Hi there, i'm new

[Mister Agenda]

Just made an account and thought it would be prudent to create my hello world post.

Hello, yourself.

A little bit about me: I'm an atheist, I enjoy mixing video games and alcohol, and while cooking is an excellent hobby, there is a time and place for a large bowl of cheap ramen.

The Pastafarian communion!

I also came here to ask a question, or a set of questions along the same lines, that I've been struggling with for over a decade now:

I'll help if I can.

What kind of purpose can be derived from a life without religion?

We have to make our own purpose instead of having someone else decide it for us.

What kind of meaning comes from being the current state of DNA that's simply trying to further its line?

None, but DNA and God aren't the only possible places to get meaning from.

If an asteroid annihilates the Earth tomorrow, what purpose did we serve by living?

We don't have a purpose like a tool has a purpose. We have purpose, the way human beings have purpose. Things don't have to last forever to be meaningful. In fact, I can't think of anything more likely to dilute meaning than forever. If our lives were a mere prelude to never-ending quadrillions upon quadrillion of years, if they're only an instant that becomes a smaller and smaller portion of our eternal lives as the last black hole dissolves and the universe becomes a cloud of ever-dispersing photons, what could make our lives less pointless than that. A life with a beginning, a middle, and an end is complete. A life where it's impossible to ever even get to the middle...what purpose does that serve?

Really I guess I'm just trying to ask, Why bother living?

To see what happens next. If you're lucky, you get to do that until you're good and tired of it. The possible purposes you could come up with are probably infinite, and you don't have to be in a hurry to settle on one. Try a bunch! You could do much worse than 'to enjoy video games and drinking with my buds'.

Not believing in a higher power of any flavor has led me to really wonder why I should bother to do anything. There's no purpose or reason.

I know some people go through this existential crisis when they de-convert, but I wasn't one of them. I was raised Pentecostal and my brain felt better and better the farther I got away from it. When I finally accepted that I didn't believe in God anymore, it was a relief to stop having to believe so many contradictory things at once all the time. But I know a lot of atheists and I think I have some insight on this.

Those of us who were raised religious are often repeatedly told that our lives have to have purpose (I wasn't, the Pentecostals invested their time in making sure I was afraid of hell, they never got around to making sure I was afraid of not having a purpose ordained for me by the creator of the universe since the beginning of time). Once they've convinced you the disease is real, they sell you the cure: God gives you a purpose! God makes sure your life matters, even after you die!

That feeling goes away. Seriously, even if all you do is ignore it instead of deal with it, eventually you'll reach a point where it will be hard for you to imagine why you were so worked-up about not being given a purpose by some supposed all-powerful being. I recommend dealing with it, though. There are so many wonderful purposes available and you get to choose whichever ones you think are right.

I'm not sure if posting my question inside my introductory post was correct, but it really was the only thing I came here for.

In that case, I especially hope the replies you get are helpful. And if they're not, if you really need to believe in God to keep on going...well, that's what you need. Your purpose can be to find a God you can believe in. Better led than dead.