if this is all there is and death is the end then in your opinion what is the meaning of this life?
Eric_PK
It’s pretty simple.
The meaning of life is what you make of it. For me, I try to be a quality person and leave the world a better place than I found it.
SmartLX
It’s not to prepare for the next one, that’s for sure. It’s the first, last and only life we have. Rather, an atheist chooses it for his or herself.
Any rewards and punishments I’m going to receive will happen right here on Earth. The general meaning of my life, though I may later choose to narrow it down, is to maximise the rewards and minimise the punishments. This is actually no different from the religious, except that they think it’s all going to come after the end.
It sounds very selfish, I know, but t’ain’t necessarily so. My inbuilt empathy for other living creatures, especially humans, means that helping others is rewarding to me. Altruism has an intangible but very real reward: it makes me happy. On the flipside, if I’m cruel to others my conscience punishes me for it.
I think I’m alive for a reason, but that reason is not in the future but in the past. I am alive today because an enormous amount of events, ranging from near-certain to near-impossible, occurred in the world. Other events caused those events, and so on backward possibly into eternity until my causes, so to speak, are practically infinite. The fact that I’m here means that it did all happen.
Looking forward, I will be the cause of a similarly huge number of events, and in direct and indirect ways I will help cause other people to be born. I will be part of the reason for them, not the other way around.
What we cause is largely beyond our control because of the big, complex world we inhabit. However, if there is something specific I want to be one of the things I cause, I can work towards it. That’s as close as my view gets to your idea of a meaningful life, and it’s entirely my choice.
logicel
The meaning of my life is simply the meaning that I give to it.
In my specific case, what gives my life meaning is my love for learning. That’s it for me—if I can continually learn than my life has meaning. If I can be part of a large group who fosters learning, all the better. If that group can pass on what we have learned to the next generation, even better. But what is even more fantastic, is that my life partner loves learning and passing on knowledge just as much as I do.
Life has always been exciting and fulfilling for me, despite hardships and tragedies. This life is enough for me—it is so rich with significance, the significance to which I give it, it seems a little over the top to expect or even want more.
To arbitrarily accept some kind of absolute higher meaning, outside of me and the natural plane, seems bloated with hubris and a dead end in terms of taking advantage of the precious time remaining and living it to the fullest.
I fully embrace being alive; I don’t take it for granted. Each day is a marvel, because I always learn something I did not know previously. Life is rewarding in itself, with no added (and unproven) supernatural ‘spice.’
Disclaimer: The views presented in the answers on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of AskTheAtheists.com or of any individual other than the author of the respective answer.
Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit