If Life is Meaningless Anyway, then What's Wrong with Religion?

[Jackalope]

What prevents you from establishing your own meaning?

If the truth is that life is meaningless, then any meaning I assign to life is going to be fictional.  So if I do establish my own fictional meaning in life (and it will inevitably be fictional) then why is that more noble and enlightened than someone whose meaning comes from a fictional traditional religion, like Islam or Christianity?

I've highlighted the problem with your statement.

[Arkilogue]

Coming full existential circle?

What if you're wrong? What if life does have meaning, goes on after death and you've been false flagged about God by for profit religions? Forms rise and fall but the spirit remains.

Life is what you make of it....or don't.

[Excited Penguin]

One of my ex-girlfriends (a devout Mormon) told me essentially that she wasn't sure if Mormonism's religious claims were true, but that the Church made her happy.  I've thought many times that this stance, which seems fairly common among religious people, was inauthentic.  But given the existential crisis I'm facing right now about the meaninglessness of life, her position on the issue is sounding less and less crazy. 

Sure, I can bash religious people for maintaining beliefs that are easily disprovable.  I can call them inauthentic and willfully blind.  But they don't get up in the morning and wonder what the point of life is.  They know what the point of life is - or at least they think they know.  But why does it really matter whether they're right or wrong about the meaning of life?

This morning I got up and went to the gym as usual.  But when I got to the weight room, lifting weights just seemed so meaningless that I couldn't do it.  What's the point?  Maybe I get big muscles and lose some fat, and maybe women like that, and maybe my athletic performance improves.   But what's the meaning of all that?  I never had that problem when I was religious.  I never walked away from something I wanted to do because it felt meaningless.  

So congratulations fellow atheists, we've correctly solved the puzzle.  We've seen through the bullcrap and have correctly surmised that life is meaningless.  So what do we do, now that we know the true nature of life, which is that life is meaningless?  Well, it really doesn't matter what we do, because life is meaningless!  We can team up and spread the good word that life has no meaning.  We can paint our bodies orange and climb to the top of a mountain and play a harmonica.  We can join a religion.  We can pray to the flying spaghetti monster.  We can make scientific discoveries to help the world, but it doesn't matter, because all the people we help are going to die anyway, and they will die in meaninglessness.  

So maybe religious people aren't that crazy.  They have meaning.  Even if their sense of meaning is rooted in fictional beliefs, at least they have a sense of meaning.  And if life is meaningless anyway, then why does it matter whether a person's sense of meaning is based on fact or fiction?

Life isn't without meaning. You just have to find it again.

I couldn't choose to go back to that state of mind I had when I was religious. Even if I could subdue my skepticism, even if I could forget it or choose not to have ever experienced it, I wouldn't. It's a lie. It's a lie I can uncover for myself. There are not many things in life you can be so sure about being irrational and wrong. But religion is one of those things. So fuck it, and fuck everything associated with it. It makes me sick, frankly.

You have to create your own meaning now. You have to let yourself experience life again, only differently this time. You have to let yourself appreciate it in a different light. It's all there, just like it was before. I know how empty it must feel now, and maybe we're throwing the baby with the bath water, and we really shouldn't. Our experience of reality shouldn't have to suffer just because we were brain washed into a cult.

[Arkilogue]

If the truth is that life is meaningless, then any meaning I assign to life is going to be fictional.  So if I do establish my own fictional meaning in life (and it will inevitably be fictional) then why is that more noble and enlightened than someone whose meaning comes from a fictional traditional religion, like Islam or Christianity?

Because it's your own, you made it, and you aren't hiding behind anyone else's concepts or excuses.

If you were to bring God the gift of your life, do you think he'd be more pleased with golden authenticity or a plastic copy?

[paulpablo]

Nothing's inherantly wrong with religion but I think there's something wrong with your logic.

If the meaning is fictional and acknowledged by you to be fictional then how does it bring you happiness?

There's loads of reasons I can see for religion bringing happiness to people.  At least certain religious ideals anyway.

If you can get happiness from fake meaning that you know is fake then that's amazing, in fact I didn't know it was humanly possible, I certainly can't do that.

If it works for you though then go for it.  I just hope it isn't the religion of burning babies for the horned one. Or the hoof footed one.

[Excited Penguin]

Coming full existential circle?

What if you're wrong?  What if life does have meaning, goes on after death and you've been false flagged about God by for profit religions?  Forms rise and fall but the spirit remains.

Life is what you make of it....or don't.

Even if there was life after death and God was there to guide you into eternity, I still can't see how life would have any intrinsic meaning in that scenario. The most you could say about it is that it could be fun, depending on this God character. The worst you can say about it, and this makes the most sense, is that given what we currently know about the universe, your scenario is one of the least likely ones in existence(God, life after death, etc.).

[Excited Penguin]

If the truth is that life is meaningless, then any meaning I assign to life is going to be fictional.  So if I do establish my own fictional meaning in life (and it will inevitably be fictional) then why is that more noble and enlightened than someone whose meaning comes from a fictional traditional religion, like Islam or Christianity?

Because it's your own, you made it, and you aren't hiding behind anyone else's concepts or excuses.

If you were to bring God the gift of your life, do you think he'd be more pleased with golden authenticity or a plastic copy?

Emphasis mine


Fucking slave mentality, that is.

[InquiringMind]

What if you're wrong?  What if life does have meaning, goes on after death and you've been false flagged about God by for profit religions?  Forms rise and fall but the spirit remains.

I couldn't resist this video.  Since I can't post links yet, go to YouTube and type in "Richard Dawkins what if you're wrong South Park", or just "Richard Dawkins what if you're wrong"

---

If the meaning is fictional and acknowledged by you to be fictional then how does it bring you happiness?

I gave up on finding "happiness" as the purpose of life.  Happiness is a capricious and ephemeral feeling that' shard to hold onto.  I think that seeking happiness is a sure-fire way to end up feeling miserable.  I think that there are things that we want more than happiness, like immortality.

[robvalue]

There is no objective meaning, simply because this is a contradiction in terms.

There is however subjective meaning. And this life being 100% of our whole existence rather than, as religion would normally tell us, 0%, makes it infinitely more meaningful.

I've never understood what "meaning" religion gives life. Reducing it to some sort of test for a bored sky daddy? To me, that is meaningless.

[InquiringMind]

Because it's your own, you made it, and you aren't hiding behind anyone else's concepts or excuses.

This might have some value.  If I take ownership of the meaning, rather than inheriting it from my society, that's a different way of living.