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

[InquiringMind]

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?

[Jackalope]

What prevents you from establishing your own meaning?

[FatAndFaithless]

Just because a God can't tell you what your point in life is, doesn't mean you can't.

[Alex K]

Wrong is decidedly worse than meaningless.

But yes, a "meaning" doesn't become magically more valid because it's been prefabricated by some religion for you to adopt. One that you create yourself based on your values and knowledge is much superior.

[InquiringMind]

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?

---

Wrong is decidedly worse than meaningless.

If life is meaningless, they why does being right or wrong matter?

[Alex K]

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 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?

It's not fictional. It's just not metaphysically woven into the fabric of reality, as religious spiritual types would like to have it.

[FatAndFaithless]

Life is only 'meaningless' in the sense that it doesn't have some external entity or force imposing an objective purpose onto it. I wouldn't want an external force imposing purpose on my life, just like I wouldn't want my parents to pick my major or my government to pick my job.

My meaning in life comes from my loved ones, my friends, my intellectual endeavors and sense of accomplishment I get from the work I'm passionate about. Hell, even the mundane shit like reading a good book or having fun playing a videogame plays into the 'meaning' of my life. I still have beauty, love, awe, inspiration, and wonder - without the need for a god telling me what I'm supposed to be.

If all that is still 'meaningless' to you, then I don't know what to tell ya.

[Alex K]

If life is meaningless, they why does being right or wrong matter?

It's your choice to place value in things. You can be a nihilist and go on a killing spree, get shot and you're done. Noone can stop you, and other than your untimely death say, there are no further consequences for you. But that's just not human nature, we're by and large social, curious, creative fun loving animals who simply value things because that's who we are. Taking human nature out of the picture is asking too much.

[RozKek]

yeah, life's meaningless, let's subscribe to crazy men who advocate raping slaves, genocide, the idea that women are inferior and lots of other cruel shit, amirite

[mlmooney89]

I find your claim on how MY life is meaningless very rude. YOU may think YOUR life is meaningless but please do not throw me into that basket with you. I don't need a deity to tell me the meaning of life nor do I need one to have a plan for me to make my life meaningful. I help out in the world, I do my part, and my life has purpose. So it isn't part of the bigger, grander scheme of things but that doesn't give you the right to call it meaningless.

I'm sorry you find yourself in a spot where you think life is meaningless and losing interest in things you once enjoyed but really that sounds more like a personal issue you need to resolve. Look at what makes you happy in life and take meaning from that. Who's lives would be forever destroyed if you were suddenly gone? If even one person would be hurt your life has meaning. The purpose of people is to help others, love others, and be loved. We never needed something bigger to tell us how things go, that is for the weak minded.