What is the meaning of life for an atheist?
Hello, dear Ladies and Gentlemen!Many people do not think about the meaning of life. Others attach great importance to this issue. It happens that a person who has not found an answer to this question, gets drunk or takes his own life.But in what does everyone find the meaning of existence for themselves? Some try to build a paradise on earth and devote their lives to it. Others try to solve some specific tasks (to earn money, put their children on their feet, pass on their inheritance, and, as they say, live as long as you live).Believers associate the meaning of life with God, with the attainment of Truth and eternal bliss. And how do atheists solve the problem for themselves? What do they live for? From the point of view of believers, life without God is meaningless. Death is the end of everything, and what are all the efforts on this earth worth if, as Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov said, then only a burdock grows on the grave? Better, my father went on, to go straight to the coffin. But atheists live! So, they are afraid of something, Father Dmitry concluded.I understand that an atheist has nothing to do with the priest's words. But still, how can you say for yourself why you live, if there is only one life, then death-and that's it, the end?Thank you all for participating in the discussion.
Although this is a rather strange question, because you still divide people into these superficial categories of atheists and non-atheists, there is hardly any particular difference in the meaning of life between them- here they are on an equal footing. Since God is not the answer to all questions, it is foolish to think that believers are reassuring themselves about everything in the world in this way.
On the other hand, faith in a bright ideal can help make the world around you better, and then faith becomes a powerful weapon. But atheists also have faith-say, in the power of science or in the possibility of living without faith, while accepting the axioms of scientific knowledge, which are axioms because they are accepted on faith.
From the outside, it looks like an attempt to prove your exclusivity through a revolt against the faith, but I can't imagine who this revolt is for. Perhaps for God to appreciate the protest against his existence, because only then does everything fall into place, but I will not continue this thought.
The meaning of any person's life is based on the goals and values around which they organize their life. These are things that are worth living, despite all the accompanying suffering-family, friends, children, creativity, business, work, the opportunity to make the world a better place. If it is important to you that God does not take part in this, and for this you hurry to call yourself an atheist – OK, do your job, it is unlikely that he will be against it.
The answer has been known for a long time. But it was better formulated by our wonderful actor Nikolai Cherkasov in the character of Academician Fyodor Dronov:
“Everything is left to people: both good and bad. And in that which remains is my oblivion or immortality.”
I think the significance of the “meaning of life” is greatly exaggerated). Most people live because they live. Someone believes that his “meaning of life” is in the child, someone has it in the profession, someone has it in a loved one, etc. Moreover, the meaning of life may well change depending on life circumstances. For example, for a seriously ill person, the meaning of life is to overcome the disease, to survive. Many people don't think about it at all. As for the concept of God, not everyone needs it. And many people do not consider it at all as something that has meaning, especially in life.
Life itself is not bad, but it is very short, and I do not see any benefit in searching for “meaning”. Just need to live so that it was not painfully ashamed of the aimlessly lived years (c). IMHO.
The atheist finds the meaning of life for himself. The specific wording may differ from person to person, but in general this meaning lies within the limits of earthly life, because beyond it nothing matters and the very concept of meaning is meaningless.
Theists, in fact, live without meaning, hoping that after death, God will reveal this secret to them with seven seals. But I am afraid that if the theist did not understand during his lifetime that the meaning of life is in life, then after death he will not understand it, because there will be no one to understand it. This is one of the most comical and sad aspects of theism at the same time.
The only meaning of life is the lot of an extremely limited person. Life is not so short, it changes, we change, and new circumstances create a new motivation for our activities. My father is a major scientist, he is 87 years old, and he works. Naturally, an atheist. I have never asked and will not ask him about the meaning of his life, because not a single meaningless day in his life was not. And connect your life with meaningless fairy tales… Stupidly.
Alexey, as for Father Dmitry, everything is clear here – this is his job, he receives an archpriest's salary for this. He “should” regret the miserable fate of an atheist. but you clearly don't understand the truth of life. You are concerned about the question: if death is imminent, then why suffer, maybe it's better to go straight to the coffin? No, not better, because a normal person with a head will plan his life in such a way that he will not suffer, but enjoy life. Enjoy the beauty of nature, the love of a woman/man, your favorite work, family and children, parties with friends, your success in creativity, spiritual joys and much, much more. And when it's time to die. then the person will still enjoy good memories. But as for those simple-minded people who want to quickly spend time on Earth without much work, worries and joys, and then move to heaven (or hell?), where he will meet him and get happiness. So, first of all, this hope is a very big question. And secondly, it is not an atheist who should be afraid of life, but a believer. After all, faith is all about the fear of life and death. You are afraid to live, because you are not sure of yourself and keep asking God for something. And it is terrible to die, so you deceive yourself with a ridiculous belief in eternal life. Still, all the best to you.
A person is not a passive object of other people's meanings, but an active creator of their own. What he puts for himself, so he will be. All that despondency, the feeling of being lost, the loss of meaning, the lack of goals. Your atheistic worldview is the result of exactly the same psychological needs for ready-made goals, meanings, and plans set from the outside. But it depends on the type of personality, on its psychological needs. Not everyone feels disoriented, lost, or meaningless when they don't have a plan set by someone.
