Open discussion of the Christian Why We're Here thread

[Angrboda]

Under a godless worldview, these things are accidental properties of humans and it makes no sense to ask "why this. Under a Christian worldview, these things are a result of being made in the image of God. The question "why this" makes sense: because God is interested in having a relationship with rational beings capable of living a full, well-lived, morally upright, capable of love, and awed by the natural beauty of the universe he made for this purpose alone. It is this distinction between the two worldviews that I am trying to point out. 

If you want to use different words, fine. You cannot escape the obvious comparison and its conclusion: There is not existential purpose/meaning to "human-ness" in a godless worldview. There is substantial existential purpose/meaning in a Christian worldview.

Jor, if you burn a book its meaning is gone regardless of any meaning it had in the past.

This is a comment about morality, but I would argue something similar applies to the question of meaning and purpose. (And specifically regarding Steve's comment, my argument presented in the Why, God? Why?! thread is particularly applicable to this line of thought.)

Christian philosopher Paul Copan writes that if we reject the existence of objective moral facts, then we "reject something fundamental about our humanness."[48] I agree that we reject something about our humanness if we condone or advocate things like rape and torture. This is because people who do such things have divorced themselves from the well-being of their fellow humans. They have shown a disregard for the wants and needs of humanity, and therefor they have literally isolated themselves from other people and rejected something about their humanness. But believing that morality is relative to the wants and needs of humans is not the same thing as divorcing yourself from the well-being of humanity. Rather, it is precisely because you are conditioning morality on the wants and needs of humans that you are embracing your humanness.

Review of The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology