Why do so many people find it impossible to accept that life could be intrinsically meaningless?

Question

I'm not asking WHY they don't believe that life is meaningless.

I'm asking why they react with incredulity to an atheist's assertion that it is intrinsically devoid of meaning, except for any meaning that we ourselves choose to give it.

Answer 1

I believe our religious constructs/forms are abstractions of our real existence - mostly of our real social existence. As social animals, it has served us well to "feel" that people are intrinsically important. (Obviously this sense of other's importance increases or diminishes - family, clan, tribe, etc. - in sort of concentric circles or importance.) As individuals, we place ourselves (pretty much) in the innermost of those circles.

To that we add that almost all of our significant vital activity is social. It's not hard to see why we'd reflexively create cultural forms that are projections of our social existence. Some of our relgious forms even have family structures. God can be a father, sometimes with a son. Or he can be the tribal leader, king, etc. These abstracted entities (surprise!) also think think we are important. (In some cases it would seem we're the only thing the gods think about!) That is cultural reality.

But culture itself is the province of at least one science, anthropology. And there it's understood that one model is much like the other, regardless of how they seem to "contradict" each other. Ultimately they are mental constructs born out of the human condition - AND HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OTHER ASPECT OF REALITY. (Even the reality that caused the abstraction itself!)

So, most people need to feel important, purposeful, even beyond their social functions and contributions. Is it true they are? Outside of the role of human interactions there is nothing that points to such importance or purpose.

If we all dispappeared today the universe wouldn't give a hoot that a blue planet had rid itself of a surface irritation. It isn't so much that life has no meaning beyond itself. If you want to be coherent about the universe, life CANNOT HAVE any meaning beyond itself.

Answer 2

Its the inherent conservatism of the religious mind. Not only do they not accept there is the possibility of no meaning, they disregard any meaning which does not reflect their own values. There is an inherent egoism in Christianity which places the lord, and then vicariously the worshipper at the centre of the religious concept. This is an easy to swallow cop out. The thought processes required to deal properly with the ifs and whys are too difficult to entertain for any prolonged time especially if the answers may end up providing no comfort. The finite nature of the human brain is at odds with both the concepts of nothingness and infinity, which is why I think many people turn to religion and then do such a bad job of it. Dogma does not encourage esoteric thought.

As Bill Watterson said through the legendary Calvin "Imagine if stuff meant nothing or everything meant everything; which would be worse?"

Answer 3

You let yourself out - very conveniently - by the side gate by saying "... except for any meaning that we ourselves choose to give it."

Life has to have a meaning for people (I hope that I speak for those who love God as much as for those who deny that there is such a being), otherwise they would die! Now, some choose to see their meaning for existence as doing something for mankind (and raising kids properly isn't a bad raison d'etre), others ... maybe a little more selfishly ... think that there is a carrot at the end of it. I am not sure that it matters what meaning we choose to give to life ... as long as we DO choose to give it a meaning.

Have I fallen into the trap? Or have I answered your question by saying that it is humanly impossible to accept that life is intrinsically meaningless, so there can be no answer to WHY people find it impossible to accept absence of meaning.

Perhaps humans are at a half-way house - a state of confused awakening. As far as we know, even the higher animals don't worry about 'the meaning of life'. It is the fact that we have something that (by our own definition) animals do not have that makes us want to know the 'meaning of life' ... or to aver that there is a meaning.

I often wonder if our great downfall - as portrayed in the story about the expulsion from the Garden of Eden - was really that humanity thinks itself greater in some way than the rest of life on this planet. Is that, indeed, the result of 'eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil'? Your question immediately implies - for most people, it seems - HUMAN life. Actually, that is just a small (and very recent) blip in the existence of life on this planet. Who are we to say what the meaning of life really is? We raise our heads a little from the slime, look around and say "Hmm ... looks like slime, [tastes like chicken] ... don't look meaningful to me!"

What I am saying is, who are you, as an atheist, to say that there is NOT a meaning to life? I could concur that there MAY not be a 'God' ... certainly not the 'God' that many religions have dreamed up. I happen to have tried many points of view in my life and believe that I was brought up short at one point and TOLD that I should henceforth explore only one possibility - that there is a meaning, even though I am too small to see it. Now, that is MY experience. I don't expect you to understand (or even to believe) that I am not under a delusion. Somebody in an earlier answer said that 'emotion is not a good basis for forming an opinion on anything.' That is very true ... but when one is unexpectedly caught by the throat by 'emotion' - actually raw 'love' (which is an energy, not an emotion), there is no room for opinion ... only blazing certainty!

Answer 4

Because no one can live consistently with this presupposition. Not even those who confess it as true. In order to live consistently with the doctrine of relative meaning and purpose there is nothing that you can say that is valid for demonstrating that meaning and purpose can have any definition at all. That would include your questions. If you live consistently with your suggestion then you cannot give me reason for believing that your question is meaningful or has purpose other than just because it has meaning and purpose for you. There is nothing that gives it objective meaning and therefore no one is bound to take anything you say seriously. You need to have a reason that makes assertions universal in their scope, otherwise dialogue over meaning and purpose is it self just beating at the air, and relational interaction is not possible other than a demonstration of a bunch of raving lunatics with nothing in common but universal confusion and insanity.

Answer 5

Because the assertion is based on the false belief that there is no God. You need to remember, if your an atheist, much of what you think has for a foundation, that false belief. And since creationism will win every time in the "arena" of debate over evolution, it becomes clear that the atheist's perspective is a "house of cards".

Answer 6

Well, it then becomes the point that there is a world view very different and just as valid as yours. Many, I don't think, are ready to accept that reality so they fight it with their own beliefs. It shakes the comfort zone for them. The unknown is an uncomfortable place for most; it's abstract and undefined. Human beings seem to like guidelines and limits.

Answer 7

Good point. I often wonder the same thing. The xians seem terrified by the idea that there might be no purpose at all.

I always wonder what if another meteor struck a week from now and wiped out all humans? What would our purpose have been? Seriously, all humans just ...gone.

Why does there have to be a purpose anyway?

Answer 8

I think it's because the statement sounds like an attack on everything they've worked for...including raising a family, career, accomplishments, etc... In other words, the meaning they chose to give their lives is perceived as being under attack so they act defensively....

You have to admit, it's hard to be completely detached from all those things to look at the statement objectively.

Answer 9

Because for many, it's a frightening thought. Instead of having some sort of "God's Plan" to follow, these people would have to make their own choices and decisions in life. It's so much easier to have one convenient book with all of your answers in it. Moral decisions no longer need to be made. Life is simplified enormously. They're just taking the easy way out.

Answer 10

Centripet's answer is correct.

Life truely has no meaning at all. Let me tell you a bit.

You study - in the end you have to die.
You work - in the end you have to die.
You fight -in the end you have to die.
Thing never get finised. New problems keep on comming.

Imagine....... you wake up, go to work, come back, sleep. Next day same thing. Off day.... you wake up, watch movie, read book, do your hobby, sleep. Next day, Next week, Next month, Next year, Next decades same thing. There is no meaning at all. But we all are busy in this life cycle.

So, if you want to have a meaning, start to learn buddhism. Start to learn meditation. You won't move anywhere if you don't move yourself. Just do it before you die. Remember life is very very short. You just haven't finish doing something it's already a year or a decades. I didn't even how I finished my high school. And it has already been 6 years behind.