Without God Life Has No Purpose

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man
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Without God Life Has No Purpose

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Post by man »

I Googled that phrase and came up with this.

https://www.google.com/#q=without+god+l ... no+purpose

This is what religious people are being taught by their leaders. So we have all these people walking around thinking that there is an empty hole inside them that can only be filled by god and without god there lives have no purpose or meaning.

The thing that strikes me as being strange is I have always regarded all religions as myth and I am not a believer of any of them, but at the same time I don't have this empty hole inside me they talk about. I have never felt that my life has no purpose or meaning and in fact all of the things that these religious people say I need don't ever even cross my mind.

There is so much interesting REAL stuff to learn that I am so busy reading, working or doing whatever I happen to be interested in at the moment to have time to even think about this hole I am supposed to have inside me that I can't find. If anything I need a bigger hole to fit all of the things that I occupy myself with, my hole runneth over!

Anyway, I started thinking about teaching people that nonsense and it struck me as being a cruel thing to do. It's tantamount to saying, hey there is something wrong with you (when there isn't) and then telling them that you have the cure.

The phrase snake oil salesman comes to mind.

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #71

Post by Monta »

[Replying to post 71 by marco]

" I agree human reason is the best thing we have but human reason does not tell us anything about God or gods or how many there are or where they live or if they have nephews living in Jerusalem or Mecca. You can ascribe to God whatever you want. Muslims even ascribe green beige chairs to him and plenty of fresh water and nice pomegranates, It doesn't make this into a reality. And it's certainly not a product of reason."

Our reasoning does not make it into reality but from reality our reason canperceive that certain things makes sense.
It is against human reason to believe that there is more than one God same as it would be against reason to say that Charlie has 7 (birth) fathers or 7 birth mothers. We can say it is because it is obvious well, so is the thought of One God for some.

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #72

Post by rikuoamero »

Monta wrote: [Replying to post 71 by marco]

" I agree human reason is the best thing we have but human reason does not tell us anything about God or gods or how many there are or where they live or if they have nephews living in Jerusalem or Mecca. You can ascribe to God whatever you want. Muslims even ascribe green beige chairs to him and plenty of fresh water and nice pomegranates, It doesn't make this into a reality. And it's certainly not a product of reason."

Our reasoning does not make it into reality but from reality our reason canperceive that certain things makes sense.
It is against human reason to believe that there is more than one God same as it would be against reason to say that Charlie has 7 (birth) fathers or 7 birth mothers. We can say it is because it is obvious well, so is the thought of One God for some.
I dunno about seven birth mothers but it is possible for someone to have two birth mothers. They could start as an egg from woman A and then that egg gets transplanted into woman B who then develops and carries the egg to term.
Please learn why relying on 'its obvious doesn't really do anything
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Some force seems to restrict me from buying into the apparent nonsense that others find so easy to buy into. Having no religious or supernatural beliefs of my own, I just call that force reason. -- Tired of the Nonsense

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #73

Post by marco »

Monta wrote:

Our reasoning does not make it into reality but from reality our reason can perceive that certain things makes sense.
Yes, and from reality we can see that certain things are nonsense: Christ raising a stinking corpse to life; Christ rising up into the clouds or wandering on water; God operating on Adam to produce Eve and Eve talking to a snake; Noah building the Titanic with a few logs of wood; the Egyptian Army being drowned in the Red Sea, and never a note of it in hieroglyphic form.

We are ants with realisation and we march from birth to death, our main aim being to breathe as much as we can and to help other ants while avoiding religious soldier ants who want to kill us for the sake of their formic God. Add God and you add prayer.

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #74

Post by paarsurrey1 »

Talishi wrote:
man wrote: Anyway, I started thinking about teaching people that nonsense and it struck me as being a cruel thing to do. It's tantamount to saying, hey there is something wrong with you (when there isn't) and then telling them that you have the cure.
Their syllogism runs thus:

1) Without God life has no purpose.
2) Life has a purpose.
3) Therefore, there must be a God.

This commits the fallacy of many questions. Does life have a purpose? That is the first question.

Man imposes purpose on his own life. This is not so strange when you consider that man also invented God.
Please quote from the founders of the revealed religions who has mentioned this syllogism. Will one, please?

Regards

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #75

Post by wannabe »

[Replying to Talishi]

Quote from Talishi - "Does life have a purpose? That is the first question."

Yes it does have a purpose - God's purpose, they just don't give its' credit to a god, (those that would choose not to acknowledge a god.) But it's the same.
To give back to the new generation coming through, that you might contribute to their benefit.
Only difference is that ( Christian ) religious people give the credit to God ( that whom they believe in ) and trust in him to continue this on a forever basis, for their own sake. And they believe that the spirit of Jesus is conscious, and will deliver.

Same "purpose", just one life continues, and one life doesn't.
Two different points of view. Only one, has the power to influence and shape the way we consider the future.
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Live to give , Give to live ( love Jesus )

: I believe a mans spirit is more than just his imagination.

I believe in forever. That's true even without religion.(or man)

: Live to give, give to life, Forgive to live.

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #76

Post by KenRU »

wannabe wrote: [Replying to Talishi]

Quote from Talishi - "Does life have a purpose? That is the first question."

Yes it does have a purpose - God's purpose, they just don't give its' credit to a god, (those that would choose not to acknowledge a god.) But it's the same.
To give back to the new generation coming through, that you might contribute to their benefit.
Only difference is that ( Christian ) religious people give the credit to God ( that whom they believe in ) and trust in him to continue this on a forever basis, for their own sake. And they believe that the spirit of Jesus is conscious, and will deliver.

