven jackpot" common in many religions, but that is often independant of believing in God.

Distinguish one's life from the things that are done in one's life? Without clarity, this sounds alot like "why yes, A is true, but how is A true?"

First, I won't be obliterated. Or so I think. I may die, but that isn't being obliterated. And I might not die, being born at a fortunate time in history.

Second, how does death imply none of it matters? Death doesn't undo all that has occurred, that which is still is, that which was still was.

Inconsequential to what? Compared to what? My life and actions have consequences, a huge number of them, so it isn't absolutely inconsequential.

If your existance isn't the penultimate important part of your value system, no matter what your value system is, this isn't a problem. Now, even in most religions they reward you with "heaven" or the like, so I guess you could believe that this was the only option.

Who needs meaning?

I'm here to enjoy my very finite life as much as I can.

Being an atheist, for lack of a better term, I believe that when I die that is the end of the ride (to stretch my analogy above just a little further).

Knowing this and sharing the same existensial fear of death that we all share (even those that believe there is life after death fear death in this way... it is one of the main reasons to cling to life after death, it asuages the uncertainty that death represents) I take my purpose in life to enjoy it moment to moment.

Why wallow in the inevitable? We are all going to die. We could die at any time. Enjoy every moment. Live a good life. Have few to no regrets.

I see no need to look to God for this purpose... but that's just me. Silly old atheist.

As I am Pagan, I find meaning in the trials of this life and the growth it entails. I think the more I can learn in this incarnation, the less I will need before leaving this form of existance completely. Also I find great pleasure in helping others and learning from the interactions.

yes, this is the challenge of the unbelief or to agnostic, unorganized belief :P . well, by analyzing arguments of religious text, you can often find problems in the logic as in any arguments as people live on different fundemental assumption. and if these assumption happen to be incompatible, i believe it is actually quite easy to be a non-believer. plus even by compromising with these assupmtions, one still might find the lack of the "leap of faith" required to believe in a omnipotent God. For example Deist of the enlightenment period who are hardcore empericist believe in God by the argument of design and as many of you know, the famous Pascal's "Wager". yet they refuse to believe in a "supernatural" God as if God created rules of the universe, by preforming a mericle is not God breaking his own rule? Which does not justify the sense of omnipotenet/perfection associated with God. During other times, ultiitarians such as Mills believe God is only important if the God is a God who loves his people and wants the greatest happiness for all. These are just two examples, there are many reasons to believe or to not believe in God. ~ my two cents

Well, I get along with God pretty good, but I didn't always. So far He hasn't fucked up, so I'll stick with him. But before me and Him had our little convo, I found that there was plenty of meaning in life. I do believe that everyone needs an idea bigger then them to believe in, but it doesn't have to be God or such. For me, it was friendship. I know that when I am long dead and gone, the friends I left behind will be able to look back at the times we had and smile, and hopefully a couple of them can learn from some of my bigger fuck ups without haveing to go through them themselves. That is enough for me. After life or no.

I stick around for evolutions sake, there is always more to know and perhaps there's something worthwhile out there that we haven't found. Where's the new wine? Rotting on the vine.

For now, music, poetry, sex, emotion and alcohol.

alright good point. But I find the almost all religions provide a person with a meaning for life, which I almost see as an easy way out of having to ponder it yourself.
I'm not really sure what you mean by this. Are you refuting my argument? Or just restating it in a different way?

If you die and do not believe your existance will continue after death, your existance will be obliterated. I was using it for dramatic effect ;)

If you build a house, it will still be there when you die. But if you go through 10 years of school, then another 7 in Secondary education and learn many wonderful crazy things in life, they will all go with you out of existance when you die. Your ethical and moral standpoints will go with you, along with the ability to contribute to any more social or personal projects. You will just not exist anymore. There are 6 billion people in the world, the contributions you make during your lifetime are rediculously small in the great scheme of things, the equivalent of a drop of water in the ocean. In 200 years nobody will even know your name. How does what you do matter in the long run?


please use the word penultimate correctly. It means "next to last". I'm going to assume you meant "most". Camus believed that the only important question in philosophy was whether or not life was worth living. And i'm inclined to agree. Your values in life depend or should depend on the answer to that question. If life has no meaning, why should you live it? For example, I see Bob opening and closing a door. I ask bob why he is opening and closing the door. He replies to me, it does not matter, i'm content doing it.

It's totally absurd for Bob to be doing this action over and over for no purpose. It also has no meaning and is pointless to continue doing so. I'm trying to discover for myself a real meaning to my life other than the ignorance of how strange it is for me to keep opening and closing the door.

Has anyone considered the possibility of an afterlife without the existence (or necessity) of a supreme being?

My belief system accepts that God is possible, but is not necessary to its existance.

Couldn't agree more.

Honeslty, I find it to be extremely weak to have to look up in the sky, see nothing and hear nothing, and find meaning there.

Well, you gotta define atheism first. You can believe in God and you can be an atheist also -- if you construct your definitions correctly.

