Goobla

Okay, so here’s my problem - some religious folks like to say that without God, then life is ultimately meaningless and without purpose. Now, sidestepping the inconvenient little fact that this amounts to nothing more then whining, what I’d like to know, is why would God existing suddenly give the universe any meaning or purpose?

I mean, let’s imagine that there really is this invisible conscious power tinkering around with the fabric of existence, hell, and let’s imagine that when we die we really do continue on existing somewhere else. But even presupposing these things, I honestly cannot figure out why any of that would make existence meaningful.

I mean, all we’ve got in this hypothetical situation is some being that I can’t even fathom, who created me and controls my destiny, setting the universe up so that there’s a heaven and hell, arbitrary standards for getting to either place, and completely contradictory evidence for any of this non sense. We’ve got a universe that is unimaginably enormous, that just happens to be completely empty and filled with nothing but various gasses except for our little planet, in which there exists a plethora of life – all of which is nothing but our playthings, because, coincidentally enough, only humans will get to be immortal - but only this after hundreds of millions of years of evolution and speciation has taken place. Further, we live our lives in a world with no seeming purpose, disorder with only what order we can make for ourselves -- we’ve got evil, war, disease, heartbreak, sorrow and George Bush.

So a few questions for God: first, why does the fact that I never die give me meaning? Beyond simply presupposing that immortality gives living things purpose, why exactly is this? What are the mechanics to that theory? Secondly, looking around at the way God has created his little creation, I guess I gotta ask myself why. Not only why an infinite perfect being would create anything at all, but I mean, if he was going to, then there must’ve been better ways to create existence. After all, he’s God! Why are things set up specifically like this? Couldn’t he do better? What’s the point? I don’t see meaning in this supernatural laden creation; I see a completely arbitrary and random universe. Sure, we’ve added a realm of pleasure and a realm of pain, and now we live forever and ever, but nonetheless; if this was created, I’m sort of thinking that the creator pulled it out of his arse on a drunken whim.

Where’s the meaning in any of this?

I guess the standard response to this and anything that an apologist can’t answer with their marvellous semantic gymnastics is “God has a plan.�?

This is good, but first – what the fuck is this plan? Where did anyone get this idea? How do we know he has a plan? But, why the hell does God need a plan to begin with? We keep hearing about God's plan, but no one knows what it is, or why he needs it. God’s a-temporal, right? That’s what their always saying. God’s all powerful, right? All knowing? So why does this thing need a plan? And why did he need a plan before anything existed? What the hell was he planning for?

If God’s plan amounts to nothing more than primitive ignorant apes living forever at his side, only after billions of years of existence, and a system of morality that quite frankly looks like he put a bunch of commandments into a hat and picked them out at random, then I’ve got only one thing to say to this unneeded, illogical, theological rubbish:

God’s plan sucks.

I’m honestly starting to think that while my "atheistic worldview" may assign the universe into meaninglessness, so does a theistic one. The only difference here is that they’re lying about it and claiming the high road.

I may sound like an asshole saying all of this, because I am, but I just can't figure this out. Where's the meaning with God?

Oooh, that made me feel all tingly... ^_^ UNF UNF MASTAH DEBATZ0R

quester

I never could figure out why life has to have a meaning. Isn't just living enough?

And if God has a plan--well, ranchers have plans for their cattle.

Gunnaheave

If you smile or frown during the course of a day life has meaning. People can argue all they want abut whether or not that meaning is rooted in metaphysics the way they want it to be, but something meaning is not contingent on theoretical claptrap.

Goobla

I concur with both of your sentiments! But you probably already knew that...

* slithers away *

Symptom

I think they feel that they are given meaning by becoming a part of something "greater than they are" so to speak. instead of a miserable little pissant on some backwater world, they're now a miserable little pissant on some backwater world who happens to be in the posse of the biggest, baddest motherfucker in the entire universe. plus being a christian gives them the sense of some overriding goal through their life (getting to heaven) as opposed to mere mortal "happiness", which seems to be a rather nebulous, man-made, and arbitrarily defined quality to someone who's used to looking at their entire life as a spiritual quest.

run2white

Great questions. Think I'll let this settle a bit.

jdlongmire

a sound strategy...

we'll see if it works...