meaning and purpose for christians and atheists
This is the famous argument from nihilism: that, if atheism is true, there is no logically defensible meaning to be found in life. Tragic, to be sure, and there should be no implication here that atheists are any less kind or wonderful than other people. Rather, it is that, if atheism is true, we’re all equally worthless.
This is a pretty standard discussion item for those of religious and non-religious inclinations and I think it deserves further investigation.
what is the meaning of life for christians?
Context is key here. Christians believe that their deity, the only one in existence, created everything we see round about us. What is the meaning of this creation? Because it pleased him to do so. So we exist to make an omniscient super-being happy. However, this god, God, created us with some flaws which make us all commit actions he disapproves of. This makes the god God sad and angry. In the past, he punished and killed humans for not behaving appropriately, and ordered them to slaughter animals to atone for misbehaviour. But Christians believe that 2000 years ago the god God came to Earth and allowed himself to be killed as the ultimate animal sacrifice to atone for all our bad behaviour. Atonement only occurs if humans let the god God/Jesus (same thing) into their heart. So, life for Christians is a test – the aim of this test is to please an invisible god who you might ‘feel’ in your heart (unclear what this is) or hear in your head (worrying).
what is the meaning of life for atheists?
Context is key here also. Atheists believe that our existence is a random event. We’re just another animal on this planet, doing what animals do. There is no bigger plan or guiding force, and there is no life for our consciousness beyond the physical one we see before us.
what is the purpose of life for christians?
It would be foolish to say that all Christians are agreed on a common purpose for their lives. They tend to believe that the god God has an individual plan for every human being. This carefully thought-out plan by their benevolent god could involve anything: starving to death shortly after birth; living a long and comfortable life full of advantage and joy; or suffering physical pain from inherited genetic conditions for your whole life. The purpose to some extent is to complete the test, but generally most Christians would agree their purpose is to tell other human beings about the meaning of life. This could involve telling slaves to behave themselves like the god God commanded; torturing people thought to be involved in witchcraft; or campaigning for people to be denied basic rights because of their sexual orientation. Most Christians will agree that the main purpose of life is show the love of their god God.
what is the purpose of life for atheists?
Once again, it would be foolish to say that all atheists agree of a common purpose for their lives. In fact, it would be impossible for me to speculate on what other atheists feel is their life’s purpose. It’s useful to note that some of us who were once Christians might have different instincts on this matter than people who were brought up as atheists. I personally don’t see my life as having much more purpose than an ant carrying leaves on the pavement. I’m a tiny part of the bigger group effort of a co-operative species. I’m not a goal-orientated individual and tend to rely on taking up opportunities that arise – feeling that keeping your life random and open to change is much more satisfying than created edges to aim for. However, I don’t think this is common approach in this day and age.
conclusion
In the eyes of an invisible deity who sees fit to murder all of its creation barring one family, then goes on to damn most of the rest to eternal suffering for not acknowledging it’s invisible existence, I would say that humans are largely worthless. From the point of view of seeing every individual piece of this existence as a random occurrence, I would say humans and everything round about us are fairly extraordinary, exciting and very worthwhile.
violet you are on a roll. I couldn’t write this sort of post because I have no concept of believing in Christianity. I do feel like an ant on a pavement though. Hopefully one who helps other ants and considers all ants to be equal.
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Certainly. I think ants are amazing, I love watching them. We have a few different talents and abilities, but we’re still very similar in terms of function and generic qualities.
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Ants are evil.
One of them got into bed with me and the following morning I was covered from shoulder to knee in all possible tender parts with huge red bites.
I wish I could be so evil.
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Oooh, I forgot about evil, biting ants. I take it all back!
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When I was a Christian I really did think my purpose was to be in a relationship with Yahweh and to serve his ends(which amounted to serving others). I absolutely thought life would be purposeless without that.
On this side(being agnostic toward any deity and atheist toward Yahweh) I still find purpose in serving others. Why do I need a deity to do that? I don’t. But I don’t think I have any grand ultimate purpose and I’m okay with that.
I like your comparison to ants because people tend to think they’re insignificant. However in their insignificance they do serve a purpose. Does that mean if there are no ants in heaven they don’t? I don’t think so.
