[liah]

There is meaning to life, very much so. The difference is between myself and a religious person is how we define it.

While a Christian may define the "meaning of life" as to live according to God and the Bible, my personal definition is really very different. In my view, the "meaning of life" is to try to get as much out of it as you can before it's gone.

My "meaning of life" is to understand the intricacies of myself and those of others. My "meaning of life" is appreciating and trying to understand different cultures, people, places, feelings, thoughts. My lack of faith has definitely led me to have a far greater understanding for myself and why I "tick," it's forced me to try to understand and interpret people and their motivations, it's allowed me to recognize the beauty in all things and derive pleasure from things most people wouldn't even notice. It's a liberation, a freedom, a kind of slowly-acquired wisdom and a never-faltering compassion for humanity-- that, to me, is the meaning of life.

I'm not trying to say religious people don't feel the same way I do, but I don't quite think it's the same thing. The meaning of my life is to live and wholly experience every moment of it, without guilt, without trying to appeal to pre-destiny, without trying to strive for an afterlife that has never been proven to exist. How can you do that with a god over your shoulder all the time? How can you do that with a pre-defined rule set in the back of your mind? Truly?

I guess maybe I operate on a very instinctual level, a lot of my values and meanings in life are quite tribal-- "living for the full vicious experience." And I think a lot of that is lost when it comes to religion trying to define the meaning of life, because it just doesn't hammer in that this one is just as important as the next (if you believe in the next, anyway).

[conorstuff]

This thing is, sure our bodies have evolved to reward us for existing and reproducing, but the feelings of reward are still the same.

Lacking a universal purpose and having a sense of our insignificant place in the universe doesn't mean that we have to ignore the things that make us happy.

We know now that happiness is just caused by hormones and impulses in our brain but that doesn't make the sensations any less real.

[Jernal]

Originally Posted by JimiTime

Good philosophy guys. Just wondering how this translates into losing your child to cancer or somesuch?

Sorry I don't understand your point or question?

[ShooterSF]

Enjoy every up, remember every down is between two ups and the end would not come close to matching the next up in terms of fun.

[conorstuff]

Originally Posted by JimiTime

Good philosophy guys. Just wondering how this translates into losing your child to cancer or somesuch?

Finding meaning in one's life and loss of a loved one seem to be unrelated areas to me. Would I be right in saying you're referring to believing there is no afterlife?

If so, I don't think that's really the point of the thread, but my take on that is that there would be more comfort in believing my son got as much enjoyment out of life as he could while he was here, than believing in an afterlife for which there is no evidence.

[JimiTime]

Originally Posted by Malty_T

Sorry I don't understand your point or question?

Its not a point, its a question. The philosophy of there being no purpose, but that you would give yourself purpose, presuming this purpose to be positive I.E: not, 'My pupose will be to wipe out the Jews' type of thing, sounds healthy. However, how do you deal with losing a child to disease or murder etc in this philosophy? Just wondering, the philosophy deals with what you have control over. How do you extend it to the things which are part of you, but that you can't control, or make decisions on?

Don't credit me with going anywhere with this btw, I'm just wondering.

[thirtythirty]

I am immensely proud of what man has achieved.
I literally marvel at our engineering and technological advances, and have the utmost respect for the great thinkers who strive to understand ourselves as a species.
Anything we have imagined, we have achieved, and this fact has brought us to a realisation that collectively we can create / build / reason / or understand anything with time. Not to mention we know how to party, and are awesome at fighting (i.e. an element of survival of the fitest).

I want the human race to survive forever.

So to me, the reason for life is to be a part of that, and contribute in anyway possible, while enjoying the ride

[conorstuff]

Originally Posted by JimiTime

Its not a point, its a question. The philosophy of there being no purpose, but that you would give yourself purpose, presuming this purpose to be positive I.E: not, 'My pupose will be to wipe out the Jews' type of thing, sounds healthy. However, how do you deal with losing a child to disease or murder etc in this philosophy? Just wondering, the philosophy deals with what you have control over. How do you extend it to the things which are part of you, but that you can't control, or make decisions on?

Don't credit me with going anywhere with this btw, I'm just wondering.

I think the idea is that positive things tend to make us happy. That's the way the reward pathways in our brain works. We've also gotten to the point where we can consciously think about what we do and think about long-term reward rather than short-term reward.

We're intelligent enough to see that if everybody treats each other well, then everybody is much happier, ourselves included. Obviously it doesn't always work that way; some people will try to go for personal gain at the expense of others, but if we decide to do this instead of trying to be positive, we'd never reach the goal of everybody treating each other well.

That deals with why nobody should think along the lines of "my purpose will be to kill all jews". (Godwin's Rule, btw).

