Why do some atheists say that "life has no meaning"

Religion (not necessarily theistic) creates a story which connects each of us to reality. By reality I mean all the forces which make us seem insignificant by comparison. This is why early religion was polytheistic and connected to forces of nature which we could not at the time understand.

We do have greater understanding now, it comes with the price though of knowing even more acutely the insignificance of our existence. All things are relative of course and if we have the kind of mind that sticks to our day to day responsibilities no god or religion is necessary to give reason to our lives. But for dreamers and people who rely on intuitive flashes to inspire them a purely materialistic world seems pretty bleak.

Gods and demons will most likely battle eternally within each individual. Whether they are real or not will always be a matter of perspective.

I think current religion, other than a few of the eastern ones like Taoism, is obsolete in modern times. But religion itself is part of the human condition that is very hard to escape.

 

I see it the other way around. When we were all ignorant, and told that our lives were a momentary inconvenience with the really good stuff happening after we die, I can see how a certain meaninglessness might coexist.

I also see that our new knowledge of our own insignificance is precisely what lends every mortal moment great meaning. It's a bit like a permanent state of joyous relief - of the sort one experiences when avoids disaster by a whisker.

 

I'm guessing. No one, including yourself, knows WTH you just posted.

 

You are talking about meaning without connection. As a strong individualist I have real empathy for what you're getting at. Those little moments of personal insight that are completely without need of any judgement and tend to be untranslatable to others can be a source of joy within themselves. Its not religion, its just finding happiness within our own existence.

In the grander sense though we are still ignorant, in a way I hope we always will be. If we reach the end of understandings horizon in some distant future what will our purpose be? To sit and exist without thought?

The problem with killing the spiritual quest is not that it will kill every enjoyment of life. Its that people will only find enjoyment in the material pleasures of life. When faced with dilemmas between personal gratification and self sacrifice what ethical ultimate will cause an individual to to choose outside their own self interest? How can we be satisfied with sacrificing anything?

If I am off course steer me back in, just remember I am asking these questions with no agenda whatsoever.

 

Of course we are still ignorant, but we are more aware now of just how marvellous the natural world is - and I include that which is outside earth - and of how incredibly tiny we are in the face of that.

I'm not sure what spiritual even means, to be honest. There is calling bog standard emotions amd emotional experiences fancy names to aid the idea they're special. And there's attributing particular emotions to external agency. Both seem likely to be at the core of 'spirituality' claims, but what would I know

Purpose, imho, is often more than required. At least I find that to be true - being mother to three dependent kids, and growing our food, making our yogurt, baking our bread, making our cheese, chopping firewood, straw bale building, riding a bike instead of driving, not using a dishwasher, managing our little solar power plant, etc etc. Plus activism, plus study, plus volunteering, plus plus plus. That's enough purpose for three people, without once asking "why am I here?"

 

yeah, yeah, yeah,...
But whether atheist or religious, everyone has a basic Instinct for Survival, and that is the reason for Life as far as man is concerned.

We just want to survive, even if badly challenged, in fact.
That is the reason for living,... life.

 

So you focus on Truth?

That is, Truth we accumulate by learning "our new knowledge."
You tend to ignore that we use Truth as the tool for improvement and advancement in the Reality that keeps unfolding as our Future.

It is really arshe backwards to deny Reality as the almighty force we need Truth to save us from.

 

I think the word spiritual can have a slightly different meaning to each person using it.

My definition is that its everything we value that is not material. In fact a person could lead a rich spiritual existence with no conscious recognition of it IMO at least. Atheist value beauty and love and selflessness, all of these are spiritual in nature; intangible, non-material.

The reason why we value these things is the core of our motivation. Caring about that reason is spiritual awareness. To me it has nothing to do with theism, I suspect that religion may have more relevance than most people (even theistic religious ones) understand. For me though this is at the question stage and I do not even have a well defined speculation about it yet, obviously an unbelievable religion is pointless.

I think the question "why am I here" only occurs to people in crisis, or the isolated and self absorbed (read 15 year old American, a crisis of its own kind I guess). If we live our lives in ways that answer it, the question will naturally seem a bit shallow.

 

Yes, it has different "categories" of thought,... indeed.

But it meant something different than the physical realm and was referring to thoughts.



TYPES of thoughts:

Luke 17:20-21: Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is, 'because the kingdom of God is within you."

