hokowo

am i depressing you? really?

Djugashvillain

The answer is pretty obvious: we create our own meaning. Five seconds of thought would have told you that.

hokowo

damn and i thought 3 seconds was enough.
sorry

jaded_revenge

No, most people here are incredibly thick skinned to the "life is meaningless without god" attacks. It just seems that what you've been getting at in the last few threads, that without god we don't have any reason to go and kill ourselves and things dont matter etc.

That is Nihilism, and although an atheist could be a nihilist, chances are he or she is not. Yes I will eventually die, yes the world will eventually end, and humanity, and to our current understanding life as we know it will eventually stop. Why should this depress me when it makes the life we have now even greater commodity? Besides, there will always be 'something' in existance.

In all honesty, I'd be more depressed in knowing there was some sort of all powerful deity. It would mean that I couldn't make a meaning, but would have to follow the god's meaning, which is generally bask in said gods glory. Especially in certain religions, which is bask in said gods glory whilst billions burn in eternal suffering.

Whether or not you accept any explanation as to how we could possibly keep living, you can at least accept that we do. This shows that we do have reasons, which you can't destroy by simply saying something along the lines of "OMG you will all die and the universe will end". Whether or not you understand them is not important, because greater than meaning is reason, and we all have reaons to keep going.

fatpie42

My life makes all kinds of differences. If I don't ask my mate to come to the pub with my, he doesn't go to the pub. When I explain things to someone who didn't know them before, I have advanced their opinions and knowledge.

Simply by being here, I make all kinds of differences.


As for being 'meaningful', my life is meaningful to me and that is what makes it meaningful. If it were meaningful to someone else, that wouldn't make it meaningful to me.

hokowo

thanks for this

bring out one thing quite clearly the ego .

ego the downfall of satan.

the reason for eternal education mentioned in the other thread,

fact is man is not great at all. we are no more than animals with a certain abitily to understand morals a wee bit and a choice to decide. no need for ego in that.

Jehanne

That life must end someday does not mean that it does not have meaning and purpose. Like it or not, we must all die someday, and for atheists such as myself, the only question is whether we choose to end our lives in the real world or in the "world" of make-believe and fantasy. I choose to live and die in the former. Many other individuals, however, choose the latter, but in the end, their "choice" is meaningless, because they will end their lives in the same reality in which I will end mine.

ksskidude

I know my life has meaning and it absolutely has an effect on life. I speak to students all over the country on brain and spinal cord injury prevention. I inform them of the perils of driving and why young adults sustain these terrible injuries more than any other age group. Car crashes are the leading cause of death among people under the age of 33.
Maybe before you heard my presentation you would not wear your seat belt. After you can't imagine not wearing it ever again.

Yeah I absolutely believe my life has meaning. But it's meaning comes from my decision to actively make a difference.

hokowo

but it only makes a dif for about rarely smal period of time on a small amount of things and when looked at in the hwole picture tend to the limit of zero .

Writer@Large

Hokowo, I think my feelings generally follow those of pkostrze, JPD, and the others (I liked Mr Carcer's response, especially), so I won't bother repeating them. But pkortrze asked a question of you that you didn't answer, and I'm hoping you could, because it's a good one:
I think he's absolutely right, and I was wondering what you would answer to it.

--W@L