Purpose

MrGoodBytes said:

If anything would take away the purpose and meaning of my existence, it would be the belief in a perfect afterlife. Why bother to do anything right if heaven is a million times greater anyway? Why be nice to my fellow man when everyone will be in a state of perpetual bliss for all eternity?

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It cheapens the life we have now.

consideringlily said:

It cheapens the life we have now.

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Yup. But isn't that sort of the point?

I have heard this more than once, that Christians somehow think that those who do not believe in any god can't have any purpose. What they don't realize is that they themselves have given their own lives purpose! In this regard, I don't think that Christians are any different from those who don't believe in any god.

The main difference is a difference in perspective. They still end up doing many of the same things, they just think they're doing them for different reasons.

Chalnoth said:

I have heard this more than once, that Christians somehow think that those who do not believe in any god can't have any purpose. What they don't realize is that they themselves have given their own lives purpose! In this regard, I don't think that Christians are any different from those who don't believe in any god.

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As a former Christian, IMO there seemed to be little difference in the moral behavior of Christians who believe in an eternal reward and nonbelievers. The proportion of moral/immoral people was the same to me as the general population.

I think the problem with the OPer and similarly minded people is that they define meaning so narrowly or life has to have uber-meaning.

Eternal life is assurance what you are will last. Without this assurance it doesn't matter what you do with your life.

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Why?

All the pleasure and adventure you experience will be as if it never happened.

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But they did happen, once upon a time. Here on Earth. That's what counts.

Jig said:

Do you do things for your own pleasure then? What about morality? Why hold to any such values?

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You also do things for your own pleasure. That's why you're here.

Jig said:

Eternal life is assurance what you are will last. Without this assurance it doesn't matter what you do with your life. All the pleasure and adventure you experience will be as if it never happened.

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The bolded sentence is true, but these are the cards we've been dealt. Eternal life is a wish. Apparently, you choose to give meaning to your life by wishing for eternal existence. All this wishing will be as if you never wished at all.

I don't know about purpose, but if one's goal in life is inner peace, it can be achieved much more readily once one stops worrying about life's "purpose."

nvxplorer said:

The bolded sentence is true, but these are the cards we've been dealt. Eternal life is a wish. Apparently, you choose to give meaning to your life by wishing for eternal existence. All this wishing will be as if you never wished at all.

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I have to disagree. The bolded sentence is the one that is false.

For an outside observer, at that certain point in time where "it will be", it might look as if there is no difference between an event that happened and an event that that happened and left no trace.

But for us, who are experiencing this event, there is indeed a difference. We DID experience it, and it does not matter whether we remember it.

Life is not composed of looking back.... life is living it.

Freodin said:

I have to disagree. The bolded sentence is the one that is false.

For an outside observer, at that certain point in time where "it will be", it might look as if there is no difference between an event that happened and an event that that happened and left no trace.

But for us, who are experiencing this event, there is indeed a difference. We DID experience it, and it does not matter whether we remember it.

Life is not composed of looking back.... life is living it.

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I read the statement differently. From my perspective, once I die, nothing will matter to me. This is, of course, somewhat of a paradox, but as we all cease to exist at some point, what comprised our existence will be irrelevant (to us) once we're gone. In other words, a dead man is a dead man, regardless of whether he lived twenty or a hundred years, was rich or poor, famous or anonymous.

Jig said:

Eternal life is assurance what you are will last. Without this assurance it doesn't matter what you do with your life. All the pleasure and adventure you experience will be as if it never happened.

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Possibly. But here and now, I'm alive. Let tomorrow worry about itself. I love, and live and, occasionally, party. It's all good, and it's made more valuable by the fact that it is limited.

What would I do with eternity, other than come,eventually, to hate my eternal existence because there is nothing new to see or do?

As for being forgotten? Why is that a bad thing? Practically everyone that has ever lived has been forgotten. Doesn't seem to upset them...

Jig said:

The society in which we live will eventually die out and become mere nothingness. All the effort one puts into such a system can be regarded as useless if it can not last or continue in some form for eternity.

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I tell you what, it is a paradox. But such things are part of being human. We either find meaning in our own lives, or we dont. Some people go through life never finding anything at all. Many turn to religion to give them their meaning. But we all make our own way, and however we find our place in life is where we find meaning. Some people are still religious but still have meaning outside it. I just find meaning without needing to look to religion at all, because I find that an illusion. Its not a real meaning.

So as I say it is a paradox. Someday we will die and in all likelyhood never "think" again in any sence, it sucks and I wouldnt want to believe that, but Im not going to lay down and die because of it. What would be the point in that? Im alive now.

You want to know whats also a paradox? Determinism. Im not totally confident that we are all able to really choose our destiny at all. Like, all our decisons are based on an almost infinite number of variables, that if we could predict we would know exactly how someone was going to act. Much like predicting the result of lottery draw, if you could predict all the variables you could tell what the winning numbers would be each time. But even if this were true, and theres no way to change who you are or how you will behave then you have to act as if you can, becuase its still in no way a productive way to live assuming the alternative.

The mere experience of life can hold no true value or personal significance if there is no continued eternal existence one can experience.

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Then I should lie down and die right now. But I wont, because I want to live even though I know Im going to eventually die some day.

Ed

Come back Jig. This was a great discussion, perhaps suited to General Apologetics but still interesting.

The meaning of my life is off sorting out the purchase of our first home. Someday our children will be born and grow up there and they too will be reasons to live. There is no higher perpose. There are 6 billion people on this little rock and the ain't no one more special than anyone else.

The purpose of your life is defined by yourself. It's your life, you give it meaning by what you do with it. That purpose can be high and mighty, like ending poverty or cuing cancer, or it can be small and personal like loving someone for the rest of your life.

But no one knows how long we have. If you spend all you time planning for an afterlife, you're going to find you miss out on this one. It's a beautiful world filled with wonderful people. If you don't go out there and explore them, then they're goingto be gone. Becuase, whatever form the afterlife takes, chances are we are not going to be here.

Humans are empathic and altristic. Whether you attribute that to God or evolution or both or neither, it is the truth for most people. We don't rape and pillage because we understand about inflicting pain on others. We can share that pain, and know that it is a bad thing. It feels good to help people, to see them happy, and it's a benefit for the species if people are healthy and happy. You don't need the threat of hell or the promise of heaven to live a good life. Indeed, if that is the only reason you behave then I'd have to say there is probably something wrong with you.

MemeBuster said:

I think the purpose of life on Earth is to consume energy. In other words, there is life on Earth because there is energy to consume.

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I think that too.

Also, it might very well be that the ultimate purpose of the human species is to speed up the process by which life is eventually extinguished globally. We seem to be a species intelligent enough as to be enoromously efficient at exploiting our environment, though not intelligent enough to make this a sustainable way of life - in my opinion, a lethal formula. Don't know if it's just suicidal or it really has the potential for the global anihilation of life.

Who knows, maybe there still is time for mankind to reach a level when their biological bodies become disposable and instead of genes surviving in machines (what we have now) there will be minds surviving in machines.

P.S. In an age of "minds surviving in machines" it would be possible to explore the vastness of the Universe and light-speed travel would be an immediate reality. Besides being immortal, a "pathfinder squad" of such minds could travel and set up receivers all accross space while minds could be broadcast and downloaded into readily available robotic "brains" and bodies. Space could soon be settled to its remotest realms by such a civilization. You could start your journey today and wake up a billion years later, a billion light-years away, and it wouldn't be any more than as if a blink of an eye to you.

Not to be pedantic, but technically, life itself serves no purpose. Purpose is provided; it is directed; it is designed and conceived. A theist will argue that such purpose is provided by God, but I, as an atheist, do not see life as having divine purpose.

"Life serves it's own purpose" is often used, and is acceptable, but such a statement is somewhat of a tautology. It's a semantic way of saying "life exists."

I don't concern myself with the "meaning of life." I feel it's an impossible question to answer, and as I stated above, illogical to my atheistic worldview. Instead, the components of my life (actions, basically) have purpose. It's possible that one's existence serves/served a purpose to his parents, but as I did not predate myself, I cannot have given purpose to my own existence.