1) Lucifer = ............... Id
2) Satan =........ ...........Libido
3) Mammon = ............ Ego
4) Devil = .................. Anima
5) Beelzebub = .......... Self
6) False Prophet =.......Superego
7) False Shepherd = ... Harmony

The Good Shepherd = ...Conscience

 

If their lives consist of hanging out in places like this mocking the religious, there's not much meaning to be had.

 

That's probably the best hatchet job on Freudian psychology I have seen yet.

 

This is not about imagining feel-good things. The multiverse concept is gaining support from advances in math and quantum mechanics. I’m not aware of any versions that relate to the status of a cosmic puppet master.

The concept of metempsychosis may be tolerated based on the idea that more than one lifetime is necessary to get the various kinds of experiences needed to address particular learning issues.

I would argue that the phrase “light beings” is too much of a stretch from “see the light” and “light of our being” but who am I to cramp your pun fun when it fits so well in your satire by which you addressed the theistic implications that you perceived to be in my post.

However, my aim is non-theistic except that I do not support absolute exclusion of possibilities far beyond the scope being considered.

That’s as good a reason as any for not wanting to consider what is beyond the constraints of physical reality. However, the little picture of reality is at risk of becoming obsolete because of the big picture. I suspect that progressive evolution will kick us out of our present Garden of Eden and force us to grow up and face the bigger reality.

 

My take on this stuff is that it serves the individual in no way to be aware of it.

In fact it fails horribly on the reality test, meaning its complex and hard to understand and involves wish fulfillment elements. People who have bought into it use very complicated language to explain it with little bits of spiritual enlightenment and feel good language to keep it appealing.

If its all true it in no way needs our individual devotion. We are each on the right path anyway.

 

Reference Romans chapter 2. It speaks of the conscience of man.

 

Conscience is mentioned a number of times in the NT.

This whole idea of seeing the Freudian archetypes as the basis for our spiritual expressions was also mentioned by Hebrew scholars who actually said that angels were "thoughts" originating from some intelligent sources.

Then we get a better sense of what Genesis was saying about that "ladder:"

Gen. 28:12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder,... (a psychological hierarchy: Abraham Maslow), set up on the (physical realm of the) earth, and the top of it reached to heaven ([Ps 91:1 hiding place of God]: in the immaterial, spirit-mental world):
and behold the (seven:[Rev 1:16]) angels of God, (the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the [physical realms of the] earth: [Rev 3:1]), ascending (in this mental hierarchy as horns of power and eyes of discernment: [Rev 5:6]) and descending, (each dominant and auxiliary in turn), on it.

And, behold, (such a thought in this dream!), the (Unconscious mind which is the image of God), LORD, (from the depths of Jacob's Unconscious Mind), stood above it, (this ladder of Subconscious archetypal hierarchy: see Abraham Maslow), and said, (as a flash of insight), "I am the LORD God, (IN YOUR MIND), of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac, (IN HIS MIND): the land whereon thou liest, (the Holy Land), to thee will I give it, (i.e.; Israel),and to thy seed, (the Jews of the Nation of Israel);

 

Some of the thoughts you have expressed below, I first became aware of them back around 1975 when living in Oxford Wisconsin. I had a Hebrew friend there who introduced me to them and now I sort of wish I had kept in contact with him. Needless to say, at that time in my life, I was not prepared to accept these thoughts as true... even now, some of the expressions you have made in past postings I would question their validity with much prayer. I would be willing (in PM) to share some of those thoughts but not here on the public side. Good Post CD.

 

...said the guy who was hanging out in here mocking the irreligious.

 

'Not wanting' to consider that which is beyond the constraints of reality is an odd idea. at this point in time whatever is beyond reality has no bearing or impact on reality - because it's BEYOND. It's like saying "you dont want to think about nothing". Until such time as the beyond becomes reality, thinking about it would an exercise in futility, and/or wishful thinking.

 

Not sure where the idea of absolute exclusion of non-earth realities came from. I don't exclude much from the land of possibilities, but I dont spend time thinking about unknowables which have no bearing on our existence. And like I said, how would we even know what to think? Anything we did think would be merely our own imagination filling in the great blank.

 

If you can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen.

 

...said the guy who was complaining about atheists mocking the religious.

 

Our physical reality is within our universe. Beyond that are other realities/universes.

 

Expand your awareness. I suggest My Big TOE (theory of everything) by Tom Campbell.