the best way for us to lead worthwhile lives, is though God’s direction.
Disagree. Of course, you may be defining the worth of a life by the degree to which it conforms to your religion. I've tried both - life from withing religion in which I tried to conform to its rules, and life as an irreligious humanist. Time to given to religion was useful to teach me about what believers believe and how they come to those beliefs, but the actual things they believe due to their faith aren't meaningful to an unbeliever. Reading the Bible and is helpful on RF when debating believers, but the content has had no innate value to me since I left religion. Time spent praying accomplished nothing of value, and time spent in churches left me with nothing of value except a familiarity of what goes on there.
The Christian moral code, which is a received morality from an ancient culture, is of no value to a humanist, who gets his moral direction from the intuitions of his conscience. This is why humanist routinely reject the Christian position on slavery, women, homosexuals, and unbelievers. How do they know to do that? They use reason applied to conscience. My conscience tells me that slavery is immoral, women equal, and that neither atheism nor homosexuality are immoral, and I follow it, not the book.
In short, I feel that I've lived a much more worthwhile life outside of religion than by following "God's direction" both to me and those I touch. I consider the kind of posting I do here more worthwhile than that of those admonishing others to get more deeply into religion, but then, as I suggested, perhaps we don't value the same things.
even atheists can find their way to spiritual guidance, even if they don’t call it that.
Humanists, like the pagans and Dharmics, are directly connected to reality, which they experience as sacred. The pagans and Dharmics name gods to serve as symbols of nature and the human condition, but because their attention hasn't been redirected to an alleged phantom spirit living outside of nature that threatens them and gives them orders, they can have authentic spiritual experiences, which have nothing to do with spirits.
How is it possible to have a spiritual relationship with nature when one is taught that matter is base, that the world is to be avoided, that the wisdom of the secular world is foolisness, the flesh is base and defiles the spirit injected into it, and the mind is the devil's playground and its cognitive dissonance at hearing religious dogma is not to be trusted, either. Such people live life like they are at a bus stop waiting to whisked off to something better, their main concern being not missing the bus. Explain how that kind of life is either more worthwhile or spiritual. Where is the spirituality in the following comment, which a humanist finds repulsive and causes him to want this religion to melt away even faster:
"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand" - James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan (note his position and responsibilities)
we as lifeforms don't really know by which purpose we are here
Why assume we have a purpose? Most things don't. They have causes, but purpose requires intent.
It is just a bit odd, that lifeform seems so eager to survive or procreate when there doesn't seem to be a greater known purpose for it.
This problem, like dozens of others, evaporates away when you remove the theism. This is exactly what we would expect in a godless universe capable of producing life and mind. Such a creature will arise if it can, and be selected for when it does.
The Bible describes Jehovah as "the happy God"
Have you seen the Old Testament? Dawkins, every Abrahamic theists least favorite neoatheist and best-selling author, says, "The god of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." This is based on the stories in it. I've seen them too. The "happy God" has children dashed upon the rocks, slain if they're firstborn, and torn apart by bears for calling somebody bald. How is that the happy God?
The Bible says God is love
I know what love is, and it's not a god or a person at all, and certainly not that one.
based on the Bible, we can conclude that God wanted intelligent beings like himself, to be able to enjoy life... like himself, which he freely gave as a gift, out of love.
Disagree. Regarding a free gift given out of love, nothing comes without strings attached to it for that deity, and the intelligent ones will be cast aside if their intelligence extends to not believing things with insufficient supporting evidence. This god wanted to collect those that would believe in its existence based in faith (presumably to praise and obey it for eternity) and discard the rest.
I'm a bit confused by the believers who say that without such a belief, life has no meaning or purpose. What would be a less meaningful existence than that? The angels that allegedly rebelled and were cast out of heaven to troll mankind saw it firsthand. As far as I know, none have expressed regret about that choice since. How does a believer reconcile that with his ideas that heaven is paradise? I'm pretty sure that if I found myself trapped in an eternal celestial prayer circle, I'd be looking for the back door as well.
Procreation serves the purpose of producing children to...as God said, fill the earth. Note. Fill... not overflow.
Somebody should probably tell that to the American Christians, who want to force unwanted births.
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