I saw this statement today. What are your thoughts on this?

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This is the problem I can't get around when it comes to atheism. If there is no real meaning/purpose, why are we always seeking it? What's the point?

Why care about anything (other than avoiding pain/seeking pleasure?)? Why would survival of the species matter? Who would want to bring children into a world where they must suffer and die? Wouldn't it actually be better if there were no self-aware beings at all?

I don't think man's existence is meaningless, nor has it meaning. I don't believe man exists as a separate entity from spirit. What could "man" have created, if "man" it self is but the manifestation of a belief in a separation?

The divine Self is never asleep and knows it self only as unconditional Love. On our path to self realization/finding our true Self, love is our guide, our source, our inner calling us home.

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May your awareness be perfection

I think you ask some very good questions, and I'll try to "answer" them the best I can.

Humans are probably the only animals that may be capable of even asking what our purpose in life is. Maybe the purpose of life is just life itself.

So why care? I enjoy my life, even though there's been times that I could hardly say that. And I hope in my little way that I can help others enjoy their life as well. Yes, I know I'll not live forever, but that doesn't keep me from enjoying a good dinner and a glass of wine today.

I don't want to die, but I know I will. Even if there's nothing after I die, I doubt if I'll suffer after death (although some have wished it on me ). If one of your children or grandchildren are outside bouncing a ball, skipping rope, or playing hide and seek, do we need to stop them and ask them what the purpose of life is, and if they can't answer that, take that as a sign they're suffering?

I also tend to think that the universe and this world could do OK without us. After all, we've only been here for about 6 million or so years, whereas our earth is about 5 billion years old. We're newcomers. And maybe we ask too many questions, such as "what is the purpose of life"?

But then, what do I know?

Shalom,
Vern

Non sequitur. Nothing has any inherent meaning. Meaning is not a quality, it is a value that we place.

I can't see how a man's life or existence can have a "meaning" - it can have a purpose, yes, but a meaning?

It seems to me - with all due respect to those who think that existence (or life) does have a "meaning" - that this is a quasi mystical concept, and completely meaningless.


Peace, Love, & Light

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"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

"To be is to do" -- Aristotle
"To do is to be" -- Sartre
"Do be do be do" -- Sinatra



Unanswearble questions are, by definition, unanswearble. Don't sweat it.

"Be seeing you..."

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Grassaf, Eolas

Probably the greatest crime of secularism to the young of mankind is persuading their soul that it isn't hungry. Objective meaning doesn't exist for our personalities which is the dominant part of our collective presence and we exspect it revealed by the next commercial. However the soul is attracted to meaning and the ultimate understanding of meaning is wisdom" Wisdom is speaking in the following biblical passage and the soul is attracted to what wisdom represents


Dr. Nicoll defines meaning as relative and the highest form of meaning is outside time and space.



And of course Simone Weil beginning as an Atheist and becoming a Christian mystic had direct experiential understanding of the question about what an atheist may be in relation to meaning:


Simone first searched for meaning in the world and finally came to understand it was above the world and as such must be denied by the "Great Beast" as it protects its domain.

Asimov is correct. Meaning is only a concept in the mind of an observer (of anything).

Now, as to whether life has a purpose, in order for there to be purpose, there must be some mind to have that purpose. That means either the living entity has a purpose for their life, or some other mind has a purpose for their life.

That is the central religious question, isn't it?

And the answer is, if there is an entity other than myself who has a purpose for my life, well, then, it is not my purpose. I'm just being played like a puppet, to satisfy some other need of which I am entirely unaware.

On the other hand, if I can establish a purpose for myself, then my life can be rich with meaning.

See my post from many moons ago: The Meaning of Life

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

I read your post from many moons ago and have been thinking about what you wrote:
This is why I created the thread "Jesus, Nietzsche, and Simone." Nietzsche's overman would be able to actualize what you refer to bertter then all other people on earth. Yet in reality is the overman more than just a "thing" having the will but lacking the consciousness to be more than a thing?

Jesus, Nietzsche, and Simone