What is the meaning/purpose of life?
Be prepared to answer further questions about whatever you write.

(Non-Atheists should not post in this thread!)

To exist.

To exist.
How, for how long? C'mon, write a paragraph.

Actually, I'm not sure I'm qualified to post here, since I'm more of a spiritual agnostic than an Atheist. But I don't believe in "god" per se.

I think that we experience life through our senses and perceptions thereof, and in that, we expand our understanding of ourselves and our world. My answer may be more simple than most people are prepared to accept.

Originally posted by whitewolf
What is the meaning/purpose of life?Define what you mean by life? Do you mean all biological life in general, a species, an individual, or specifically a human individual? If you mean the latter, it is my opinion that the meaning of a person's life is self-defined. It's one of the glories of being human that we get to choose our values and our goals.

~Raithere

Define what you mean by life? Do you mean all biological life in general, a species, an individual, or specifically a human individual?

Um, you may talk about the life of all biological life, life of a species, life of individual human, anything you think is relevant. To you, personally, what is the purpose of your life? Why do we live?

Whitewolf,

There is no meaning or purpose to life.

But what I do with my life is entirely my choice.

whitewolf: are you experiencing a time of spiritual re/searching? You mentioned on another thread that you'd gone to church for the first time. Just curious.

How'd that church thing work out, by the way?

Yes, Im re/searching. It's not a latest thing in my life, Ive been doing this for ages. No thing that Ive come across made all pieces of my life fall into place, so I have not found what Ive been looking for.
So I went to church, and I spoke to a priest, and what he told me about atheists and meaning of their lives I shall not retell here. But the reason why I started this thread is that I want to see if he knew what he was saying.

Priests, in my reasonably broad experience, are people, typically men. They don't usually have that much of a better grip on the "meaning" of anything than the rest of us, just a doctrine to follow.

Let me do the comparing ;) :cool:

It is my purpose to be as ME as I can BE.

Well, I'll restate that it is my opinion that the meaning of a person's life is self-defined. It's one of the glories of being human that we get to choose our values and our goals. Our values are initially established during our upbringing, not purely by what we are taught or told but more importantly by what we see in other peoples behavior, largely that of our family and peers. As we reach maturity we become increasingly capable of analyzing these values, selecting and altering them to fit our personalities. This is most evident in our teenage years as we strive towards independence and begin to identify with our peer groups more strongly than our families.

Speaking personally my values and purpose are many and varied. If I had to define it succinctly I would say that my life's purpose is to experience, appreciate, enjoy, and understand life, other people, and the wonder of the Universe, and to help others to do the same.

~Raithere

Originally posted by Cris
There is no meaning or purpose to life.

But what I do with my life is entirely my choice.

Cris, then wouldnt your meaning, internalized to you, be to do what you choose in life? Isn't that your internalized purpose?

I think a better question for atheists, is "What keeps you alive?"

Originally posted by whitewolf
What is the meaning/purpose of life?
When did you stop preying on children .
[i]Originally posted by whitewolf
Be prepared to answer further questions about whatever you write. Yes sir, boss man.

Originally posted by Fafnir665
Cris, then wouldnt your meaning, internalized to you, be to do what you choose in life? Isn't that your internalized purpose?

I think a better question for atheists, is "What keeps you alive?"

The chemical reactions that occur inside me, as well as eating and breathing etc, to facilitate those chemical reactions.

Generally I would say that life kind of just is. You cant assign a purpose to it, although looking at it in a biological fashion we, as living things, also want to stay alive and propagate more living things.
And I dont think meaning and purpose are necessarily similar, although they may be linked.
(I'm an agnostic BTW)

Originally posted by whitewolf
and I spoke to a priest, and what he told me about atheists and meaning of their lives I shall not retell here
And a priest is qualified to tell you that for what reason?
Anyway, you can't just leave that out there, what did he say?
BTW its probably best that you tell me, I'm kind of dangerous, thnx.

Well, he didn't say anything nice, obviously. Which is the reason I choose to keep it secret.

Anyways, answer my question.

What did he basically say? jesus:mad: I can't stand this sort of thing! argh!!
Isn't anyone else DYING to know?

ok ok...
You should have heard what my science teacher said about christians, oh it was nasty, can't repeat it here:cool: unless of course we made some kind of agreement, perhaps an exchange of some sort...

