Without God, Life Has No Meaning...

[Jag]

Jag,

...now you're no better than me...

-Nam

Wow, Jag, dem's fitin woids!!   

Naw, that's not what Nam would be saying if he were looking for a fight. Plus he's right, just ask junebug. 

After all, I'm the Official WWGHA Harpy.

[Nam]

^oh, I thought you were going to say "tease", my bad.



-Nam

[nogodsforme]

From a theist Standpoint, we are here as part of God's plan, our value to that plan is unknown, our state of memory, and continued existence are in doubt in that we don't know what we will be after death.  Our toils here on Earth are irrelevant in heaven near as I can tell but for possibly setting up your standing when you die.

God believers tell us that all the time, and then act all offended when we ask them why should anyone hang around here on nasty old earth with the beautiful glorious afterlife just waiting. Then all the excuses: god gave you this life so you have to live it out to the end (why?); you could convert someone and save their soul, so you have to hang around and see; suicide is a sin.

But even if all that was true, wouldn't they welcome a fatal disease or accident and request that they not be revived or saved? Why would they even get married and have kids-- they should just save souls full-time and hope to die young. Instead, the religious cling to this "meaningless" life, have tons of kids, live the same materialistic life as anyone else, and line up for every expensive life-extending medical advance there is. Based on the same science many claim they do not believe in.....

My honest question is why don't people who believe in the wonderful afterlife sacrifice themselves doing really great things for others, like cleaning up land mines or helping at nuclear reactor accidents. In Japan after the tsunami, elderly engineers came out of retirement to voluntarily do the dangerous clean up work. They did not want the younger people to sacrifice themselves. Need I remind anyone that these elderly Japanese are atheists?

[wheels5894]

Well, Epidemic, I still think the discussion here has been blighted by the problem of different people meaning different things but using the same words. Take the word 'god' for example, Most of us here have a fairly clear understanding of the word to mean something like the Jewish / Christian/ Muslim god - the 3 omni being. Yet June talks in terms of a god being almost the equivalent of the universe.

So also with 'meaning'. Theists want to have an overarching 'meaning' for the whole universe whilst atheists tend to think of a 'meaning' or purpose for their own individual life attached as it is to the lives of others. Bringing up a family or a satisfying career give an individual's life meaning for example.

Really the whole 12 pages (hope that's where we are anyway!) has really been about which of these ideas is the right interpretation of the word 'meaning'. In the end, I suspect we are going to end up agreeing the everyone is right - but I bet it will take another 12 pages before we do! Ultimately, atheists and theists bare not going to agree on the existence or otherwise of  a god and thus fundamentally disagree on the question of an overarching 'meaning' to the universe. We are never going to get round that so are all going to have to wait until we cease to exist / pass on to the next world _{(delete as applicable)} to find out who was right! Maybe a theist might then come back and tell us....

[screwtape]

After all, I'm the Official WWGHA Harpy.

you mean one of these?

[Nam]

After all, I'm the Official WWGHA Harpy.

you mean one of these?

No, one of these:

Harpy



-Nam

[Anfauglir]

But even if all that was true, wouldn't they welcome a fatal disease or accident and request that they not be revived or saved? Why would they even get married and have kids-- they should just save souls full-time and hope to die young. Instead, the religious cling to this "meaningless" life, have tons of kids, live the same materialistic life as anyone else, and line up for every expensive life-extending medical advance there is. Based on the same science many claim they do not believe in.....

Assuming of course they feel they have done enough to get to the right afterlife.  Of course, if you believe EVERYONE goes to the good afterlife, then there's no problem at all.

At the bare minimum, I would expect people in that position to have a "DNR" tattoo on their chest.  And as you say, it'd be reasonable to refuse all medical treatment if they get sick - after all, if you're ill, isn't that god's will in the first place?  For the same reasons, funerals should be a place of happiness (yay! Bill's gone to heaven!) mixed with a little jealousy (heck....Bill's got to heaven and I'm still here in this stinkhole world). 

It's like.....someone says "emigrating to Australia is fantastic.  You get a luxury apartment, an unlimited credit card, and its always sunny.  Your grandpa is there, and your best friend from school.  Everyone you know will be going there sooner or later."  And you'd look round at the horrible country you live in, and think....."actually, I think I'll live in this cesspool for as long as I possibly can - I want to hold off emigrating for the maximum time possible"  Makes ZERO sense.

Or, to be truthful, it makes complete sense when you realise that the vast majority of people who profess to believe in a fantastic afterlife, and a god, do not REALLY believe when it comes down to it.  At best, there's a whole lot of doubt.  Watch a Christian who believes in a god of love, a god of charity, a god of forgiveness, and see how many of them fail on a regular basis to be kind, or giving, of forgiving, and (basically) spend most of their time acting the way they denounce atheists for acting.

