Do you think there's a point to your existence??

[WhatIfGodWasJustAMyth]

Life is life, no more, and no less. Higher meaning would suggest a creator.

[mediamogul]

In the grand scheme of things I believe that life is essentially meaningless. I used to feel utterly horrified at this concept. One day I realized how freeing it is to be able able to define myself and my ends. Most people who become atheists struggle with this concept early on. Especially those who come out of Christianty and are just beaten into the position of feeling that the only meaning is being utterly subservient to god's will and his 'plan' for them. I now look back and find that extremely unsatisfying. It seems so arbitrary, just like god moving little pawns around on a chessboard. Meaninglessness is not to be feared, it is an opportunity to define oneself and make real decisions unincumbered by dogma.

[Nine]

Maybe the better question is what can we do with our existence. As individuals and maybe even as a species. I imagine that is too much to ask of humanity tho.

[Blanca]

In the grand scheme of things I believe that life is essentially meaningless. I used to feel utterly horrified at this concept. One day I realized how freeing it is to be able able to define myself and my ends. Most people who become atheists struggle with this concept early on. Especially those who come out of Christianty and are just beaten into the position of feeling that the only meaning is being utterly subservient to god's will and his 'plan' for them. I now look back and find that extremely unsatisfying. It seems so arbitrary, just like god moving little pawns around on a chessboard. Meaninglessness is not to be feared, it is an opportunity to define oneself and make real decisions unincumbered by dogma.

I, too, have begun to feel the liberation from being god's pawn. But why would you feel the need to define yourself if life is meaningless? What is there to define? If life is pointless I dont know how to reconcile that I'm miserable if I do one thing and happy if I do another; that to me suggests there is a point to my actions. I am sort of coerced by my own emotions into making certain decisions. It's kind of weird.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Humans are but one form of life,there are millions. What ALL life does is replicate itself. Period.


Being sentient, we have the mixed blessing (if you will excuse the term) of being acutely aware of the experience.

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

If you want to get really precise, sadness and happiness shunt you down certain paths because of the biological need to pass on your genetics. In the modern age, we know that people can live their entire lives without multiplying, and that's great. However, the cause of emotion is the drive to spread genes and to survive and fit in long enough to do so, since without that, your genes would be removed from the world and thus demonstrate natural selection.

The short version?
You feel like life has a point because of chemical reactions that dictate your emotions to give you the greatest chance of surviving.
Why do we give a **** at all then?
Because you can still be happy, and that's a point in and of itself.

[mediamogul]

In the grand scheme of things I believe that life is essentially meaningless. I used to feel utterly horrified at this concept. One day I realized how freeing it is to be able able to define myself and my ends. Most people who become atheists struggle with this concept early on. Especially those who come out of Christianty and are just beaten into the position of feeling that the only meaning is being utterly subservient to god's will and his 'plan' for them. I now look back and find that extremely unsatisfying. It seems so arbitrary, just like god moving little pawns around on a chessboard. Meaninglessness is not to be feared, it is an opportunity to define oneself and make real decisions unincumbered by dogma.

I, too, have begun to feel the liberation from being god's pawn. But why would you feel the need to define yourself if life is meaningless? What is there to define? If life is pointless I dont know how to reconcile that I'm miserable if I do one thing and happy if I do another; that to me suggests there is a point to my actions. I am sort of coerced by my own emotions into making certain decisions. It's kind of weird.

Meaninglessness has a negative connotation that I believe is false. It is the idea that we have been duped into believing that a life needs some overarching meaning to be a good one. Someone around here has the Cat's Cradle quote in their signature that sums it up. You are allowed to be an individual and to have some things feel right to you without ascribing ultimate value to them. Just because something is right for you doesn't mean it needs to be right for everyone. Believing the opposite is often a mark of extreme insecurity of one's own beliefs. It took a while but I really came to feel like my views were really my own and something I had come to through my own reason and inquiry. It's sounds like you are in the middle of that struggle. It's something I can definitely identify with.

[Minimalist]

Eat, shit, and screw, just like every other animal. Only man has evolved the capacity to think he is special and has a meaning.

Some people....





manage to avoid all of that thinking, too.

[Anomalocaris]

Humans are but one form of life,there are millions. What ALL life does is replicate itself. Period.


Being sentient, we have the mixed blessing (if you will excuse the term) of being acutely aware of the experience.

Well, in the blundering attempt to keep up with the challenges of replication, we seem to have amassed an vast and rickety arsenal of extemporized tools that works so poorly together than an emergent property called "ability to conceptualize" appeared. Some time after conceptualization came into being, another screw popped loose and we being to confuse inanimate universe with a sentient being. And we somehow imagined the universe gave us purpose, and somehow we should feel comforted by it, as if the purpose could not just as easily be to simply suffer for a high sadistic pleasure.

badly assembled collection of extemporized neurological functions + infantile urge to anthropomorphize things + wish thinking fantasy that overlooks the nasty and unavoidable implications = higher purpose in life.

[kılıç_mehmet]

There is, of course.
However, not everyone might have the same life purpose.