Atheist/Deist/Agnostics: Does Your Life Have Meaning?

Life has no meaning... so make it awesome for others and yourself.

@cable_extreme: I'm not saying our life has no meaning. I'm saying our life has no meaning on a universal scale. For example Galactus and The Phoenix Force has meaning on a universal scale. Maybe even Jesus Christ. But not myself. The universe will continue as is whether i'm here or not. That is what i mean by universal significance. What do you mean?

Religious or not life has meaning.

The stuff in the op is simply called being a good person. If you need a magical deity to motivate you than you're missing the point.

The great thing about not believing in all that Bible bull s++t is that I can ignore ramblings like that and just focus on being a decent person.

• How? Just because that being is on the universal scale, does not make his minions. I can own an ant farm. I can reward my ants for their good deeds. But that does not put the ants on my level in any meaningful way.
• You are trying to create this definition of meaning and a scale that you deem valid over another. You can't. Meaning is all relative. I can find meaning in a text that would be completely wasted on you. That doesn't mean that the text doesn't have meaning just because you don't see it. Your definition sounds like nonsense. You are confusing meaning with purpose. You believe there is no purpose to life without some creator having given us purpose first. There does not have to be a predetermined purpose for one to exist. Purpose can come later. Purpose can also be relative.
• What if there is a creator but he has no purpose for you? What if there is a creator that had no intention to create you or humanity at all? Do we still have purpose even though some almighty being hypothetically would have created us, albeit unintentionally? Your understanding of the meaning of life is a sad one and hinges heavily, nay, exclusively on the hope that there is something after you die. So if there is no creator, you will have led a meaningless life and will never even realize how meaningless it is because you are so fixated on some meaning that will be revealed to you after you die. That is just depressing.

@pooty: universal significants would exist for you if the universe was created for the purpose of creating life. So we know the universal natural laws are currently working together to make life. Now whether or not life was the goal for some sort of force/deity or a byproduct of these laws, depending on that, we either have a universal purpose or not.

@makhai: "That doesn't mean that the text doesn't have meaning just because you don't see it."

Kind of my main point...

I would also point out that I am an atheist so idk why you keep bringing up me believing in something after Death. The initial problem was that you said there is no universal meaning to life, which my rebuttal was, "can't say that because you don't know that" everything else I have said has been what-ifs.

There really isn't a universal meaning. Life happens. Make the most of it while you have it. Define the meaning of your life for yourself. There really isn't much else to it.

@makhai:

"there really isn't a universal meaning"

how do you know?

"There really isn't much else to it"

You know this how?

• I will answer that with a question of my own; what is the meaning of life on the universal scale? What meaning do you believe your life has on that level?
• The simple answer and really, it's stupid that I have to explain this to you considering it has been my position the entire time you think you have been poking holes in it, is that it is how I see it. It's meaning as I have personally defined it. I don't have my head in the clouds or some misplaced sense of supreme importance.

Comics, Movies, Games, Sex, Knowing People, Drawing, J$rking off, eating junk, alcohol, pot, my dogs.

The meaning of my life is to have make those around me as happy as I can, and to leave this world a better place than what it was when I came in,

I don't need a sky-God to dictate how to be a better person.

Of course life has meaning.

How lucky are we to have been born human? To have the capacity to think, reason, decipher, experience, learn, criticise, imagine and suppose? Each and every single day. Amazing.

The meaning to life is whatever you want it to be.

So, just because I don't buy into 5,000 year old fairy tales, my life has no meaning?

Yeah, right.

^^^^^

That good salt.

@makhai: what you are doing is claiming definitive knowledge about something unknowable. Such as "there is no universal meaning" etc...

You cannot back up that claim with a question, you need to rephrase it.

(Example)- I BELIEVE that life has no universal meaning.

To start, I'd first like to say that I'm religious and this question does not apply to me.

However, I'm surprised the topic of morality has not been brought up here. Being against a person killing another --if you did not believe in a deity-- would basically mean you were against the victim forcibly being removed of their right to life. Just because an individual does not believe in a deity does not mean they're unaware of right and wrong.

Those aren't uniquely human traits. Other life-forms are still able to do these things but humans do it better than any of them.

Don't get cocky.

