Over at Evolving Perspectives, reader Pliny the in Between takes up the issue of “a meaningful life,” something we discussed yesterday. Click to enlarge this cartoon, called “Monsters under the bed”:
The Argument from A Meaningful Life
April 13, 2016 • 3:00 pm
One aspect of the ‘meaningful life’ debate that didn’t get mentioned in any comments to yesterday’s post, is the claim that many people feel there’s something key missing from their lives, often referred to as a ‘god shaped hole’. A classic case of finding a problem to fit a pre-defined solution!
Often phrased as, “religion poisons you, then tries to sell you the antidote.”
…besides which…if your life is so impoverished that you consider it worthless unless somebody else tells you what to do…well, for such people I have nothing but the most sincere pity. Slaves basically never live up to their full potential, and everybody from the slave to the owner to society as an whole is left impoverished as a result.
Why anybody would willingly submit to such servitude and for such dubious and ill-evidenced reward is utterly beyond me.
Cheers,
b&
Beautifully stated, as always.
When someone claims that God wants them to do something or to abstain from something, I ask them 2 questions:
1. How do you know what God wants you to do (especially considering how all the holy books are filled with contradictions)?
2. Why do you give a damn what God wants?
The second question usually has them flabbergasted. The answer is: “But, but, he’s God.” My answer is: “And so what?”
If a God existed, he wouldn’t be anything more than simply an ancestor. Yes, he/she/it might have created us, but the same did our parents. If my father started killing people and promised eternal suffering for their “sins”, I would put him in jail.
He doesn’t deserve my eternal worship just for creating me. I love him but I don’t worship him or my mother or let them decide the meaning in my life (and being the great people they are, they would never do that).
Why should I worship a God?
I’ve never met a theist who could answer that. They usually respond by saying that God is so great that you want to spend eternity in heaven worshipping him. The thought makes me sick. Take me to hell instead.
I think it was Dawkins, when pressed by an interviewer, who said the purpose of life is to have grandchildren. He meant successfully raiding children who successfully have children
That might be the biological ‘purpose’ of life. I doubt that Dawkins necessarily meant that we should share that purpose. He has, after all, made the point in other contexts that just because evolution favours us doing something, we now have intelligence and can decide for ourselves what is the best thing to do (and not necessarily what evolution or our genes ‘want’ us to do).
cr
Realistically though. Not everyone can be a scientist, engineer, inventor or big-shot businessman. Most people live lives of abject drudgery and need a spiritual component.
Like Karl Marx said, religion is opiate of the masses. The American ‘heartland’ does not want your secularism.
On the other hand, I agree with Marx (and Sojourner Truth) that we should create situations so that people *can* realize what they are capable of, whatever that might be.
‘The American ‘heartland’ does not want your secularism.’
I’ve lived there my entire life, and what I’ve seen tends to contradict your statement. Nearly every Christian church parking lot is full–when it’s full at all, which is ever less frequently these days–of expensive SUVs, preposterous pickups and luxury sedans. The owners of which drive them home to over-sized houses. At which they live lives of conspicuous consumption. That is, in every way but ‘belief in belief’ they lead secular lives.
In my judgment, the secular aspects of their lives far outweighs the religious, and just about every such person would laugh at you if you quoted any part of Matthew 19: 21-24 to them, such as the famous words of Jesus that should make any Christian believer flinch, ‘And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’
The one sitting in the sanctuary of the suburban mega-church who would NOT laugh in your face: the minister. But nor would he, though making six figures + annually, be ashamed, nor make any significant change in his life situation.
Ouch: proofreading fail: should be ‘outweigh,’ not ‘outweighs.’
“Everytime I find the meaning of life, they change it on me”.
I prefer finding the meaning of life from moment to moment in a way that continues changing rather than up in the sky to which access depends on a fixed code of behavior.
Now if religion provides meaning by giving a sense of an overall moral arc to the universe as Martin Luther King defined it, OK, but religious systems involving fear of hellfire and surrender of moral autonomy are not an authentic source of meaning.
(Sometimes I think that what is now called progressive Christianity and evangelical Christianity ought to be regarded as two separate religions. Jimmy Carter was the first and Ronald Reagan was the second. Popular thinking regards them as both “Christians”, but their actual religious sentiments are as different as mineral water and soda pop.)
My son, who is 8, was with my mother for a week recently while my wife and I went on vacation. My mother naturally brought him to Church both Sundays for Mass and a third time to earn Divine Mercy indulgences (yes, indulgences are still around.) He was also told several times that not going to Church on Sunday is sinful after he told my mother he no longer goes to religious education classes. There’s the threat and hellfire mentality for you.
Upon returning home, my son noticed an emoticon on my phone for one of my Facebook chat conversations. It happened to be Christopher Hitchen’s face and my son asked who he is. I told him he was a writer but he’s now deceased. My son then asked when Hitchens is in Heaven or Hell. Before I could answer, he added on, “Or, is he just in the ground?”
