The meaning of life.
Who has the preference and the ability to find the meaning of life; the atheist or the believer?
1
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
10 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Thank you for your answers, but may I add; we tend to observe as an individual and pursue our own interests, yet we are part of a much bigger picture. This bigger picture distorts, which puts us into some kind of concept with myopic profusion. If we look out into the universe we see only entropy, but cast your mind outside the universe and look in, you will see a very different picture. We are part of the bigger picture and must conform to that energy which drives the bigger picture. When I refer to meaning, I mean the same meaning that a black hole instigates; which is keeping the balance in the universe; we are keeping the balance in nature. All is energy, forget about individual species.
Thanks again for your replies.
dinoid
Level 5
May 3, 2019
0
who says life has an objective intrinsic meaning? my life might not mean the same thing yours does, and our lives might not mean the same thing as a random tree's does. you would have to accept that there is a meaning hidden out there and if only you knew where, you could find it, to answer your question. i do not happen to accept that premise.
g
genessa
Level 8
Apr 20, 2019
0
The atheist because the believer labors under blinding false delusions.
Heraclitus
Level 8
Apr 18, 2019
0
Eat, shit, strive to reproduce....the "how to" is left to the individual. Don't know that "preference" is made.....would think that "ability" goes more to the rational conclusions of those least influenced by mysticism
HankSherman
Level 8
Apr 18, 2019
0
What I am trying to say in simple terms is; if you have a piece of a jigsaw missing then that piece has a meaning. We are just a piece of the jigsaw and finding our place in that jigsaw is the meaning we seek.
The universe is made of many kinetic systems, but they are all working as one. Another example; if you find a finger that is missing from a watch; the watch still works, but it works much better with the finger.
Thanks for all your replies.
Regards
dinoid
Level 5
Apr 18, 2019
0
There is no point in searching for something that doesn't exist. Douglass Adams pointed this out best when he depicted a supercomputer working on this question for eons finally came up with the answer and told its humans, "you won't like the answer" and they said "give it to us anyway". And the answer? 42.
The question assumes meaning is universal and externally bestowed, so it's the wrong question to begin with.
mordant
Level 8
Apr 18, 2019
1
Thanks for your reply. Please read Marionville for my answer.
This question is unanswerable, and frankly not worth the brain power in trying to do so. We are all individuals, none of us think the same way, neither atheist nor believer.....I think “the meaning of life” is a nebulous concept at best. As you seem to be giving us a binary choice between believers and non-believers its always going to be guesswork at best, and who will be arbiter in the case of a dead heat? That is my nonsensical answer to a nonsensical question.
Marionville
Level 10
Apr 18, 2019
0
I understand your confusion, we are all different, but yet we are all the same. Expand on that and journey to the outer limits of the universe and still we are all the same. I am not referring to each individual part of what makes up the universe, I am taking in everything as one entity or one energy-which it is. At the beginning of this energy coming into being, I agree that it had no purpose, but the changes that have happened since have began to express purpose. I don't look at biological life as an individual part of that energy, but belonging to it. Meaning comes with changes and energy can change its form, but can never be eradicated. Something with the power too change,but not be destroyed, will eventually have meaning. We are only in the kindergarten period of the universe and like children we will have to learn and by learning we will eventually make a meaning. I know this appears confusing, but that is the meaning of life.
@dinoid If you say so. Actually, no I think our life has whatever meaning we imbue it with....I decide whatever my life means to me. There is no preordained meaning beyond that.
@dinoid There is no reason to make it confusing, because it's fundamentally very simple. Meaning and purpose are individual and it is whatever each individual decides that it is. No more and no less. And that is perfectly sufficient to make existence interesting and often even compelling for a given individual. It doesn't hand that individual purpose and meaning predefined on a silver platter, and that's what some people (think they) need, but it does allow people to find their own meaning.
As humans it's true that we compare things and assign meaning based on differences (and similarities) and of course we have a strong need to spin all that into stories we tell ourselves. However, the laws of conservation of energy have no relevance to all that. In fact it could be argued that eternality reduces the value of experience rather than increases it.
But apart from all that, this tiresome trope that energy can never be destroyed is beside the point. Energy can change forms and configurations and that is what makes any form of eternal life so unlikely that it's a fair semantic shortcut to say it doesn't exist, at least in any form that people want it to: you or I continuing to have consciousness, self identity, memory and quality of existence after we die. Meaning isn't found in immortality projects, it is found in the here and now.
@genessa Thank you...I decided it wasn’t worth the effort to engage any further with this guy. Any confusion is entirely in his own head!
@Marionville agreed, for sure!
g
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
Share this post
Categories
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.