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

[ApeNotKillApe]

No sane person would entertain the thought that it is.

[Gemini]

Good, it seems you did a quick Google search before spouting off.

My point is; what I said is factual and not "pulled out of my ass".

You said everything has its role to play except humans. If you can't figure out how this is not a factual entailment of an ecosystem as a "complex system of interacting organisms" then your analytic capabilities are corrupted. Try reformatting your brain and reinstalling Humanity OS.

[Jackalope]

Do you somehow think that humans are excluded from the ecosystem?

Acutually our survival is dependent upon the health of the ecosystem. The real question... Is the survival of the ecosystem dependent on us?

IMO it isn't.

I have no argument with that, but that isn't what you said before that I take exception to, which was "everything has its role to play in the overall scheme of things; everything except humans". That second clause is independent of the first. Perhaps you didn't intend it to read that way, but when all we've got to go on is what you do say....

We recognize that in nature all creatures / organisms are important to their environment which is why we refer to it as a system, everything has its role to play in the overall scheme of things; everything except humans.

[Excited Penguin]

I think my comment on a separate thread is relevant:

A non-believer can feel proximate meaning and find a local sense of purpose in things such as their work, community, and family. Perhaps that is enough for some. I wish you well. At the same time atheism precludes any possibility of ultimate purpose or significance – “All we are is dust in the wind” etc. etc. A secular sense of purpose is tied to having some external legacy or achievement to show for your life whereas a believer feels assured that their life matters, somehow, even if they left no lasting legacy (and for most folks what legacy truly lasts for very long). For Christians at least, they can feel significant not because of anything they did but because they know that by His Grace alone God loves them. One line from a hymn simply expresses this notion and goes “Nothing in my hand I bring / only to the Cross I cling.”

I don't see how it is. It's a bunch of words. 

I see the words by His Grace alone God loves them, but what the fuck does that mean, how is that supposed to console me. You mentioned some hymn. Seriously? Just... I give you the act of doing something with your life, enjoying it as a result and that as a source of meaning and happiness, and you give me a bunch of fucking words that don't even mean anything? How is an imaginary idea supposed to give me meaning? You can't show me your God. You're a crazy person. You believe in something without evidence. You believe it because you "feel" it. You partake in insanity, my friend. Willingly so. I prefer to remain sane.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think you guys get what the OP is saying. He's not talking about what you personally feel is important, I believe he's talking about your place in the overall cosmos.

Latitude, longitude, altitude, orbital body, star, solar system.....

I know, I know, not what you mean, lol.  It's just that the phrase is so ambiguous.  

We recognize that in nature all creatures / organisms are important to their environment which is why we refer to it as a system, everything has its role to play in the overall scheme of things; everything except humans.

.................................................?

Do you think this, or do you think that he thinks this?

[Huggy Bear]

Good, it seems you did a quick Google search before spouting off.

My point is; what I said is factual and not "pulled out of my ass".

You said everything has its role to play except humans. If you can't figure out how this is not a factual entailment of an ecosystem as a "complex system of interacting organisms" then your analytic capabilities are corrupted. Try reformatting your brain and reinstalling Humanity OS.

What are you talking about? If you're claiming that humans are a vital part of an ecosystem then please explain.

[The Grand Nudger]

We're the single-most important organism in the dominant ecosystem on earth, the human one.

Cats, dogs, roaches, mice...we're a dependency.  If it weren't for us our livestock would die, our agricultural environments would disappear.  I'm not sure why anyone would think that human beings are somehow -outside- of nature or ecosystems. Primitively we fill the same niche (and provide the same dependencies) that any other primate does...we're just better at it than any of them. So we build skyscrapers and cities..which are, themselves, an ecosystem all their own. Taken from the other end...we're omnivores - garbage collectors. We're also habitat modifiers. That's the vital role we play.

[Huggy Bear]

Uh wrong, I'd say bees (ironicaly) are the single most important organism. Without them we pretty much die.

[Chas]

Good, it seems you did a quick Google search before spouting off.

My point is; what I said is factual and not "pulled out of my ass".

No, you are mistaken.  Humans are part of the ecosystem.  How could we not be?

[ApeNotKillApe]

Uh wrong, I'd say bees (ironicaly) are the single most important organism. Without them we pretty much die.

But we aren't important to the ecosystem are we.