What is the point of anything?

[Alex K]

Welcome!

[Norman Humann]

aboard.

Personally I think the meaning of life is whatever you think it is. Though it might be pizza, I'm not sure.

[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.

[Jenny A]

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Hi there, so this is my first post here. I won't bore you all with the details, but I've been on the way to deconversion for some time. There's one thing I struggle to get my head around though, largely because of my religious background (Catholic) I'm sure but it is something I do think about a lot.

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Life. Living. What is the point of any of it?

No I'm not posting this while slitting my wrists to a Hawthorne Heights/Linkin Park mix, and it is something that crosses my mind whenever anything good or bad happens now. You built a sandcastle? What's the point? It's going to be gone when the tide comes in. You finished reading some novel? Well wasn't that a fine waste of an hour.

Yes..I know this sounds pessimistic, but this line of thinking goes on to higher levels too. Why bother building monuments when eventually either hundreds or thousands of years from now it's going to be gone. Why bother reproducing if the human race and the planet itself is inevitably going to pass away. In particularly ill moods I've even thought about whats the point eating or drinking to sustain yourself now if you're going to die anyway. Everything just appears ultimately pointless, staving off the inevitable and ultimately a complete and utter waste.

What is it that makes

In a way I know I've cultivated this mindset myself, years of religious activity and several years studying Theology reinforces this mindset. Even still, I can't seem to come up with a good reason to do anything now. Of course I work, I eat and the like; I might not care but there are others around me who still do and I don't see a reason to "Break the Spell" as Dennett put it. Most of the time I wish I hadn't myself, and let doubts and remain just that.

Not exactly a cheerful post I know, but it is something I think of more and more. Have any of you got an answer or an idea, because I can't come up with one.

I've heard this particular kind of question many times before, and I can honestly say, "I don't get it." The words make sense grammatically, but the idea does not make any real sense to me.

You have, as you admit created, your own mindset here. I don't want to put words in your mouth but I think it has (as you suspect) to do with your religion and more specifically your theology. It seems to me that Islam, and Christianity are all about fear of death. (I find Christians are often startled to discover that not all religions are centered around the hope of eternal life). Well, I have good news for you. We fear death because life is worth living. Mankind created god because life is worth living.

Yet, you worry that nothing has meaning unless it's eternal. Why? I'm really asking here, because I don't get it. What is it about impermanence that deprives things of value? I value vacations, but they are necessarily short. In fact part of their value is their brevity. A week on the beach with nothing to do may be grand, three years not so much. I value my children. It's sometimes sad how fast they are growing-up, but part of what I value about them is change. Watching my garden grow is a joy in large part because it changes. Process is more interesting than stasis, and process requires change. Change means nothing is eternal. Eternal sameness would be hell indeed.

I build a sandcastle. The process is enjoyable (or I wouldn't bother), the result charming. The fact that it will wash away makes me bold with my plans. Watching it be demolished by the tide is enjoyable too. So given all that joy, why does it's impermanence deprive it of meaning?

Frankly, I don't really think impermanence is your only problem here. I think that having created a benevolent creator who has made you for eternal life, you then have to explain the endless ugliness of the world. If there is no such god, then evil doesn't need an explanation. It's merely something to be contended with. But if you have a creator, then you do need to explain evil. God's plan has been your answer over and over, no matter how inexplicable the problem.

Now you are quite rightly doubting the existence of god, but you are left with trying to explain the ugliness without the plan. You are in a muddle. You want the solution to a problem that that doesn't exist. Without god, disease, hunger, and natural disasters are something to contend with, but not moral force to be explained away. But you are so fond of the solution that parting from the idea of it hurts.

Let's turn your question around for a moment. Suppose you are poor child living in a hot muggy poor place and your body is covered in sores, and you are slowly dying of disease and hunger. What you are suggesting is that this is fine and good provided it's all part of someone's plan. I don't think so. People raise animals to eat. It's a plan. Good for us, not so good for the animals. Even if the plan is to make something beautiful, I don't see how that would add meaning to existence of the cogs in the machine. Many trees gave their lives for my house. It's a very nice house, but I doubt a hypothetical sentient tree would be comforted by that. Being part of their parents' plan, is often what children are rebelling from not happily conforming to even though it's usually a fairly good plan. When your boss says, I have a plan for you, I'd be wary. Generally speaking we don't like being part of someone else's plan. We like to make or choose the plans we fulfill.

Follow someone else's plan blindly and you may find yourself executing Jews because it's all part of Hitler's grand plan, about which you do not know the details, only that he must have a very good reason which will result in the betterment of the German race. And make no mistake, "god's plan" is a human construct and it too can and has been used to bad ends: holy wars, crusades, inquisition, helping pedophile priests to more victims, prosperity theology, suicide bombers, to name just a few.

I suggest you ask yourself why you needed to feel part of plan in the first place.

[Foxaèr]

Life. Living. What is the point of any of it?

Life has whatever meaning you personally decide to attribute to it.

[Esquilax]

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."

[Thumpalumpacus]

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.

[downbeatplumb]

Why do people assume that there is a point to existence?

Shit happens, that is all.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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

[Cyberman]

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?