Actually, I'm not. I highly recommend that you read my post again, specifically where I state that my views on the meaning people have in the universe is not absolute knowledge, but the meaning I have carved out for myself. Thanks for the strawman. Furthermore, you asked me to rephrase my question in the form of a statement that you find more comforting when I had already given you the clarification you so dearly desired. You would know this if you had read more than the first bullet point. I am of the opinion that people have no universal meaning and you challenged that thought process directly, asking me how I know such a thing. Which is kind of a stupid question given that my position in this entire thread has been that we all define meaning for ourselves. If you think there is some universal level meaning for people, I certainly would like to know what that is. It seems narcissistic to think your life matters that much but I am completely willing to hear you explain yourself.

What does it matter if my life has meaning or not?

@makhai: "If you are speaking in terms of the universe, then yeah, there is no 'meaning' to life in terms of how the universe is impacted by it."

Post number 36

How does that prove your point? Are you only able to internalize the portions of arguments that you think best help your counter-argument? I expanded upon that comment and you failed to understand. Since you are going back and reading old posts again, I once again advise you to read post 61. You know, the one you keep pretending I didn't post?

The fact that you have to ask is reason enough.

@makhai: I am not ignoring your #61 post.

I posted that because you said that you made it clear that you were speaking in reletive terms to yourself. However, many of the claims you have made such as the one I posted shows other wise. The main problem here is you said that there is no meaning on a universal scale. Such a statement has to be backed up, or why say it at all?

Perhaps to better explain, you reference life as in an Earth only model, yet you claim that it has no universal impact. life can exist elsewhere, and life itself (on a universal scale) could very well have meaning. Your claim is what is the issue here.

I am not ignoring your #61 post.

• You are though. At least the part that doesn't suit you.

I posted that because you said that you made it clear that you were speaking in reletive terms to yourself. However, many of the claims you have made such as the one I posted shows other wise.

• Lie. The OP makes it very clear that he is asking our individual beliefs. Never once have I said that I have some kind of absolute knowledge. Another strawman.

The main problem here is you said that there is no meaning on a universal scale.

• Which as the OP has requested, is my opinion.

Such a statement has to be backed up, or why say it at all?

• Really? Then why won't you answer my question? Is it because you don't want to fail to adhere to the same fallacious logic that you are trying to force me to adhere to?

Perhaps to better explain, you reference life as in an Earth only model, yet you claim that it has no universal impact.

• Life as I understand it. What a shocker.

life can exist elsewhere,

• I never claimed or suggested otherwise. Another strawman.

and life itself (on a universal scale) could very well have meaning.

• Well unless you are willing to provide some evidence of this beyond some stupid, hippy nonsense, I don't see why I should accept such a claim.

Your claim is what is the issue here.

• No, you just wanted to argue semantics because you have nothing of real value to say here.

@makhai: you seem to have a misunderstanding of what a straw man fallacy is.

I am not misrepresenting your position since I am referencing a specific claim you made. Also saying life can exist elswhere is not a straw man fallacy either becuase it is related to your initial claim that life has no universal meaning which would incorporate life elsewhere if applicable. What ever you believe, stating something as fact (which you did) is what you did wrong.

you seem to have a misunderstanding of what a straw an fallacy is.

• I really don't.

I am not misrepresenting your position since I anpm referencing a specific claim you made.

• And ignoring that which disproves your argument.

Also saying life can exist elswhere is not a straw man fallacy either becuase it is related to your initial claim that life has no universal meaning which would incorporate life elsewhere if applicable.

• You really seem to be the one that has no clue what a strawman is.

What ever you believe, stating something as fact (which you did) is what you did wrong.

• Another lie and another strawman.
• Since you seem to be struggling with what a strawman is, I will help you. A strawman is to create the illusion of defeating an argument by creating one that does not belong to the opponent but appears to, and then to defeat that fabricated argument instead of the original argument. This is exactly what you have done. You have tried splitting hairs enough to create the strawmans. I never said life could not exist elsewhere than just Earth but you would certainly have others believe I did. Strawman. You said I am making absolute claims of fact, when I never did and even very specifically have said that I am only stating opinions, even though the OP made it clear that he was asking for beliefs, not facts... Goodness. But according to your strawman, I have made no such expansion. It's a stupid argument. If you want to argue with me, then you'll have to stop twisting my words into things I have not said.