[junebug72]

Jag,

...now you're no better than me...

-Nam

Wow, Jag, dem's fitin woids!!   

Naw, that's not what Nam would be saying if he were looking for a fight. Plus he's right, just ask junebug. 

After all, I'm the Official WWGHA Harpy.

Jag I don't think you are a meanie.  I think you think you are my mother.  I think you think you are the only one that knows anything.  In fact I think that of 75% of the members here.  You better listen to me but my ears are closed when you speak/type.  I think y'all think if you just make fun of me enough I'll change my mind and be like you; not that there's anything wrong with you, but I am who I am and there's nothing wrong with who I am. 

[junebug72]

Love=acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, help/charity, understanding, respect, giving, connected, survival, hope, warm and comforting.

[junebug72]

Chronos,  I have given Nam love.  I have offered the olive branch several times and he hits me with it.  Whenever Nam is ready I will be happy to call a truce.

That's why you should have more facts before opening your keyboard!!!

To the rest of you I think you shouldn't call people names and then criticize them for defending herself.  That's why I keep saying you are arrogant.  I have for the most part dealt with your derogatory remarks like a lady.  I flipped my lid 1 time and that was understandable. 



Love only works when there are willing participants.  I was hoping to find willing participants here but I'm not having any luck, much.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Offer something with more value than an olive branch, a TV maybe?

[Dante]

That's why you should have more facts before opening your keyboard!!!

Hello pot? This is kettle....

To the rest of you I think you shouldn't call people names and then criticize them for defending herself.  That's why I keep saying you are arrogant.  I have for the most part dealt with your derogatory remarks like a lady.  I flipped my lid 1 time and that was understandable. 

You have yet to be "understandable". As a matter of fact, you're the antithesis of the word.

You believe us arrogant because you're too ignorant, or too stupid, to figure out what and/or why we say what we say. You're usually on auto-defense, which blinds you to reason. You defend your god belief at the same time as you make it up. You've thought very little through to the end. You think you're smart. You think you have command of the english language. You think you're coherent.

You're not.

You're so far in over your head here you don't realise you're drowning.

Love only works when there are willing participants.  I was hoping to find willing participants here but I'm not having any luck, much.

Why wont love heal amputees?

[ThatZenoGuy]

Love=acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, help/charity, understanding, respect, giving, connected, survival, hope, warm and comforting.

Pretty sure that...

Love= love
And the rest equal themselves...

I think y'all think if you just make fun of me enough I'll change my mind and be like you; not that there's anything wrong with you, but I am who I am and there's nothing wrong with who I am. 

Resistance is futile, lower your shields and prepare to be assimilated.
Err...sorry...borg moment there...

To the rest of you I think you shouldn't call people names and then criticize them for defending herself.  That's why I keep saying you are arrogant.  I have for the most part dealt with your derogatory remarks like a lady.  I flipped my lid 1 time and that was understandable. 

If there is one thing I have learnt here, if you post anything that is dismissive, prepare to be abused.
As advice, grow thicker skin, or do not post things that can lead to flaming.

Edit: Ohh my, i have a 1:1 karma ratio 9_6, that means i need to post more tulpa related stuff...

[Jag]

Jag I don't think you are a meanie.  I think you think you are my mother.  I think you think you are the only one that knows anything.  In fact I think that of 75% of the members here.  You better listen to me but my ears are closed when you speak/type.  I think y'all think if you just make fun of me enough I'll change my mind and be like you; not that there's anything wrong with you, but I am who I am and there's nothing wrong with who I am.

Ok, no worries at all sweetpea. I won't offer you any more suggestions. I'll treat you the same way I would treat anyone else who says the things you say. Frankly, from my perspective that's about the meanest thing I could do to you but it's also what you are asking for - you're on your own.

Congratulations junebug, you just lost your last defender.

[screwtape]

Alrigtht everyone, settle down.  The topic is meaning without god.  Let's not make this personal. 

[ThatZenoGuy]

*Ontopic*

I find the irony in the thread name.

As while a theist knows that he could die any second and yet still have an unlimited amount of life and happiness, an atheist would make sure every second of his life would have meaning and make the most of it.

[junebug72]

Jag I've never thought of you as a defender.  It's no sweat.

I live my life to fullest.  It's the only chance I have at this life.  I don't just die because there are people here I love and enjoy spending time with. 

The idea of spending the afterlife with them gives this life meaning to me.  It makes me want to be morally good.

[wright]

I live my life to fullest.  It's the only chance I have at this life.  I don't just die because there are people here I love and enjoy spending time with. 

The idea of spending the afterlife with them gives this life meaning to me.  It makes me want to be morally good.