Jesus? You are no Atheist!
I don't really care what your science teacher said, I had my own teachers who blabbed on all kinds of subjects :P
I am dying to know what is the purpose of your life, though.

To pass on my genes and then to be recycled around the foodchain.
I might skip the first part because of overpopulation. But the second part shall be grand.


I really wish you'd just tell me what that damn priest said

Ghm. Fine, you talked me into it. The priest's words, in brief, were that a person who does not believe in god simply thinks that he is born and then dies, only to spoil the air for many years. Don't rush to argue against this, he had a point! Why do we live? Why do we create things that will be destroyed sooner or later? Mankind only spoils nature, so far. All of this deriving from the fact that one's life is a mere second in comparison to the size of the universe and the age of our planet.

What he's saying is he isn't happy with reality.
He's saying he feels insignificant within the natural universe so he clings to a belief that defies logic and common sense because, if it were true, the world to him wouldn't seem so bleak.
Thats just too bad.

Does this in anyway debunk atheism or lend credibility to organised religion?
Of course not.
Why would it?
The truth is the truth no matter how it makes you feel.
I've told this story before but its so relevant.
I had a friend that would claim he watched the weather channel and say that it said it would be nice and sunny on the weekend.
The truth is he just hoped it would be nice and sunny on the weekend, he didn't watch the weather channel at all and the truth was it had been raining all week and didn't look like letting up any time soon.
But he was sure it would be fine anyway.
Needless to say it rained, despite my friends unfounded confidence that it wouldn't.

This priest is doing something similar, I'm beginning to think its a mental disease, he's like "well sure it seems like atheism is the correct answer, but if it is than the world isn't very nice so I think it is not correct"
Its going to rain on this priests head and frankly i can't wait.

What dragged my hand to type it up....

The truth is not what we like to believe in, that's what I know so far. If you like atheism, my statement can be aimed at you too. You don't really know what happens to your "soul" or if it really is there until you die and see for yourself. So, quit your convincing, even if you haven't started it yet.

What I seek I shall find, and this thread did help along the way.

The purpose of life is self-defined. People choose what they want to live a life for, but on a strictly biological level, life is about living, and living as lond as possible......and hopefully you will procreate in that small window of "life".

I personally live in hopes that I will, in some way, better humanity....or the society that we currently live in. If that means helping people realize the truth about how the majority of us live in the most superficial, worthless existance...then hopefully some people will listen.

Meaning of life from my viewpoint:
1: I believe that each person has it's own purpose, it's individual meaning of life.

2: To enable life in general to continue (spreading genes).

3: To find a way of living forever - physically or mentally.

4: I also think that there could be a back-up plan with life in general that we should spread life throughout the universe.

5: To increase the surviving skills (either by finding outside methods like medicine, or spreading good genes).

Religiously the meaning of life is to find the right path, the path to eternal life (which should take care of point 3) according to the bible through love, faith and hope (but especially love). The meaning of life is also to make ourselves as good as we can possibly be. I guess that bothers some people that hold the rule of "not being something special". We are special, all other creatures have evolved to survive physically with physical means, but we have evolved mentally, not only through our brainsize but also through ideas and theories, there seem to be no limit to our mental potential.

I have a question; the cells produce chemicals through the genetic code, is there any way these chemicals can mix to create a poison? (just have to get rid of a old fear of mine :))
Better question, is there any way for the chemicals to mix to create...well...oxygen for example? Or something other that's good for life (except materials like skin and so on...).

I believe that the next step in evolution is to have mental control over our genes, that the genes can function as a part of the mind. Actually I think that's achievable at this time, but that it takes alot of skill and mental awareness (not to talk about self-control).

BTW: How do the testicles produce the sperms? I mean, what blueprint does it use to know which genes should be inside each? Is it random? Or are they (as the cells) divided and doubled? But then how come each sperm is genetically different from any other? Are they? I know it's alot of questions, but I really need to find this out, cause I have a nice theory that I came up with a couple of days ago.

Hi there whitewolf;

I've been an atheist for over 22 years, I've found what the meaning of life is to me;

The purpose of an individuals life is written in our Constitution of this country (the pursuit of happiness).

The right to be able to make a choice, to be free to choose, what ever life style one chooses to live, (in respect of sexual preference).

What other purpose can an individual strive for?, other than the pursuit of one's own happiness.

This may sound very vaque, however many individuals pursuit of happiness, may be to own his own business, to run an empire, to have a rewarding job, to learn all the sciences, to what have you.

