Atheists, is life ultimately meaningful?

[GodlessHeathen]

Is life ultimately meaningful and [edit] if you don't think life is meaningful [/edit] are you satisfied with it not being meaningful?

Thanks for the great questions. Since you've asked several here, I'll answer them one at a time. As a side note, I haven't read the previous replies in the thread so if you've already addressed something, my apologies. Yes, life is ultimately meaningful. I'm an atheist so I obviously do not believe in an afterlife. That means this life is all I have and I must live it to the fullest. For my (hopefully) 80 or so years on this planet that I expect to get, I can have the joy of witnessing the beauty of nature, learning the vast knowledge of mankind, loving others and making them happy and, in turn, being loved and being made happy. I can leave my legacy in history, however small it may be. I can see the radiance of my children. Hell, even if all I had to live for was the delicious poutine up here in Canada, that would be enough . Different people ascribe different meanings to their lives based on their experiences.

If reality is objective then it must serve some purpose. That's what an objective is, it is fulfilling a certain something in order to do something else. Do you agree?

I'm not sure I understand the connection you've made between reality being objective and having to serve some purpose. It seems like you're conflating objective (the adjective) with objective (the noun). Reality is objective (adj.) because it is something that we can all observe. I look at an apple and you look at an apple and we both see some sort of red, roundish fruit with a brown stem at the top. Regardless of our opinions or feelings or biases about the apple, we can view it physically the same way. An objective (n.) is just a goal or milestone to be reached. They don't have anything to do with each other. But that's the beauty of the English language, I guess.

I've heard that there are atheists that embrace determinism in a way. Is this true? Are you one of them? And how can everything be determined without there being an animate being in charge of determining? Where do you draw the line on whether things happen for a reason?

How can everything be determined without there being an animate being in charge? Take a calculator, for instance. The calculator is governed by a program loaded into it. If I input numbers into it, it will give me an output. If I keep putting in the same input, I'm going to keep getting the same output. If I type in 1+1, the answer isn't going to all of a sudden be 53 because that's what the calculator decided it wanted to do (the calculator doesn't have free will). The answer is always going to be 2. Precisely because the calculator is an inanimate object, it cannot "decide" what to do. It's governed by the program loaded into it. It's the same way for the universe. The universe is like the calculator in this example. It's governed by the Laws of Physics. If I react HCl + NaOH in a chemistry lab, I'm always going to get H2O and NaCl. I'm not going to all of a sudden get Mg because that's what the chemicals "decided" to do. I already know from observing objective reality what I'm going to get as a result before the HCl and NaOH even touch. What will happen is already determined and it does not require an animate being to direct that determining.

Now at this point you might be tempted to ask "Well, who wrote the "program" for the universe?". Firstly, asking "who" already presupposes it was a person or being. You can't really determine even that much. Secondly, we've made HUGE strides in science figuring this very thing out. There's plenty we still don't understand, but we've advanced very far in this regard. But even if we had absolutely no clue, the correct answer is "I don't know why the Laws of Physics are the way they are". It is not "I don't know, so I'm just going to assume it was an infinitely-existing, all-powerful, all-knowing loving God who chose an obscure desert people thousands of years ago to carry His message through the world." To make that claim, you need evidence and a lot of it. And since I don't see that evidence, that's why I'm an atheist. However, I'm not unsympathetic to Christians like my girlfriend who say "God created the Laws of Physics, but left everything to develop through abiogenesis, evolution, etc." because they are not denying the objective reality we can all see. In other words, they are at least somewhat intellectually honest. They are not denying reality to fit their beliefs, they're adapting their beliefs to fit reality.

