Is everything "meaningless" without God?

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

What is the purpose of that? What end does it achieve? Why should I care and put stock into this meaning created by another being?

Because I believe that the purpose that God gave himself was to love and be loved. It is impossible to love if you have nothing or nobody to love. By loving God and others, you are fulfilling your purpose for God's reasons.

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[Chriliman]

If the first "atheist" (why atheist?) is the source of his own meaning, then, being the first, he is also the source of all meaning.

How is he the source of all meaning when there was meaning before he came into existence?

The reason I'm singling out the atheist is because he believes he is the source of all meaning. The theist does not believe he is the source of all meaning, he believes God is the source of all meaning.

As soon as another "atheist" (why not a theist? Are theists unable to create meaning?) "comes into existence", the meaning the first atheist created will not be "all meaning" any more.

Again, there was meaning before the atheist came to exist, so how can he be the source of all meaning?

And now to switch sides.
If the atheist is "only" the source of his own meaning... how then can God be the source of "all" meaning?

So all atheist give themselves meaning? They don't acquire meaning from anyone or anything? If this is the case, then you're correct in saying God is not the source of their meaning, no one or nothing is the source of their meaning. I guess it's a closed loop that only exists for self, but can't explain how or why it exists for self.

 

[Freodin]

Because I believe that the purpose that God gave himself was to love and be loved. It is impossible to love if you have nothing or nobody to love. By loving God and others, you are fulfilling your purpose for God's reasons.

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That's fine and dandy, but I hope you see that you cannot justify your idea of "purpose" in the way that you demand we justify our idea.

Say I was a theist who believed that the purpose God (a different god, but God nontheless) himself gave was to live your live, to reproduce, to survive, to die... you would ask - you DO ask! - "But what is the point in that?"

Can't you not see that you demand us to give answers to questions that you cannot answer for your own position?

 

[Freodin]

How is he the source of all meaning when there was meaning before he came into existence?

Was there? If meaning is created by meaning-creating beings... how can there be meaning before the first meaning-creating being came into existence?

The reason I'm singling out the atheist is because he believes he is the source of all meaning. The theist does not believe he is the source of all meaning, he believes God is the source of all meaning.

What one believes is irrelevant here.

Is "an atheist" the source of "some" meaning? His own personal meaning, just for example. You already answered this question positively.

How does "an atheist" do that? Is his atheism relevant for that? No, it isn't. It is his mental capacity as a conscious, evaluating living being that enables him to "create meaning".
The theist might not "believe" that he is the source of any meaning... but just by his existence as a conscious living being, he does "create meaning".

Again, there was meaning before the atheist came to exist, so how can he be the source of all meaning?

You just insist that there was meaning before "the atheist" (and I explained why "the atheist" is irrelevant here) to introduce your idea of "God" into that.

For the sake of this logical argument, there is no difference between "the atheist", "the theist" or "God" as a source of meaning.

So all atheist give themselves meaning? They don't acquire meaning from anyone or anything? If this is the case, then you're correct in saying God is not the source of their meaning, no one or nothing is the source of their meaning. I guess it's a closed loop that only exists for self, but can't explain how or why it exists for self.

Slowly now, slowly. You are starting to ramble again. Remember: reason and honesty!

You just said that if atheists give themselves meaning, no one is the source of their meaning. Obviously this is false, because if atheists give themselves meaning, THEY are the source of their meaning.

As for the "don't they acquire meaning from anyone or anything?" Well, I'd say this is a problem of language, not of concepts.
Similarly as I said in my post to Jason, post #194, the language we use is based on a certain worldview (that isn't necessarily completely real). We talk about "meaning" as if it was an independent object, that can be observed, created, traded... but it isn't.
So yes, "meaning" can be "acquired". It can be "shared". But all that means is that one individual, conscious, evaluating living being takes an observation, an experience and incooperates it into "his meaning".

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

Why would that be anyone's purpose?

That is what the bible says our created purpose is?

 

[toLiJC]

The book of Ecclesiastes starts out with a startling exclamation:

“‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’
says the Teacher.
‘Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless’” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

Other translations have the word vanity or futility in place of meaningless. The point is the same: Solomon in his old age has found everything in this world to be empty and void of meaning. This lament becomes the theme of the whole book.

Saying that everything is meaningless sounds depressing, but we must keep Solomon’s point of view in mind. This is found in Ecclesiastes 1:14: “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” The key phrase is under the sun, which is repeated throughout the book. Solomon is sharing an earth-bound perspective. He is only considering life “under the sun”; that is, a human life lived to the exclusion of any consideration of God. From that godless perspective, everything is indeed “meaningless.”

In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon discusses ten vanities—ten things that are “meaningless” when considered from the limited point of view of “under the sun.” Without God, human wisdom is meaningless (2:14–16); labor (2:18–23); amassing things (2:26); life itself (3:18–22); competition (4:4); selfish overwork (4:7–8); power and authority (4:16); greed (5:10); wealth and accolades (6:1–2); and perfunctory religion (8:10–14).

When Solomon says, “Everything is meaningless,” he did not mean that everything in the world is of zero value. Rather, his point is that all human efforts apart from God’s will are meaningless. Solomon had it all, and he had tried everything, but when he left God out of the equation, nothing satisfied him. There is purpose in life, and it is found in knowing God and keeping His commands. That’s why Solomon ends his book this way:

“Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all mankind” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

So if God does not exist, the universe was created from nothing, by nothing, for absolutely no reason. All life, including our own, is nothing more than a byproduct of nature by natural means and when we die we will fade into nothing. Ultimately the universe will use up all its energy (per the laws of thermodynamics ) and fade into blackness. With all that being said, what's the point? Is everything not meaningless?

Edit: apparently there is some confusion on what the word "meaningless" means. The Hebrew word used for meaningless is הָ֫בֶל "hebel" which means futility, pointlessness, or fruitlessness. It has nothing to do with the purpose of something but rather what the end result of something.

An example would be a man trying to build a house next to the ocean and every day for the rest of his life the tide came in and swept his work away. The purpose of his work is to build a house. However, what does he have to show for all his labor in the end?

the more correct word is "temporalness", because Solomon laid particular stress on the transitiveness of the things as a whole in the longest term viewed along the time continuum of the eternal circle of life and existence, but more specifically he took into consideration the fact that no soul can always be at the top of (the) fortune throughout the time's infinity, which is actually the so-called "doctrine of eternal judgment"(Hebrews 6:2) on which all the Word and scripture of God is based, indeed, the doctrine of eternal judgment is explained mostly in the book Ecclesiastes - it is dedicated specifically to the things considered from the perspective of the eternal circle of life and existence in the longest term, in brief, every soul will be in the place/position and will have the personality of any other in the course of the eternal cycles, and no soul can remain in the paradise of eternal life forever (John 8:35), because (the) eternity is actually both cyclic and endless, for there is some (very) long cycle whose events remain and are ever the same, only the souls successively exchange the(ir) eternal positions/personalities unawares every single eternity - actually it is rather the mechanism of the eternal circle of life and existence that transposes the souls as to the(ir) eternal positions/personalities one step ahead every single eternal cycle

Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago(i.e. in the previous eternities); it was here before our time(i.e. before this eternal cycle). No one remembers the former generations(i.e. none of the creatures can remember/know which positions/personalities/fates were the positions/personalities/fates of the souls or what the positions/personalities/fates of the souls were in the previous eternal cycles), and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them(i.e. by the souls in the next/future eternities)."

Blessings

 

[Chriliman]

Was there? If meaning is created by meaning-creating beings... how can there be meaning before the first meaning-creating being came into existence?

Right, which brings me back to my original question. Who was the first meaning-creating being? Who was the original source of meaning? It wasn't me and it wasn't you, so who was it and what brought him/her into existence? Was he/she brought into existence or have they always existed eternally? To me, this seems like a crucial question to have an answer to.

The Christian faith provides a logical answer. God the Father has always existed and He brought His perfect Son Jesus Christ into physical existence to give His human life as a ransom for all whom God loves that had fallen away due to disobedience and sin and became imprisoned by their sin. Jesus gave his human life and suffered immensely to free us from our sin. This is the perfect act of love that only God could accomplish.

Apart from this answer, there is no true meaning to life. All other created meaning and answers will only try to copy this true answer that goes to the root of what it means to exist and love and be loved.

 

[Freodin]

Right, which brings me back to my original question. Who was the first meaning-creating being? Who was the original source of meaning? It wasn't me and it wasn't you, so who was it and what brought him/her into existence? Was he/she brought into existence or have they always existed eternally? To me, this seems like a crucial question to have an answer to.

To me, this seems like an irrelevant question. Meaning is based on the individual. Meaning cannot be independent from the individual. So any "original" source of meaning wouldn't be any better or worse, wouldn't be relevant for other sources of meaning.

The Christian faith provides a logical answer. God the Father has always existed and He brought His perfect Son Jesus Christ into physical existence to give His human life as a ransom for all whom God loves that had fallen away due to disobedience and sin and became imprisoned by their sin. Jesus gave his human life and suffered immensely to free us from our sin. This is the perfect act of love that only God could accomplish.

I wish you would stop using the term "logical" every time you go off into something that is everything but logical.

You presented a potential answer. An answer that rests on a myriad of premises that simply are not given. Just in exactly the same way, I could tell you the "logical" answer that the Old Norse faith provides. The Gods rule this world and defend it against the evil Ice Giants. They raise an army of the best and most valiant warriors. A worthy warrior will die in battle, and be taken to the Halls of the Gods where he will feast until it is the time for the Last Battle. There, all the Gods and Heroes will valiantly take arms against the evil Ice Giants, and will fight and die heroically for good. Then the world will be renewed. This is the perfect act of heroism that only the Gods and their chosen could accomplish.

You don't believe that? Well, it is just as "logical" as your story.

Apart from this answer, there is no true meaning to life. All other created meaning and answers will only try to copy this true answer that goes to the root of what it means to exist and love and be loved.

There is no "true" - no objective - meaning at all. All other "created" meanings and answers that differ from your "true" meaning prove that there is no single version of what it means to exist and love and be loved.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

Ecclesiastes 3:18-22

18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

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[Chany]

Because I believe that the purpose that God gave himself was to love and be loved. It is impossible to love if you have nothing or nobody to love. By loving God and others, you are fulfilling your purpose for God's reasons.

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But was end does God's reasons serve? If I serve a king, I have a purpose. But if the king has no meaning or purpose, my meaning appears to lose its effectiveness. So, unless God's self-assigned meaning or purpose serves some end, then we are back where we started. Unless you are claiming a final end. However, I still don't see why I should care. God declared my purpose to love him and others. So?

 

[Davian]

Probably instincts. Could you please answer my question? What would you call a man who spent his entire life trying to build a house next to the ocean only to have the tide take it away every day?

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A straw-man.

Now, back to this "Probably instincts". Can you be more clear on this?

What else could it be?

Does it not seem sufficient for the continuation of a given population?

 

[Davian]

Why are parents committed to their children?

For the same reason they get hungry every few hours, it's a part of our evolutionary biology and our needs. Taking care of our offspring concerns the genetic need to survive and reproduce. It's a basic human need. It no more requires a god than the need to remove your hand from fire.

 

[Chriliman]

To me, this seems like an irrelevant question. Meaning is based on the individual. Meaning cannot be independent from the individual. So any "original" source of meaning wouldn't be any better or worse, wouldn't be relevant for other sources of meaning.

If the original source is an eternal, everlasting God, then it is very relevant. If it's not then you're right, nothing matters at all in the end after all beings who create meaning die.

I wish you would stop using the term "logical" every time you go off into something that is everything but logical.

You presented a potential answer. An answer that rests on a myriad of premises that simply are not given. Just in exactly the same way, I could tell you the "logical" answer that the Old Norse faith provides. The Gods rule this world and defend it against the evil Ice Giants. They raise an army of the best and most valiant warriors. A worthy warrior will die in battle, and be taken to the Halls of the Gods where he will feast until it is the time for the Last Battle. There, all the Gods and Heroes will valiantly take arms against the evil Ice Giants, and will fight and die heroically for good. Then the world will be renewed. This is the perfect act of heroism that only the Gods and their chosen could accomplish.

You don't believe that? Well, it is just as "logical" as your story.

No I don't believe it because it's a false representation of what's actually true.

There is no "true" - no objective - meaning at all. All other "created" meanings and answers that differ from your "true" meaning prove that there is no single version of what it means to exist and love and be loved.

How do you know there's no true objective meaning that would exist even if you didn't exist?

How can you claim to prove something if meaning is not objective, only subjective? At best, you've proven it to yourself and that's all. No one else need believe what you say because we all make up our own meaning. Disorderly chaos with no true direction to follow.

 

[Chriliman]

But was end does God's reasons serve?

The end goal is to destroy sin and death and only have life everlasting, free from evil. You either want to be a part of this or you don't and would rather cease to exist at the end. God knows who will enjoy the reality of life everlasting and will allow those who don't want what He offers to not exist in that reality.

 

[nightflight]

It is to me.

 

[Freodin]

If the original source is an eternal, everlasting God, then it is very relevant. If it's not then you're right, nothing matters at all in the end after all beings who create meaning die.

Not at all. Eternal, everlasting... all irrelevant.

We still differ on the... well, on the meaning of "meaning". You see it as something objective. There is this eternal, everlasting God, you say, and he goes on to "create" a meaning... and that is that. This now is THE meaning of... life, the universe and all the rest. This is the "true" meaning, everything else is just a "copy", or even a false meaning.

I do not see it this way. I see "meaning" as subjective. Meaning is something that every single conscious being creates for himself. Not arbitrary, not isolated... but always by himself.

So why would it be relevant for me if the "original source "is an eternal, everlasting God? While I am here, my meaning is as good for me as his... even better, because it is my meaning. And when I am no longer around... why would I care about his meaning?

No I don't believe it because it's a false representation of what's actually true.

So you say, so you say. But beyond throwing the term "logic" around, you have no way to show it.

How do you know there's no true objective meaning that would exist even if you didn't exist?

How can you claim to prove something if meaning is not objective, only subjective? At best, you've proven it to yourself and that's all.

I cannot prove there is no objective meaning. But I can observe subjective meaning. I know that it exists. That is something that can work with.
But you also cannot prove that there IS objective meaning. We can also not observe objective meaning, anywhere, anyhow. I would even go so far as to say it is impossible to observe objective meaning... how would that work for a subjective mind that always creates his own meaning?

So why would I work with something that cannot be shown, discarding that what can be shown?

No one else need believe what you say because we all make up our own meaning. Disorderly chaos with no true direction to follow.

That's correct. No one else need to believe what I say about the meaning of anything. Whether that leads to chaos and no true direction to follow... well, if you need spend your life following a meaning, you will sooner or later find that you missed your life while doing so.

See, you, by living your life, found for yourself, for no one else, that the meaning of your life is to love God and everyone else. If you now want to tell others that the meaning of their life is also loving God and everyone else... you would need to have something better than assertions.

Else you are not better than someone who thinks the meaning of your life is to die in heroic combat.

 

[Hikarifuru]

That is what the bible says our created purpose is?

You don't trust the meaning in the unavoidable, universal, reasonable, good innate desire for parents to take care of their kids.... but you trust a book written by people had never done anything but herd sheep? A book that not one scientist on the planet will stand up and declare is scientifically correct?

When a parent loves a child, when a human gets hungry, when a person doesn't want to die... you don't trust those sentiments you are witnessing at that very moment to be real or reasonable or worthwhile ... but you trust this book, and you don't trust them unless it says so in a book that says donkeys can talk to humans and virgins have kids and that homosexuals deserve to die and two of every animal lived in a boat made by people with no technology or knowledge whatsoever?

 

[Freodin]

You don't trust the meaning in the unavoidable, universal, reasonable, good innate desire for parents to take care of their kids.... but you trust a book written by people had never done anything but herd sheep? A book that not one scientist on the planet will stand up and declare is scientifically correct?

When a parent loves a child, when a human gets hungry, when a person doesn't want to die... you don't trust those sentiments you are witnessing at that very moment to be real or reasonable or worthwhile ... but you trust this book, and you don't trust them unless it says so in a book that says donkeys can talk to humans and virgins have kids and that homosexuals deserve to die and two of every animal lived in a boat made by people with no technology or knowledge whatsoever?

Oh come on, no need to get polemic.

The book you mention wasn't written by scientists or (for the most parts) not even by great philosophers. But it was written by knowledgable specialists in a complex iron age society... which was, admittedly, based mostly on keeping sheep.

And on the other hand, given the multitudes of atrocities that we can observe daily with parents who do not take care of their kids... you cannot point to that as an absolute either.

You have a good point. Don't destory it with polemic falsehoods.

 

[Hikarifuru]

That is what the bible says our created purpose is?

You're acting a fish who swims through the sea over to his fishy friends and begins to argue that Poseidon created water and unless Poseidon is real the water isn't real either. He says that if Poseidon is not real water can't have been made and as he swims in place he declares that water isn't real if Poseidon isn't real. The fish feels that he is on to something mysterious and revels in his confusion because it makes him feel special.

 

[Hikarifuru]

Oh come on, no need to get polemic.

The book you mention wasn't written by scientists or (for the most parts) not even by great philosophers. But it was written by knowledgable specialists in a complex iron age society... which was, admittedly, based mostly on keeping sheep.

And on the other hand, given the multitudes of atrocities that we can observe daily with parents who do not take care of their kids... you cannot point to that as an absolute either.

You have a good point. Don't destory it with polemic falsehoods.

You're joking?

What falsehood would that be? While some parents do make mistakes parents generally do want to take care of their children, that's meaning that exists. That some do not and why is a different topic.