Those who seek to hurt, commit fraud, or any kind of evil to others, as their pursuit of happiness is by all means a despot, and have a psychological problem.

When molten lava is submerged into H2O (water) it hardens and forms igneous rock. This rock was created when various chemicals came into contact with each other and created something entirely new. This entirely new thing was created with no purpose and for no purpose, it just is. The same may be to applied to the creation of life. Although we don't have enough evidence to say that the creation of life was created by a higher power or by chemical reactions, we can look at the ancient* religions of the world and see, what have they been right about? The religions are perceived by most as true until proven false. The world was 6,000 years old until we found evidence proving otherwise. The world was round until we found evidence proving otherwise. In 2,000 years Christianity could be a joke, but can you say the same thing about science? Is it possible to call science a joke when it is based on facts and not faith? I'm getting off topic already.... have fun.

*Ancient generally meaning more than thousand years old..

life has no meaning, but what you make of it.

Life is to adapt to the environment and continue to exist. Your priest said dead atheists are only to spoil the air. I just wonder why a dead theist's body is not spoiling the air somehow? Does it magically disappear after burial? Humans are part of the nature. We can alter the environment, but we still bound by the same environment. That's why we worry about ozone and CO2. That's why we have hybrid cars. We are adapting, to make sure we will continue to exist. The same rule applies to individual life form as well as to a whole specie. As a matter of fact, the existance of religions is to help certian people to adapt and to continue to exist.

You ask what is the meaning of life?

Whose life? Mine? Yours? Animals? Everyone in general?

Whose life? Mine? Yours? Animals? Everyone in general?
All living things in general, each individual thing separately, yours, personally.

Ok. This is just a guess, you understand. The purpose of most animals is to mate, spawn, and die. The purpose of some dogs are to please their master. The purpose of people is highly individual. For some the purpose is defined by religion. For some people the purpose is to cultivate pleasure and avoid pain. For others, it is to pursure world peace, or have sex. I think having sex is probably the major purpose of life, to continue the genetic line. My point is that the purpose of life depends on who you ask. As an atheist (from a buddhist perspective), lack of a defined purpose is not a problem in life. I don't see the universe as having intentionality. It is more like an experiment, or accident, set up just to see what happens. In fact, it is the myriad of self-defined purposes that creates all our problems. We have been launched into the unknown by unknown forces towards an unknown end. This is highly unsettling to people that have been conditioned to want everything contained within a tidy box of meaning.

Originally posted by whitewolf
All living things in general
Well thats a completely different story.
I, as an individual organism, am not qualified to answer such a question.
All species have a purpose to their existence (Most scientists assume its a coincidence or something, I don't know how they skim over this), and that is in some way to assist the survival of the whole machine that is life.
I said all species, I meant all but humans.
They aren't helping.
What they are doing is causing yet another mass extinction, mass extinctions occur every now and then on earth so perhaps that is the purpose of the homo-sapien species??

I don't know the meaning of all life, the reason for all living things, the purpose or goal. But alot of work is going into it, a hell of alot of work. So I assume its important.
Far more important than myself, the meaning of my life is trivial and simple in comparison; breed and become food.

Originally posted by Fafnir665
I think a better question for atheists, is "What keeps you alive?"
food and drink,obviously,
what about you?:D

Originally posted by whitewolf
What is the meaning/purpose of life?
Be prepared to answer further questions about whatever you write.
meaning of life =LIVING ,of course.

or like the song says:
"whatever gets you thru the life, its all right"

Originally posted by whitewolf
The priest's words, in brief, were that a person who does not believe in god simply thinks that he is born and then dies,
until some believer sends me a postcard from hell,I see no reason to bs myself with fantasies,
(btw the city of Hell Michigan doesnt count):D

Mankind only spoils nature, so far.
to live you have to kill,sometimes!
to keep the economy going you have to drill for oil,build roads etc
I wouldnt worry too much about this planet though,it will be here long after we are all gone,me thinks.
and if humans kill themselves with polution,we got no one to blame but ourselves:(

What is the meaning/purpose of life?

I have not seen any evidence yet that life has a meaning.
The purpose on the other hand appears to be survival of chemical
structure (i.e. you are an overglorified carrying case for your
gonads). Of course this purpose only applies to life forms which
we have come into contact with. We don't know what other
types of life exist out in our universe.