@dum529001: "Meaning" is a human concept, it has no bearing on reality. Therefore, what has meaning and what does not is not a matter of right versus wrong but rather a matter of personal perception. Therefore, we are all individually free to assign meaning to whatever we like.

That's how I see things, anyway.

Not really. "Meaning" is just common sense.

You live, you die, and then who knows what happens? Life is fickle, make of it what you will.

@dum529001: Meaning is by no means common sense. A man may find meaning in a piece of art and another may see no meaning whatsoever. Meaning is subjective and therefore arguing over what does and does not have meaning is illogical and a waste of one's time.

No one has yet addressed all the OP's points.

What gives a person the right to criticize others if life has no meaning? The same goes for a person who ascribes to "everyone chooses their own meaning," which there are a lot of.

Can no one address that?

Incredible understatement is incredible. Also, other life forms being able to do what I describe is debatable, especially in the capacity of a human being.

And I am cocky, as I should be.

Not being fully aware of the meaning is not the absence of meaning.

@dum529001: I don't think you understand the concept I'm trying to explain. Whether something has meaning or not isn't a matter of whether it has meaning or not, it's a matter of opinion. Meaning is not something that the universe assigns, it's something we as human beings assign. There is only one universe, so if it were to assign meaning it would be final, but there are many of us so we can each assign meaning to different things and it only affects our individual perceptions of reality. It's not about right versus wrong.

The great thing about this is that it means we do control some aspects of our universe, even if we cannot control the same aspects of someone else's.

The universe isn't based on opinion.

@dum529001: Opinion isn't based on the universe.

see this guy?

Life has no intrinsic meaning. We put meaning to it either through religion, family, jobs, vices, etc. We're here and are trying to find answers to questions that elude us all and probably won't ever get those answers.

according to islam from what my family told me if you die without torture allah will send you to hell earth is the heaven of the qaafirs heaven is the real place for islam

Some Deist do believe in an afterlife, they just acknowledge that their faith have no evidence and simply acknowledge the chance of their being no afterlife. So in other word don't include all deist or agnostic, but you can unfairly discriminate on atheist.

Nope

First of all, what is this life that you refer to? I'm going to make the assumption that we're talking about existence. Experience is foundational, if not to existence, than to any claims we can make about the nature of existence; everything we think we know is derived from our experience. What we actually do know is limited to experience, what we see from our existential vantage point; we are not in a position to know anything else, just infer it from experience, and we have no reliable means of testing the validity of inference, we can only say it hasn't been proved wrong, yet.

So the only part of existence that we really know is experience. What we have taken it to mean about the rest of existence is not necessarily true, just as where there is smoke (experience), there is not necessarily fire (an existence that causes, gives rise to experience through the phenomena of consciousness).

Assuming there is such a source of smoke, such an existence that causes experience, what causes that? The meaning of existence is, and always will be, incomprehensible due to infinite regress. There will always be something left unexplained.

But something being unexplained does not mean that it is not true. Regardless of how you came to be, you are. You are an experiential existential vantage point. You may be in pain and you may be happy. No matter how they came to be, these things are bad and good respectively, which furnishes your inner world with moral value. Everyone is an egoist. Maybe you will make that inferential leap and postulate a "fire", an underlying reality that causes other instances of "smoke", experience and moral value, like yourself, and links them through a great multidimensional chain of cause and effect. Maybe you will become a utilitarian as well, driven by faith and pride in taking part in something bigger. It's like Captain America said to a plane full of soldiers and millions of Americans before a battle:

"I wear these colors because I believe in something greater than myself, something bigger...At some point in life, a man makes a decision... Is he alone in this world or are we all in this together? Those of us in this plane right now...have made that decision. I don't care what decade it is. The values that these colors represent transcend selfishness... It's about freedom. That's what I fight for."

If a persons only source of meaning in life is a few thousand year old book and belief in an all powerful being then so be it. But to somehow suggest that not believing in a god or religion means that life is somehow less meaningful or something to that affect is just wrong. Id say the opposite could be argued in fact.

Life has no meaning we make our own meanings and we strive to make the best of it.