He went on to ask whether I’ve ever wondered if religion is just a bunch of stories people made up because they’re scared to die. I was floored. He obviously knows my parents are devout Catholics and we don’t attend Church, but I’ve never discussed anything very in depth with him on the topic. There is that oft quoted line attributed to St. Francis Xavier about giving him the child until he is seven…apparently, in my son’s case, this must ring true as he’s already stumbled onto the sham at the ripe old age of eight. Three trips to Church with my mother has him on the path to atheism!
My sons were guided to secularism early by simple answers to questions about religious people. Hardly ten years they think the idea of religion is ignorant and superficial.
Religious stories CAN be told in a way that imbues them with some grandeur and majesty, but quite frequently they are not. Instead they are told in a way that is patently mundane and trivial, essentially functioning as scared stories rather than sacred stories.
Atheist bashers of new atheism fail to realize that the source of many atheist alleged caricatures of Christianity is Christians.
‘Three trips to Church with my mother has him on the path to atheism!’
Gotta love the irony…
cr
Oh, I do love it. The most in depth I’ve gone with him on these topics is advising him to always ask questions. Never be afraid to ask “why?” when someone tells you something. Personally, I think that’s the vaccine to religion dogmatism, as Carl Sagan said, “Question everything.”
Being sent to Sunday School (to appease Granddad) was what did it for me. Sitting in a little church on hard seats wasting my Sunday afternoon being made to feel guilty that Jesus died for me (which didn’t make sense and I never asked him to), versus playing in the sunshine. Not a difficult choice.
Curiously, this guilt-tripping worked in one way – I felt vaguely guilty that I didn’t believe it. Then one day I had an epiphany or an apocalypse or something, I realised that if it wasn’t true (as I suspected) then it logically didn’t matter a damn that I didn’t believe it. I can still remember the feeling of relief and liberation.
What it did leave me with, though, was a subconscious aversion to all religion as being somehow unclean and not to be discussed. Took me decades before I could go into a church without an uneasy feeling that I might be set upon and evangelised.
cr
It boggles my mind that people think believing in an imaginary being gives meaning to life. Will Santa do?
Yes, religion doesn’t really give you a deep meaning so much as it just pushes the question back a level. Like having an extra turtle on the stack.
“What’s the meaning of life?
“To get to heaven.”
“Okay, once your in heaven, what’s your meaning of existence then?”
“Um…carry on meaningful conversations? Learn the answers of the universe? Relax and enjoy yourself?”
“So why isn’t talking meaningfully with people, doing science, and relaxing and enjoying yourself’ a good meaning of life now?”
I have read that one of the rewards of going to Heaven is being able to speak to the Old Testament prophets in person, and hear their stories first-hand.
Personally, I think that by the time I had heard Moses’ story of parting the Red Sea for the 700,000,000,000,000,000, …, 000th time it might be starting to pall a little.
If listening to my dad, in his old age repeating his war stories, is any guide, at that point you have left heaven and entered hell.
Of all of Pliny’s most excellent cartoons, I think this one might just be the best.
Thank you Mark.
Sick man that I am, this one is still my favorite though
http://pictoraltheology.blogspot.com/2014/05/specialty-applications.html
So we’ve finally learned your sex! Now Jerry can stop referring to you as “he or she”.
Given to humanity by Sky-Faries – Nada, Zilch, Zero, Nothing (except trouble blood-shead, war, and death).
Given to humanity by Science and reason – Flint Arrowheads, Chocolate Cupcakes, Good Dental Work, Cell Phones, cars, airplanes, Telescopes, Space Shuttles, Astronomical Observations, Apple Pie, Warm Clothing, Laptops, Pizza, and everything else worth having, Etc.
Fabulous!
Meaning is always a relative, context-dependent term…such as elevation. When you understand why neither your gods nor anybody else can give you elevation, yet elevation remains an useful concept, then you will understand why your gods also can’t give you meaning.
Cheers,
b&
>
Then I truly pity you, for yours is the empty, meaningless, pointless, worthless life, wasted on such an obvious delusion. Especially if you think “just chemicals” is all there is or even that “just chemicals” is itself somehow worthless.
So sad, that you’re wasting your life with such nonsense. Especially since, for the rest of us, our cups runneth over.
Why you would refuse to drink (and drink deeply!) from the cup of life when freely handed to you is beyond me. But the choice is yours, to be sure.
Such a waste — and of the too-brief one-and-only time you get, too!
b&
>
Oh, I see what you’re doing it’s the “justa” fallacy. You’re just a paper pusher, why should you make money? Oh, you install fences? You’re just a hole digger. You’re just a guy who wears a badge. You’re just a guy who has the title POTUS/CEO/Plumber/father/mother/son/daughter/researcher/physician/gynecologist/feminist/Catholic/Protestant/atheist/man/woman/child/senior citizen/white male/woman/agnostic/privileged westerner/Muslim/Jew/Hindu/American/Australian/African/Asian/European. Did I sufficiently cover the categories of humanity enough times to diminish anyone’s subjective meaning to life?
If not, pay no mind, these are just pixels on your screen.
Woops, that was just a thread depth limit to the conversation.