I confess I just don't understand the last two sentences, junebug. Maybe I've missed something you've said before, or maybe your thought here is expressed incompletely. So I'm sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself, but:

Why does it take an afterlife to give meaning to the one you already have? You haven't had an easy life, from what you've shared here, but it hasn't been unending horror either. There are things that give you pleasure, goals you've striven for and achieved, other things you yet hope to accomplish, yes?

I don't understand what you find lacking in this life that you believe can only be found in another one.

[nogodsforme]

No matter what your life is like now, the afterlife is supposed to be even better. It's like all the good stuff with none of the bad.  Plenty of problems with this idea:

If god can make an afterlife world with all the good stuff and none of the bad.....why didn't he just do that in the first place? Why bother to make this messed up one to begin with? What is the point of this world again? (Any explanation sounds bogus.)

If people (Adam and Eve, Hitler, greedy capitalists, whatever) messed up this world and god could not or chose not to do much of anything about it, why won't that happen again in the next life? What will prevent another A and E, Hitler, greedy capitalist, etc? (Free will, anyone?)

The afterlife world could end up being exactly like this world, only without racism, earthquakes, menstrual cramps, mosquitoes and Paris Hilton. We'd still have poverty, tooth decay, intestinal parasites, hurricanes, and Simon Cowell.  (Not too bad, but hardly a paradise.)

I can understand why people whose lives really suck would hope for a wonderful afterlife. A family in the tropics suffering from malaria would be very happy if they had the same life only without racism, earthquakes, menstrual cramps, mosquitoes and Paris Hilton. But what about the people who have really good lives now--beautiful, happy, healthy millionaires in Sweden with national health care to pay for the menstrual cramp medication and a high fence to keep out Paris Hilton. Will the afterlife be even better for them, too?

[Epistemolojesus]

I've always thought that questions that put "life" and "meaning" into the same breath deserve the old Zen response, "mu". The question should just be unasked, because it's nonsensical. Meaning implies communication. If my life is treated as a "communication", then it's a very bad one, because there will be practically no consensus on what it is trying to say beyond, "Yup, I was here, just like you." When you ask the meaning of a sentence, you don't say, "Yes, that's what the sentence says, but WHY is it THERE and WHY did it SAY THAT?"

Now if you want to talk PURPOSE, that's a more meaningful discussion, but still a bit nonsensical. The purpose of my life? THE purpose? I can have only one? All the time? I can't have different purposes at different times of my life, or times of the day, or even multiple conflicting purposes at the same time? And ultimately, doesn't it all come down to the same thing, whether or not you believe in an afterlife? Just to...go on? (and on, and on, and on)

Service to Jesus, whatever that means for the person claiming it, is but one purpose. If you don't believe in Jesus, okay, so you have one less purpose than I do, just as you believe in one less god than I do. Or maybe you're just less ambitious as far as going on and on and on, with no belief in the afterlife and all.

[Nam]

Moooooo.



-Nam

[xyzzy]

But what if I'm determined to make the most of this life and don't want, let alone need, an afterlife? What if I've given it my all and have found meaning in what I've accomplished, what I've done, who I've met, where I've been, and have sampled all the world's best chocolate?

What if I have an Advanced [Afterlife] Directive which clearly states "DNR - not even the big one?" Then what?

The concept of an afterlife seems, to me, suspiciously like "be good and eat your veggies then you can go out and play". But let's say I'm wrong, there's a god, there's and afterlife, but I've indicated my preference to opt-out as above.

Am I going to wake up and go, "For FFS, big Y, first you cause all that unnecessary suffering and angst with your silly game of hide-and-seek and, now, here I am even though I asked to be left alone. May I go now?". But let's say it's his house, his rules, and I get to stay. That's hardly respectful is it?

Then I look around and all my broken bits are working again. The wonky parts of me that he designed when he had an off-day are now fully functional, and everyone is as perfect as everyone else. Even Paris Hilton. Oh, and Rap music doesn't exist either.

"Well then, Yah, mind if I call you Yah, or do you prefer Mr Weh? Too bad you couldn't have done that when it would have made a difference but thanks. I think. Oh, and good on you for finally feeding those starving kids in the Sudan who found their way here without a GPS. Nice one, kiddo". Is that how it works?

But what if the afterlife does exist, and I get not to go, as desired. Is that any better? Does the memory of my existence get expunged from everyone who ever knew me? Pets too if the believer has left the "no-soul, no-service" box unticked when they invented their version of heaven [1]. How is that fair? What if the little old lady that I helped cross the street was thinking gracious thoughts about me when she took one on the noggin by a bowl of petunias that, improbably, had reached terminal velocity [2]? Is it fair to take away that happy thought?

Sorry, but this afterlife concept is going to need a lot more work before I allow myself to be distracted from the only life that we actually have any reason, any reason at all, to believe exists.


[1] Do pets go to heaven?