The Christian belief, at base, says that God is in each of us -- a small spark of divinity. Thus, as you relate to other people, so do you relate to God. If you acknowledge that spark in other people and treat it as divine, and so honor and respect and love and assist other people in their times of need, you are worshipping God. You are also _being_ God. Because if _everybody_ believes it, and everybody treats everbody else like a partial manifestation of God, then we have a world in which everybody loves and respects everyone, no one hurts everyone, everyone rushes to assist everyone else -- a veritable paradise. In a construct like this, a supernatural being per se is not required -- just the belief in one.

So in that sense, I believe in God -- as a construct, but as one that almost has a life of its own. Can I live with that "God?" Damn straight. If everybody talked the talk and walked the walk of their religions, a dozen benevolent gods would in effect walk the earth, and what a glorious place it would/will be.

If you are looking up for heaven, you are looking in the wrong direction. Try looking IN instead. And God aside, if you look up and see nothing, then you are blind. Look at the size of universe, and tell me that there is nothing there worth seeing. Nothing worth dreaming about, nothing that makes you hope maybe there is a better place out there that someday we will get to. You don't need God to dream about things like that.

No, you can't. Atheism by definition is the disbelief in God. If you say everyone is God, or bits of god, you believe in god and are no longer an atheist.

But i don't think that's what you are trying to say. The way your argument is coming across to me is that you believe in certain qualities in people- trust, love, dependability, generosity- and saying that these qualities are what people should work towards. Which I find admirable, but does not have to much to do with the topic of the thread.

You're looking in the wrong direction.

I dont overcome the absurdity of life.

It is, on the evidence presented, absurd.

The guy got his definitions mixed up. He's talking about Pantheism, Spinozism or suchlike. The idea that everything is God. There is no conscious entity governing the universe in any way.

You, I, your computer, the rat thats probably about 10 metres from you, that bit of moldy cheese in the fridge, the dog star, electromagnetism, the sweat under your old physics tutor's armpits (they were always really sweaty, coffee breathed induvviduals, weren't they?) everything. It's all God.

It's a perfectly defensible position, if you take the leap of faith in moving from one act of creation to two; i.e. 1. Creation of the deity and 2. Creation of the universe according to the specs of that conscious or unconscious deity.

Myself? I apply Occam's Razor.

Re: Re: Finding meaning in your life without god
 

I'm saying that the belief in God is a mechanism for organizing these qualities. If everybody believes that God is in everyone else, then loving God means loving your neighbor, which means that everytime somebody gets in trouble, the "hand of God" or "the Holy spirit" is there to help them, through the people around them, just as predicted in whatever scriptures you're using. For it really to all work, of course, everybody has to actually live by the religion they profess. Not the mumbo-jumbo around the edges, not the ceremonies, but by the base values. That's where we fall down.

Of course, this construct of God didn't create the universe. I don't believe in a consciousness that created the universe and all of us -- I can't rule it out, but I'm not putting any money on it. So how does my mindset help me survive without a belief in a creator, especially one who might reward me or give me life after death? Because I believe that I'm incredibly lucky, just to be alive. I do believe that, as a race, we're moving forward to eventually construct something on earth that looks like the biblical heaven. I won't live to see it, but I will -- as you will -- be part of what made it happen. That's good enough for me.

Fair enough, but either way, that's not atheism

For me, the meaning of life is the search for the meaning of life.

Meaning is whatever and where ever you find it. Some people need God for it, some don't. A big problem that most Christians have is they seem to assume that just because someone doesn't believe what they do, the other persons life holds less meaning to them in the long run. Not believeing in God or even an after life of any sort does not mean that you don't believe in the long term ramifications of things, and the impact your life can have. You do one good thing, and change one persons life for the better, you have just done your part to become "imortal". That impact you had will live on through them, and every interaction they have with everyone they meet. Course the same thing goes if you really fuck someone over and screw up their life for good. So, if you believe in nothing else, then, IMHO, the best thing to do is stop looking for meaning and start MAKEING meaning.

I suppose, since I do believe in God (or gods). But only as an interactive and set of beliefs and behaviors in peoples' minds -- with the possibility of emergent behavior, as in any rule set. This kind of God has no independent existence, nor any power that cannot be raised out of mankind's own consciousnesses -- although the possibility for emergent behavior could possibly bring human consciousness, or at least society, to a new level.

life should not be spent prepairing for something afterward, it should be spent doing what you wish and having fun. I dont mean that you should be completely selfish and everything should be about advancing yourself. I dont believe in God, but I still leave a pretty decent life. I dont do things to get brownie points for some afterlife, I do what I enjoy. Thats all the meaning or motivation I need. Heaven (or whatever) is not the reward for a good life, a good life is the reward.

the meaning of life? if you look for it you'll never find it. the meaning comes from how you live it, not what happens when it ends.

also, I find this statement a bit presumptuous. Is a divine being the only source of meaning? Not in my world...

//sorry for the double post

Re: Finding meaning in your life without god
 

Ah, but the existence of god and Church means the existence of order, of an overall plan, that things happen for a reason, that someone is looking out for you, that evil will be punished and good deeds rewarded. The gaurantee of an afterlife is just one slice of the pie.

