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The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
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What is the point of anything?
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  aboard. Personally I think the meaning of life is whatever you think it is. Though it might be pizza, I'm not sure.  RE: What is the point of anything?
February 8, 2015 at 11:19 am
(This post was last modified: February 8, 2015 at 11:20 am by SteelCurtain.)
As has been stated before: what is the point of anything not directly related to the test if this life is just a test for some afterlife? Surely building a sandcastle or visiting the Louvre does nothing to affect your chances to get into heaven, so what's the point of that even when you have a belief? What has changed now that you're deconverting? Seriously, beauty in life is all in the eye of the beholder. You can choose to see things as nihilistic and pointless, or you can choose to see that life is wondrous; the improbable number of chances that fell in just right to lead to you is the stuff of legend. Make it count. Do what makes you happy, meet many different kinds of people, enrich yourself in whatever way you can. That's the point. Be happy and make others happy. You'll find that's more than enough. 
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
 (February 8, 2015 at 8:53 am)Nell Wrote: Life. Living. What is the point of any of it? Life has whatever meaning you personally decide to attribute to it.
"What a little moonlight can do." ~ Billie Holiday
I've never understood this "what's the point of life, you're just going to die and not remember any of it!" thing that christians have going. I mean, I understand it, in that I understand they're desperate to turn whatever differences in belief there are between theism and atheism into an advantage for them and a disadvantage for us, I understand the appeal to consequences, but the central assertion just doesn't make any sense. Why is something meaningless just because it's finite? Why does something having an end rob it of any value?
The question I ask in response is generally this: why bother eating lunch? Eventually there'll be no food on the plate, you'll just poop it out later, and eventually you won't even remember you've eaten it. I'll usually get a response about how eating helps us to survive, and then the central assertion of the argument fades away, because the theist has just acknowledged that finite things can have value enough to make them worth doing. The things you do don't gain their meaning from the fact that you think there's an afterlife. Nobody walks out of a movie saying "Wow, I really enjoyed that movie because when I die, I'll live forever!" That's a nonsensical statement. You enjoy the movie because of the things in the movie that are enjoyable. Those things exist independent of your belief in heaven or hell, and that's true of everything on earth. There's simply no need to hitch your enjoyment of life to the idea that life will never end, regardless of the desperate rigor with which theists will try to convince you otherwise; all their arguments are little more than assertions, demands that you take them seriously for no real reason. There's no need to listen to that until they come up with something more substantial than "someday you'll die, and that's scary." 
Before I became a father, my purpose in life was to enjoy it, and to leave the world a better place than I found it. On becoming a father, my purpose in life became raising a good young man, and to enjoy life, and to leave the world a better place than I found it.
Why? Because it strikes me as the right thing to do. I like defining my own purpose and meaning, and don't understand why an external agency is needed for that. 
Why do people assume that there is a point to existence?
Shit happens, that is all. You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid. Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.  Quote:There is a reward out there. Yes, professor, there is indeed a reward. But you're wrong about it being 'out there'. The reward is here and now. When you give money to a beggar, that's your reward. When you sit with a housebound neighbour for an hour, that's your reward. When you serve meals to the homeless, you're rewarded on the spot. Humanism is the essence of being human. The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. The notion that we must do good in order to be rewarded in some nebulous fashion is some not very well thought out afterlife makes all good works the quintessence of selfishness. Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
 (February 8, 2015 at 8:53 am)Nell Wrote: Life. Living. What is the point of any of it? You just answered your own question there. Rearrange the sentence to put the second word last and you will see it. I could eat this delicious meal, it looks and smells wonderful - but I'll only end up shitting it out in the morning. So maybe I shouldn't bother?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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