[2] Oh no, not again

[median]

I've been reading the works of Robert Ingersoll lately and I must say, the man was brilliant. If you are one who has not had the opportunity to read
Hell Warm Words on the Cheerful and Comforting Doctrine of Eternal Damnation I highly recommend it. IMO Ingersoll does a great job of not only debunking the absurdity of the doctrines of the bible (and how demeaning they are to humanity) but how meaningful the natural, temporal life in fact is.

He says,

"For my part I am glad there was death in this world, because that gave me a chance. Somebody had to die to give me room, and when my turn comes I'll be willing to let somebody else take my place. But whether there is another life or not, if there is duty being who gave me this, I shall thank him from the bottom of my heart, because, upon the whole, my life has been a joy."

Later he writes,

"I will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition, then I will go to hell with my reason rather than to heaven without it."

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37699/37699-h/37699-h.htm

What a voice Mr. Ingersoll was! We simply do not need a "reason to live" beyond our own subjective ones. Isn't the subjective value that each of us places upon our own lives enough? It is free! It is grand! It is magnificent! We can make our own paths. Value what we enjoy. Explore great things. Make mistakes and then correct them, and change course at anytime - all without the fear of thinking our efforts are "meaningless". No, they are not meaningless. They have meaning to each and every one of us who makes decisions and has the great and wonderful opportunity to be alive and enjoy great experiences with one another in this short time we call "life". Who needs a God to give us meaning when we have ourselves and each other?

[junebug72]

I live my life to fullest.  It's the only chance I have at this life.  I don't just die because there are people here I love and enjoy spending time with. 

The idea of spending the afterlife with them gives this life meaning to me.  It makes me want to be morally good.

I confess I just don't understand the last two sentences, junebug. Maybe I've missed something you've said before, or maybe your thought here is expressed incompletely. So I'm sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself, but:

Why does it take an afterlife to give meaning to the one you already have? You haven't had an easy life, from what you've shared here, but it hasn't been unending horror either. There are things that give you pleasure, goals you've striven for and achieved, other things you yet hope to accomplish, yes?

I don't understand what you find lacking in this life that you believe can only be found in another one.

I enjoy many aspects of this life but the fact is 1 day it will end for all of us.  I believe my spirit will go on to the spiritual realm where I will be truly be free. Like I said this makes me want to be morally good.  I have power over the choices I make and believing it controls my final destiny makes me think longer and harder to make sure that I make the right choice.  It makes me want to use the gift of freewill wisely.  Not because I fear hell, I don't believe in hell, but I do think that the better you are as a human the better your afterlife will be.  I also want to show God how thankful I am by being morally good.  It answers the question WHY?

[Willie]

Not because I fear hell, I don't believe in hell, but I do think that the better you are as a human the better your afterlife will be.

Why do you believe this? Do you have reason to think that it is true? Or do you believe it because you want it to be true?

If you ask yourself that same question, do you get the same answer as when I ask it?

[junebug72]

Not because I fear hell, I don't believe in hell, but I do think that the better you are as a human the better your afterlife will be.

Why do you believe this? Do you have reason to think that it is true? Or do you believe it because you want it to be true?

If you ask yourself that same question, do you get the same answer as when I ask it?

I believe it because I feel an energy inside me I call spirit.  I don't believe that spirit dies.  I believe it because that's what I would expect from a loving God.

[median]

I believe it because I feel an energy inside me I call spirit.  I don't believe that spirit dies.  I believe it because that's what I would expect from a loving God.

But so far you haven't given any good reason to think there is a God, or a "spirit" - except your statement, "I feel..." and that statement isn't a good reason. Feelings are often unreliable for separating fact from fiction - and they are especially unreliable in determining whether or not supernatural things are real or not. I think I can speak for most of us here when I say, you are going to need more than just "I feel".


p.s. - If this is your 'disinterested' research ("I feel....therefore God"), it isn't disinterested.

[Epistemolojesus]

But what if I'm determined to make the most of this life and don't want, let alone need, an afterlife? What if I've given it my all and have found meaning in what I've accomplished, what I've done, who I've met, where I've been, and have sampled all the world's best chocolate?

Regardless of whether you believe in an afterlife, you must continue living to do all those other things. Some of us just take it one step further, because there are things we want to do, well, after life. It doesn't mean we can't do the rest as well. It doesn't mean we can't find "meaning" in things other than what's in the holy books.

[Foxy Freedom]

Regardless of whether you believe in an afterlife, you must continue living to do all those other things. Some of us just take it one step further, because there are things we want to do, well, after life. It doesn't mean we can't do the rest as well. It doesn't mean we can't find "meaning" in things other than what's in the holy books.

Do you think you will get much choice of what to do in your afterlife? Do you think you will get an afterlife immediately after death or will you have to wait for a resurrection?