Same "purpose", just one life continues, and one life doesn't.
Two different points of view. Only one, has the power to influence and shape the way we consider the future.
Is this to say that non-belief does not have the power to influence and shape the way we consider the future?

If so, do you have any evidence to support this assertion?

-all the best
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." -Steven Weinberg

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #77

Post by OnceConvinced »

JP Cusick wrote:
The point is that religion gives us a far higher purpose in life,
This sounds like an opinion to me. What makes a Christian's purpose in life higher than mine?

If you are going to say you are serving a god, I don't think it is any loftier. In fact, to me it would be the opposite. If you are doing it for a god, you are doing it to gain some kind of rewards in the after life. You are doing it to gain favour with that god. Those of us who do not believe in God do what we do out of compassion and empathy. We don't do it to gain benefits in the after life.

You can say one of your lofty purposes in life is to help those who need help. You may say that it's God's mission for you, but it certainly doesn't make it any higher than say an atheist who does the same thing. In fact I would be more impressed with the atheist.
JP Cusick wrote: The same in life to live morally upright and have a happy marriage and raise healthy children and follow our profession - all of this is our job - those are not our destiny nor our purpose in life.
So what do you say is your destiny and purpose in life and how is that "higher" than say an atheist?
JP Cusick wrote: The higher purposes from our Father is far above our basic struggles in living right and of being human.
Please do list those things and explain how they are loftier than those of us who have purpose and meaning without God in our lives.

I notice you continually preach here about loftier purposes, but I do not see any attempt to explain what these purposes would even be. If they are not feeding the hungry, or being a great parent, employee, partner, performing some kind of mission, being the best person you can be, then what are they?
JP Cusick wrote: As like Abe Lincoln found his purpose under brutal circumstances, the Mahatma Gandhi who kept trying to change his purpose, Mother Teresa who found a purpose inside another purpose, General Patton who knew his purpose before it happened, Martin Luther King who surely did not choose his own purpose, and this list are aside from the truly greatest ones like the Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus, Lao Tzu.
These were all great people in their own ways who believed they had a purpose in life, some of them not followers of Yahweh
JP Cusick wrote: It is true that an Atheist will fulfill some high purposes of the Father, but it is a defect or a handicap to not have the knowledge of the God who orchestrates their purposes.
In what way is it a handicap? For us when a Christian claims that they have godly purposes, we look at them and we don't see anything godly about them. They've just taken a purpose and assigned their chosen God as the one who gave it to them.

As a Christian I used to believe that God had given me many purposes. Most of those purposes still exist in my life now that I'm atheist. I just don't see them as God ordained. Yet they are surely just as high as they ever were?
JP Cusick wrote: Knowledge is power - so correct knowledge gives greater power and potential.
What has this got to do with whether ones purpose is more worthy than anothers?

Society and its morals evolve and will continue to evolve. The bible however remains the same and just requires more and more apologetics and claims of "metaphors" and "symbolism" to justify it.

Prayer is like rubbing an old bottle and hoping that a genie will pop out and grant you three wishes.

There is much about this world that is mind boggling and impressive, but I see no need whatsoever to put it down to magical super powered beings.


Check out my website: Recker's World

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #78

Post by JP Cusick »

OnceConvinced wrote:
JP Cusick wrote: As like Abe Lincoln found his purpose under brutal circumstances, the Mahatma Gandhi who kept trying to change his purpose, Mother Teresa who found a purpose inside another purpose, General Patton who knew his purpose before it happened, Martin Luther King who surely did not choose his own purpose, and this list are aside from the truly greatest ones like the Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus, Lao Tzu.
These were all great people in their own ways who believed they had a purpose in life, some of them not followers of Yahweh
So what?

You have some particular venom reserved just for that God?

Or is that God some how your particular Deity?

For me I refer to the God of all humanity - by any name.
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An unorthodox Theist & a heretic Christian:

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #79

Post by OnceConvinced »

JP Cusick wrote: You have some particular venom reserved just for that God?
Or is that God some how your particular Deity?
I don't believe in any gods, thus I have no venom towards any of them. All I have done is challenge your claim that religion creates a higher purpose. I notice you have not responded to any of my individual challenges. Perhaps it is because you can't justify your claim?

JP Cusick wrote:
For me I refer to the God of all humanity - by any name.
I don't see all these people you mention as worshipping the same god. In fact most of them would claim to worship different gods from each other. Some people would even claim they were worshipping false gods.

I see you have completely ignored all the comments I made as well as the questions I asked of you. Are you ok with challenging me while ignoring the challenges I made towards you?'

I see no reason to accept your unsupported claim that religion creates a higher purpose. I do not believe that anyone's purpose is loftier than mine simply because they believe in some god that probably doesn't even exist, or follow some religion that's is most likely a load of nonsense.

Society and its morals evolve and will continue to evolve. The bible however remains the same and just requires more and more apologetics and claims of "metaphors" and "symbolism" to justify it.

Prayer is like rubbing an old bottle and hoping that a genie will pop out and grant you three wishes.

There is much about this world that is mind boggling and impressive, but I see no need whatsoever to put it down to magical super powered beings.


Check out my website: Recker's World

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Re: Without God Life Has No Purpose

Post #80

Post by Bust Nak »

Monta wrote: Human reason whatever it is is the best thing we've got.

To 'God' is ascribed omnipotence and omnipresence and omniscience.
If we were to say 'gods' we'd have multiple gods who are omnipotent
and omnipresent and omnipresent.. highly unreasonable.
a) It is more reasonable than a Trinity.
b) Why ascribed omnipotence and omnipresence and omniscience in the first place? As multiple, non omnipotence, omnipresence nor omniscience gods make more sense then both of the above, if you are going with human reason.

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