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Oh, and I meant to say…fabulous photo! I’m envious of your talents.
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Thank you! As Ark has gone AWOL and was getting slack in photo praise, you are officially my Best Blogging Buddy! 😀
The grand ultimate purpose argument is weird. Even if we needed one, the Christian tradition offers a far from satisfactory, believable or sane one.
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Any idea what happened to him? He’s gone silent.
Yeah, what kind of being needs to praised and worshiped forever and ever? And who wants to do that forever and ever? Sounds like a jolly good time, eh?
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Last time he went silent they’d had internet problems in his area. Lasted a week or two I think. I guess if he’d gone on holiday or was going to take a break he would have mentioned it.
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Amazing photo and thoughts. You sure are on a roll lately.
And as you have so well put it, we are all animals living life as it comes to us trying our best to understand our place in the bigger picture.
Many believers ask if I don’t believe in god, why live? I confidently tell them all life is meaningless, they believe in transcendence to give their otherwise meaningless lives some semblance of meaning.
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Well, to be honest, other people are irrelevant and meaningless but I was created in the image of the Grand Purple Dragon, who loves every ginger hair on my head. It’s so comforting!
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As others say, Ramen to that
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Thank you! That’s lovely and much better phrased than my satirical poke. 🙂
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I’m with you on choosing adventure over set goals.
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Oh, you read some of it! Thank you. 🙄
Do you know where Ark’s gone?
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I read the last line. I figured i owed you that 😉
No, he’s disappeared, but he is working to get his latest book out, so i suspect he’s in bed with his editor… so to speak.
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Seriously? He’s too busy with real life to blog? I can scarcely imagine. By the way, the quote is from Fide. I told him I’m doing this post and tried to lure him over by telling him you call his blog his ‘mother’s basement’. I wonder if it’ll tempt him out.
Speaking of people in their mothers’ basements – did you get a reply from Tom of the Diner?
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No, I haven’t. He still hasn’t approved it. Would you like to ask him for an explanation why? Seems he’s a tad stumped
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I had a look at what you sent him again. I expect he doesn’t think a huge quote from a nutter is relevant to his post. 😉 Odd he didn’t tell you though.
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I’ll kill two birds with one stone here
1) You need to steal violet’s photo for your blog re your comment ‘Oh look there’s a butterfly’
2) Where is my daily snort? Without Ark (or even with him) I rely on you. I would have snorted at Violet’s post but it struck me as being too real to snort at. Please direct me to some snortworthy comments. That do not involve SoM.
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I see from my phone that the Bigot has done a post about being reconciled with Pink (or that’s what the first few lines that come through say). Surely there’s a snort-worthy line in there somewhere. 🙂
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They’ve both done a we love each other so much post. He’s on his second one now which I’ve just started reading. It will take an awful lot to convince me, I tell you.
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Oh wow! I’ll have to have a serious lurk when I get home.
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Don’t waste your time. Nothing said apart from a comparison of the previous state of war between KF and PA being compared with the Arab Israeli war. Perhaps they are going to get together and solve that one?
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Ah, but she has put up a slightly wider taste.
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I’m still hounding the folk over at the bigots spot, although its getting pretty boring now. Mr. bigot is just a dick, but i did get to list the number of religiously inspired murders conducted by Christian parents…. HUNDREDS, compared to Mrs Bigots grand total of “three” gay cases of abuse.
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I looked at one of those gay cases. It’s where I was brought up 😦 That doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on it, but given the rough environments around there that I personally know, and the typical working class abusive families, I did wonder. His girlfriend is pregnant for the third time at 23? anyway, I am trying to draft a comment for the everything’s all right now post over on bigots.
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Lovely!
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Me? Why thank you 🙂
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Don’t be daft, he meant me!
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NO, he didn’t!!
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” Atonement only occurs if humans let the god God/Jesus (same thing) into their heart.”
You’ll be probably surprised to know (if you haven’t heard it yet…☺), that this “receiving jesus in your heart” is a very recent invention, popularised by the modern 19/20th century mass crusades. By that time, it has become clear that real, devoted, 100% NT Christianity has been loosing ground since its invention, because at face value it requires a life of severe asceticism in order to come even close to “salvation”. While true that “believe and thou shall be saved”, Saul/Paul’s carefully compiled rules, have practically superseded the gospel requirements, forcing any aspirant to “prove” their new birth through producing the “works of a new life” all the way through the end. Since Paul’s asceticism was no longer viable in order to keep the masses in churches without ascetic priesthood, which is the case of the rather “evangelical” ones, a more emotional approach was needed, ushered in by the Pentecostal movement. From there, the “I know, because…” was replaced with “I feel, therefore…”.
From that moment, and with the dawn of the theological graduate education, reasoning came to an end, because if theology could not provide any more arguments, the last stand became “but I can feel him in my heart”. And an “ultimate fallback” feeling can be achieved through millions of means, making reasoning impossible. You don’t need to learn from any secret services how to emotionally condition and manipulate masses: good “worship leaders” are masters of it. I know, I’ve done it. And I am awfully sorry about it, even if at that time I was convinced it’s the holiest and best thing for all people…
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I don’t remember who[? I guess St.Augustine of St. Francis], but I remember reading a comment that the Christian says I believe because it is impossible.
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That’s the sort of “logic” which makes me consider lobotomy…
Augustine, the “Paul supremacist” inspiration of Calvin, and Francis, the well intended lunatic driven mad by the papacy’s debauchery…
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If I get time, someday I will read his City of God, I started to read his confessions but gave up after a few chapters, and that was when i was trying to see god in all things.
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Thanks for the really interesting comment. This has always confused me about Christians:
“at face value it requires a life of severe asceticism in order to come even close to “salvation””
As a child in a Christian family, I could never understand why we hadn’t given up all our worldly possessions.
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It’s right underneath mine☺☺☺
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Don’t forget the atheist meaning of life of working toward better understanding our existence! It’s mind-blowing seeing how much understanding us ants of the universe have been able to come upon, especially in coming upon knowledge of how the more distant universe functions!
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Is that the atheist meaning of life, or the purpose in life for some atheists? I suspect most atheists just get on with their day to day life and relationships without considering ‘meaning’ too much. I do agree that it’s a really interesting aspect of living though, and humans have come to understand a lot about their environment compared to other animals (although there’s an argument against that somehow!)
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Violet, I’ve got two comments for you. This first one is admittedly minutiae: “[The Creator] ordered them to butcher animals to atone for misbehaviour. . .” Actually exsanguination is probably the least painful way to die, it is far from butchering. Sacrifices were actually humane and more sophisticated than we enlightened modern people give credit towards.
Second, the key thing you did not point out is that Christians have objective purpose as opposed to the atheist existentialist-type purpose. Christians are supposed to take care of the creation, repent, obey the will of the Father, and love God and each other. The atheist’s purpose is an open-ended anything-goes question depending on ethical preference, not that this is necessarily inferior. It’s simply the distinction between objective and subjective purpose.
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Thanks Brandon. I think you’re right that I’ve used the wrong verb. I’ll change it to “slaughter”.
I’m afraid I can’t agree with you that Christians have an objective purpose – they have a subjective purpose that is dependent on their interpretation of something they believe to be objective.
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“Ethical preference” is actually what religious people do, when they prefer a particular religion (most often the one of their own cultural heritage) over any other equally arbitrary and authoritarian source for supposedly “objective” purpose. But for that “purpose” to actually be objective, the authority and authenticity of the source should first be established on some reliable method. This has not been established in any religion. Instead religions offer faith, which is in direct contradiction to anything remotely “objective”.
An atheist may build their purpose on anything they choose. Atheism is not a complete world view, but at least purpose to an atheist is not directly dependant on arbitrary authoritarianism of imaginary entities as in religions. Rather it is less restricted in order to reach a logical conclusion based on the information about tangible reality of us as a social and emphatetic species.
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😀
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Agreed! Honestly, my existential crises did not all of the sudden end what I reconverted to Christianity. It took a long time for this to die out. But, I think your analysis is correct, it’s faith in the objectivity.
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