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I'm curious what your take on it is. Please explain. Thanks!

2007-11-12 09:51:04 · 12 answers · asked by Sweetfeet 2 in Arts & Humanities Philosophy

Renaissance man: I can appreciate your take, but this question is for atheists.

2007-11-12 10:07:27 · update #1

Johnny Mack: can you elaborate? You're saying that the purpose of life is to get on with living. Is that correct?

2007-11-12 10:09:15 · update #2

12 answers

The question of why are we here is meaningless unless there is a Creator. Also, unless we claim to have created ourselves, we can't claim to invent a purpose for why we are here.

Our lives are inherently meaningless, purposeless, pointless and worthless. Without a Creator, that is the way it is but we can't stand to think about a meaningless existence so we create psychological crutches. There are three main types of psychological crutches we employ:

1) Keep busy so we won't have time to think. "live life to the fullest", "just live it", etc.
2) Focus only on happy thoughts. "I live for my loved ones".
3) Invent "purposes" (goals) which other people will praise, then accept their real and imagined praise as evidence that the purpose was real. "I want to leave the world a better place", "make a difference in the world", "curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy", etc.

2007-11-12 22:47:03 · answer #1 · answered by Matthew T 7 · 0 0

80% of humanity, the religious folks, don't need to ask the meaning of life, the church tells them....the supernatural explanation. But the rest of us can't swallow religious dogma, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that there life after death, that people are tortured or rewarded after life or that there's invisible spirits running around.

I've come to two conclusions recently:

1. Life has no meaning
2. Life has a million meanings.

First, there's a certainty that death and annihilation awaits not only you, but the Earth in general. It's an astonomical certainty that our sun will supernova and leave the earth a burnt crisp, not to mention all the other extinction level events around the corner.

Second, the million things that give us meaning are the pleasurable experiences we can conjure up during the short period we are here on the earth, in the form of the relationships we have with our kids and other people, and the 'housekeeping' types of purposes. What i mean by that are the curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, preventing war, helping other kinds of things.

So the bottom line is, we only have a temporary meaning to life, to reduce pain and increase pleasure, other than that everything is lost to oblivion.


To be or not to be? "To be" is temporary and "not to be" is inevitable.....

2007-11-12 19:33:39 · answer #2 · answered by Its not me Its u 7 · 1 0

I'm going to take the liberty of attempting an answer to your question though I question whether I'm an "atheist" or not.

I most emphatically do NOT believe in an anthropomorphic entity which is omnipotent, omniscient or which has any preferential interest in human life - certainly not individual human life. I believe this is an anachronism, unworthy of moral, thoughtful human being and counterproductive to having the life most abundant.

I do, however believe that the transcendent sum of the ALL is omnipotent, and that in the particularity of immanence is omniscient. I believe also that the IDEAL is the creative power after whose image we are created, is worthy of worship (in the sense of weorth schippe) and that the practice of religion (binding to the ideal and a careful observation of and attending to the numinous) is essential to the Way of Life most abundant. To me God is not a master puppeteer in the sky. "That than which none greater can be thought, that I call God." (St. Anshelm)

The purpose of life is gnosis*; to know abstractly and experiencially the wonder, the marvel, and the glory of the Constantly Becoming Being and Consciousness out of Infinite Potential in the optimum abundance accessible to human Being via the LOGOS**.

"Why are we here?" Pre-supposes intent. I question the notion that the ALL has intent. Intent implies discontent, incompleteness. The ALL would seem to transcend such qualities.


* Contrary to the myopic perspective of most scholars, "gnosis" is not some secret password that the Christian Gnostics were given by Jesus the Christ. It is the full monty of gKnowing. It is senses, memory, abstraction - all the faculties.

** Contrary to the usual translation by the Roman Church (heir to the empire of Constantine) "logos" is not the "word". "Logos" is the over-arching Law, Ordering principle by which creation comes about and is known.

Peace, Love, LOGOS.

2007-11-12 18:32:46 · answer #3 · answered by wordweevil 4 · 0 0

To get on with living. "All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades for ever and for ever as I move."

Feast on life! Gorge yourself on its wonders. Why pretend there's anything more?

**********
Sweetfeet - you asked me to elaborate. I'm saying you're asking the wrong question. Life is what is is. To ask an atheist what its purpose is makes no sense to me as life has no "purpose" in a religious sense. But that doesn't mean it's not a wonderful thing to be enjoyed. I try to live the best life I can, but "best" is based on my criteria and choices and not from anything imposed by a religious belief system.

Some atheists might argue that the purpose of life is to spread its DNA, in a Dawkings-style sense from The Selfish Gene. To me that would be depressingly empty as an answer to your question. We are self-aware and that is what makes life and living it so very interesting.

2007-11-12 18:02:23 · answer #4 · answered by Johnny Mack 2 · 0 0

To find a purpose.

Sartre said the our human dignity springs from the fact that we are uncreated beings rather than created objects. Our existence preceeds our essence. We are born and then we become who we are through our own choices.

A chair is a created object. Plans for a chair are drawn up and that is the essense of that chair. As ridiculous as it sounds to even mention, a chair has no say about what it is to be. The chair has an essence in the plans and once it is built, it exists. A chair's essence preceeds its existence.

Depending on your perspective then, we either have to decide what our purpose is... or we get to.

2007-11-12 18:52:00 · answer #5 · answered by K 5 · 1 0

the purpose of life is not to die and go to heaven. cause that is not a purpose. the purpose of life is life itself, and because we as humans have the ability to judge right from wrong, we can choose to be be good to each other. this does not require anything that isn't already within our ability. AND love is not something soley belonging to believers. Love for friends, and family, and fellow living things is something we all are able to do and this is the best purpose of all! But if religious people wish to attack non religious people, I'm not about to back down...

2007-11-12 18:16:38 · answer #6 · answered by justagorilla 6 · 1 0

I'm here because mom & dad had sex ... and biologically produced an offspring.

The purpose of life?? ...for me... it's simply living each day as best I can - be a good person - try to leave the world a better place than when I got here - and do my best to make tomorrow better than today. And I'll do that until my body functions fail and I die.

2007-11-12 17:55:55 · answer #7 · answered by Eric C 6 · 4 0

Ok; this one doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm not an atheist; but if a person IS an atheist, then by the definition of the work "atheist," he/she does not believe in a deity. He/she therefore would presumably think that our existence is a happenstance of biology, and does not have a planned purpose. Who would be there to do the planning?

2007-11-12 17:58:45 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0 3

We are here because we exist. That is primary and irreducible, a fact of nature.
The purpose of man belongs to each, individually, to decide.

2007-11-12 19:28:46 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

According to the bible, the purpose of life is to be fruitful and multiply to replenish the earth. For most of us, we need to find our own purpose according to our own values and abilities.

2007-11-12 18:03:56 · answer #10 · answered by Renaissance Man 5 · 0 1

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