Starting at the Big Bang, the universe explodes. Each and every particle had a trajectory and an energy and interacted with other nearby particles in ways determined by the Laws of Physics. From then on, there was only one possible outcome for each of those particles. We have developed the math to calculate what will happen to each individual particle, but for this calculation to include an untold number of particles in the universe, it would be so incredibly complex to figure out. But there's only one possible outcome. If I throw a ping pong ball across a room, where it lands might seem like it will be random. But it's not. It's incredibly complex, but it is influenced by a huge number of factors: how my brain signaled my arm and body to move, how my muscles moved and contracted to throw the ball, how strong my muscles are, the size and mass of the ping pong ball, the material, any imperfections such as dents in the ball, the flatness of the wall I'm throwing the ball at, the temperature and pressure in the room, if there is a draft in the room, the altitude I'm throwing at, etc. It's an insane amount of factors. If we were able to take all the particles of that room, we can make calculations using physics to determine what will happen...theoretically. But since we would need information on all the particles in the room and to make individual calculations for all of them, and it is impossible to get all that information on every particle in real time and make those calculations, in practice this is pretty much impossible to do.

So how do we cope? We take approximations. I can measure the mass of a ping pong ball and measure the speed I throw it at and at what angle and determine how far it will go (approximately). But what we calculate from our physics equations is going to be slightly different from what actually happens because of these extra aforementioned factors. I can throw the ping pong ball and see how far it should approximately go, but if a sudden unaccounted for gust of wind comes along and blows the ball back into my face, our equation would not take that into consideration. If we had information on all the particles in the universe, we would be able to determine that if I threw that ping pong ball in a certain way at a certain time, that it would be blown back into my face by that unexpected gust of wind. In other words, everything in the universe is already determined. But because of our limited capacity, we do not (yet) have the capability of gathering the necessary information and making the necessary calculations to determine what will happen. It's determined, but we just don't know how it will be determined because the universe is very large and extremely complex.

That, however, does not make life any less meaningful. After all, I really enjoy poutine .

 

[psychoslice]

Since I left religion my life has much more meaning, I am no longer under the belief that I must be this or that to have every lasting life, this life I have now is enough, I am not greedy. And because I now know this is the only life, I now live this life to its fullest, not wasting it on silly beliefs that only get in the way.

 

[Blastcat]

Perhaps the meaning is that avalanche comes because God has decided to call the people who die to his presence or that child got the sting because his parents or grand parents sinned, Is that what you mean by 'meaning'?

You just proved my point. You made those possible meanings up using your imagination.

That "perhaps".. gave it away.
Yes, perhaps a million things.

Even religious meanings are made up.
A religiously motivated thinker ponders about an avalanche and tries to introduce some purpose that a god had.
A religiously motivated thinker ponders about a bee sting and tries to fit that into the "sin" notion.

I don't think the bee has a "sin" notion, I don't think that avalanches always KILL people... and mountains don't intend.

But to religious people , there is this "invisible hand" behind everything, so there is always God's purpose. But of course, nobody knows what that might be. Ever. The religiously motivated thinker has to imagine....as you have.

That's what I meant that we fabricate meaning.
We fabricate meanings for avalanches and bee stings and everything else.
Meaning itself isn't a "thing" out there.... unless there is a sentient being inventing an intention.

Now, all we have to do in order to say that a god intended an avalanche or a bee sting is to prove that:

1. A god exists.
2. Has intentions.
3. Carries them out.
4. Humans can know what those intentions are.

Should be easy enough.

 

[Aupmanyav]

That's what I meant that we fabricate meaning.

More than meaning, atheists want to know the reason.

 

[Blastcat]

More than meaning, atheists want to know the reason.

There IS no meaning to know..... we CREATE meaning.. like we create art.. like we create gods.... Meaning is a human fabrication.
As an atheist, I can assure you that my life has TONS of meaning... as I create new meanings almost every day.

Another word for meaning is INTENTION..... My car trip has LOTS of meaning, some trivial, and some not so trivial. My whole LIFE if it is to have one big honking MEANING... how I put that on my gravestone, if I get one. How about good person, good father.. great debater...

And yes, why NOT look for how things work, or reasons .... why IS that sky blue?
What would BE the best reason for morality?

And so on.

It seems as if your comment MEANS to undermine the capacity of atheists to have a meaningful existence.
It's a language thing, I'm sure.

 

[Yerda]

I don't find the question of whether life has meaning to have much meaning itself. The word meaning has too many meanings.

In the, what does it all mean, sense it seems like a category mistake.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Is that a statement?

I took it to mean that, without God, life itself is the only meaning to be had. Why is that such a bad thing?