I still don't know what you mean by the rest of it.

[Waking-Dreams]

I don't see why this has to be a gloomy topic. The opening chapter of Richard Dawkins' Unweaving The Rainbow always leaves me in awe, a brilliantly put perspective on life and death. We make meaning out of our lives because our brains evolved that way.

I like this piece here by Alain de Botton; around 1:25 into it he mentions the basic facts of what existence is but it's a very good speech.

http://vimeo.com/10601416

[liah]

Originally Posted by JimiTime

Its not a point, its a question. The philosophy of there being no purpose, but that you would give yourself purpose, presuming this purpose to be positive I.E: not, 'My pupose will be to wipe out the Jews' type of thing, sounds healthy. However, how do you deal with losing a child to disease or murder etc in this philosophy? Just wondering, the philosophy deals with what you have control over. How do you extend it to the things which are part of you, but that you can't control, or make decisions on?

Don't credit me with going anywhere with this btw, I'm just wondering.

What a strange question. It's never even crossed my mind, but I guess it makes sense since a Christian would attribute these happenings to the will of God so of course they'd be confused about what happens when God doesn't exist to a person.

It does still seem quite unrelated to the discussion at hand, but I'll bite.

Obviously I can't speak as a parent, but I have lost those dear to me in uncontrollable situations, and I just.. dealt with it. It's life. It happens to everybody in one way or another, and I supposed that was how I consoled myself. I recognized that it happened, grieved my loss, and continued with life the best I could without them in it. I'm not even entirely sure how to explain that?

[Jernal]

Originally Posted by JimiTime

Its not a point, its a question. The philosophy of there being no purpose, but that you would give yourself purpose, presuming this purpose to be positive I.E: not, 'My pupose will be to wipe out the Jews' type of thing, sounds healthy. However, how do you deal with losing a child to disease or murder etc in this philosophy? Just wondering, the philosophy deals with what you have control over. How do you extend it to the things which are part of you, but that you can't control, or make decisions on?

Don't credit me with going anywhere with this btw, I'm just wondering.

Part of my philosophy in life is that you can only control the car you are driving; not the thousands of others. All you can do is do your honest best to minimise the risks to yourself and others while driving. The same can said for any facet of life. As long as I do my best to help someone then no matter how much guilt and grief I initially feel when the harmful event occurs my conscience knows that I did all I could to prevent it. Some things are just out of my control and I willingly accept that.

[SugarHigh]

Originally Posted by liah

In my view, the "meaning of life" is to try to get as much out of it as you can before it's gone.

Why, what's the purpose of doing that?

What does everyone doing that over and over again achieve. I understand why you'd live your life like that but I don't see how that gives it a purpose or any reason for life to exist.

I go along with te thinking of there being no reason for life but it's still better than nothing.

[SugarHigh]

Originally Posted by JimiTime

Its not a point, its a question. The philosophy of there being no purpose, but that you would give yourself purpose, presuming this purpose to be positive I.E: not, 'My pupose will be to wipe out the Jews' type of thing, sounds healthy. However, how do you deal with losing a child to disease or murder etc in this philosophy? Just wondering, the philosophy deals with what you have control over. How do you extend it to the things which are part of you, but that you can't control, or make decisions on?

Don't credit me with going anywhere with this btw, I'm just wondering.

Are you following the line of thought that kids give you purpose?

I've never really understood the procreation is the meaning of life way of thinking. If there is a cog wheel hanging from the ceiling for absolutely no reason and is completely pointless but the string holding it up has a purpose(to hold the cog up), the strings only purpose is to support something that has no purpose so doesn't that make the string just as pointless as the cog.

I don't know how well I got that across.

[ShooterSF]

Getting into that dark area of grief I actually find it easier now than when I was religious (ish, I was never more than a cultural catholic as a kid). You grieve like anyone but you do it without the twisted emotions of religion. There is no "why" was such a young life taken because we realise we're no more special than that baby fly I squated this morning and life ends, some of us are just more lucky than others on the amount of time we get.
Also there is no heaven/hell scenario to think through, this one hits home hard as I lost relatives as a teen to suicide and was sure they were in hell.
All in all you feel sad but realise you have to get on with your life...

[CerebralCortex]

Originally Posted by CiaranMT

...Oh and reproduce. Sexily

It's funny how strong the insistence that reproduction is the purpose of living when in reality it's just as ultimately meaningless as most any other pursuit. Unfortunately the consequences of such a pursuit regardless of how it makes the pursuer feel are quite serious and all too often taken too lightly. I expect an awful lot of flak for that assertion, but it reinforces the funniness of peoples desire to protect the "greatness" of reproduction for me at least.