I am not an atheist, but I don't think God is an integral part of existence. I've come to accept unpredictability and believe that Man is flawed thanks mostly to poor impulse control. The invention of deity may be part of that flaw, especially when one version of Him tell His flock that the whole world is theirs to command, all animals and land theirs to do what they will. I have accepted the liklihood of oblivion after death and the liklihood that the Universe has no purpose but to exist. My goals are my own to set, and I try to enjoy my time while I have it, to learn, to teach, to watch, to act.

My 'meaning' in life is to simply help people and have a good, fun existence. I don't expect some divine gift for this, only to be remembered after I am gone.

To anyone who would say that it must be miserable to expect to simply cease existance after death, I retort: If you can convince yourself that a higher being is looking out for your soul, then I can convince myself that my life, though *limited*, is worth the effort.

To take "What is the meaning of life?" literally, the answer is Death.

Life means Death.

To take "What is the meaning of life" to be "What should i do before i die?" well, that's entirely to do with your own personal beliefs.

Believe in a God? Well then, you'd better get busy with trusting in and then obeying the commandments as laid out in The Book, by people who claim to have been in direct contact with the Supreme Being.

Those people, as an aside, who would be locked up in a moment and not allowed pens or pencils lest they hurt themselves or the medical staff, in other words (the cleaners and guards can look out for themselves - they're no great loss).

No God?

Well, then we're looking towards atheist schools of thought.

My particular preference is for buddhism, nihilistic buddhism to be precise.

We are born, we suffer, we die.

I'm just trying to get through to the end as best i can for myself, those around me and humanity in general.

Why yearn for meaning in everything?

Do nipples have any function on a man?

tisonlyi, the meaning of life I believe should have no connection with your imminent death. I know this must be contradicting some post I made furthur up in my thread, but I've been thinking about this for a while. What if you lived 1000 years? 10 000? What if you did not die? Eventually you will experience every range of emotion, ecsatcy, exruitiating pain, bitter heartbreak, and true love. All these things would meld together into a nightmare of mediocrity. What just is there to do after you have enjoyed life? It would be... boring.

There must be a greater meaning to life than this hedonism that most people are happy with. To live happily is not to live with meaning, in my opinion. I just don't know if i'll be able to find it.

For me I find meaning in what I do for other people. I want to leave behind a memory with people of a person who cared and did something for them. The students I've taught, the Social Services kids that I've helped, the neighbor that I helped when they needed it, the person I was a friend to when they thought they had none - those people may not hold that memory first and forfront but there will be some times they make think of what I did and hopefully it will encourage them and they may "pay it forward" even.

It's awesome to run into a student I taught several years ago and they still see me as a friend, remember me, and give me a hug. The love I give to others comes back multiplied much more. I want that to continue when I'm gone. That is what gives me purpose.

Especially my daughter. I want to give her the best start in life. I want to teach her confidence in herself and respect for others. If she grows up to do those two things, whatever her occupation or other choices in life then I will feel that I have built something that will last when I'm gone.

"There must be a greater meaning"

Why? Because you believe yourself important?

There are 6 billion other individuals who might have an arguement for that piece of intergalactic uniqueness you just claimed there, skier.

There is _no_ reason, _no_ evidence, nothing save our own desperate reachings to suggest that there is anything intrinsicaly valuable in human life.

"What if you lived 1000 years? 10 000? What if you did not die?"

Man, the universe works on a completely different timescale to the human mind. The Earth, The Sun and even the damn galaxy we're hurtling around are inconsequencial pieces of a much greater whole.

Eventually, it'll all be swallowed up, crushed and ejected as pure energy from a black hole - to become part of the endless vibration that is the background radiation of interstellar space - the only thing in the (very small) sections of the universe that we can observe as yet that stands a chance of making it into the top 20 of "Important Things In The Universe".

You are insignificant.
We are insignificant.
Our knowledge is insignificant.
Our future is insignificant.

You Will Die.
You Will Be Forgotten.
Your Race Will Die Out.
Your God Will Be Replaced, Then Forgotten - As Will It's Successors.

Give Up Your Vain Hope Of Immortality And LIVE NOW.

*puff, pant, wipes froth from edges of mouth*

my life has meaning even though im athiest, i dont know why you would think i would not think it does? (...?...)

any way my life has meaning even though it will end. the changes i make on the world are significant, and hold meaning.

tisonlyi, the main problem of your argument is that i agree with you. I didn't claim i was unique, or that I wanted to live forever. What I was saying (or trying to) was that people who just want to have a fun/good time and helping others enjoy theirs are just defining their lives on the death that's apporaching. In some part of their minds when they say these things, they think "i'll be dead soon, so I should enjoy life while i have it." I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or even a shallow view- in fact, for the time being it is my viewpoint as well. I'm just saying it's absurd and hedonistic for our lives to be this way. If you remove death, leaving only what fufills us in life, our current experiences are not ENOUGH to me. I feel there should be more to life and creation itself than to spin around and around in cycles of growth and destruction. I know i'm not a special flower, and most likely neither is the whole human race. But the universe? It may just be something one of a kind, unique and worthy of something more. I just have no comprehension of what that could be.