An atheist is just as much a person as a religious one. He has the ability to think intelligently and desire. Therefore, the division of people according to the principle of atheist or believer is not entirely correct.
Any person who has reached a certain age, at which they adequately assess their capabilities and themselves, sets goals for themselves and finds ways to implement them. At the same time, this in no way correlates with either religiosity or atheism. Because once a person is born, he must learn a profession in order to earn a living. And it doesn't set any other tasks. From childhood, he is obliged to attend school, which in itself is just an educational institution, separated from any faith.
But society has a whole set of moral rules, as well as laws that regulate the behavior of its members. And atheists, being citizens, observe them as necessary.
Accordingly, the life of an atheist, as a normal citizen, proceeds in accordance with the rules dictated and recognized in this society.
The meaning of any person's life is dictated primarily by their own personality. That is, a set of certain properties or abilities. As well as the necessary personality traits, such as ambition or ambitiousness, the ability to clearly define the general line in achieving goals, the ability to interact with other people, stress tolerance, and many others.
Depending on the set of certain personality traits, both the atheist and the believer enjoy achieving their goals. Which is a measure of the quality of life. If a person is not satisfied with his life, and life is the embodiment of free will, then he is deeply unhappy. Whether he is an atheist or a believer at the same time.
An atheist is absolutely the same person : he can be morally correct, follow the laws, study well, perform his duties perfectly, and be a wonderful person. Have ideals in your life and follow them.
But there can be people who are completely opposite : irresponsible, unprincipled, not mandatory, drunks, etc.
So an atheist doesn't mean a bad person. His life can also be filled with meaning. Meaning is the love of his life : for business, for classes, hobbies, reading, sports, music – everything that makes up the life of any person. The atheist simply believes that any achievement in his life is a merit that belongs exclusively to him, that it is a creative act of his abilities and efforts. A believer always attributes absolutely everything to God. Therefore, there are far more true atheists than true believers.
So what, what's the end? But I'm interested in living, and I don't think about it. D and about the meaning of life in general. Diogenes is sitting in a barrel, he is sour and bored, so let him strain the convolutions in this regard.
Asking about the meaning of life is like asking about the meaning of the day when the sun rises, or the meaning of green grass appearing on a warm spring day.
This is a given, it comes not from the meaning, but from the implementation of laws predetermined by nature.
A person is born not of his own free will and will leave, as a rule, also like this. And the meaning is present when he seeks to perform actions on his own. That's when he weighs it: Is it worth it or not?
Let's think, brothers, not about the meaning of life, but how to make this life happier and more beautiful.
And what is the meaning of life for so-called believers?) It doesn't matter what religion. Their life is full of blind thoughtless faith in some TEXTS that are not clear who wrote and rewritten many times-is this a bright and joyful way of Life for a normal person?)) Gods were people who came to the level of Creation, that is, the Creators of the word, so they say that we are descendants of the Gods and created in their image and likeness. The concept of Faith means to know Ra, that is, to possess the knowledge of perfect people-Gods. Faith is enlightenment with knowledge, and not as they now impose “to believe in an idol-God, and go to church.” The Gods never had a religion before, religion appeared much later for the purpose of parasitism and controlling people.
In religion, knowledge that gives an understanding of the essence of simple truths and phenomena of life is prohibited. For people who do not understand this essence, it is customary to call all phenomena that they do not understand miracles.
“But atheists live! So, they are afraid of something, Father Dmitry concluded.”
Living because they are afraid of something is the lot of believers. They live because they are afraid that suicides are not taken to heaven.
Atheists look for the meaning of life in different ways and do not always find it, but this is not a reason to lie down and die.
Atheists usually live to make the world a little better. At the same time, each person has their own understanding of this “better”. Someone is better when there is a lot of food and he is engaged in breeding. Another is better when you can use the phone without wires and he starts inventing cellular communication. And so on.
And to believe in God so that there is meaning in life is the answer to the question: whose slave should I become?
The meaning of life is just like that. Life is a consequence of chaotic processes a consequence in life there is no meaning. Everything that a person does, he does out of boredom. Everything that a person invents can be invented ad infinitum, the world and a person change ad infinitum, and all this is meaningless. How to help and how to harm can be invented indefinitely, there is no point in this. It is always possible in a different way, all this is not necessary, there is no single correct statement. A true person strives for happiness and comfort, but they are not achievable, in any case you will lose everything. In the course of life, there will be ups and downs, joy and sorrow, and ideology, resentment, culture, and psychosis may arise. The world around you consumes you through your desires. It is forbidden to set ideologies, beliefs, goals, tasks, dreams, rules, desires, traditions, etc., it will never be better, all this should be blocked in every possible way, and then as luck would have it.
And it also seems to me that there is a certain substitution of concepts. A believer and an atheist-this is of course a very conditional worldview. Believers have more rituals that are directly related to everyday life. But the atheist also has moments in which he answers certain questions from the point of view of his concept. But how often a person asks himself the question what is the meaning of life? Maybe first you need to conduct a survey like (How often do I ask myself a question about the meaning of life and the binding of answers to the stated worldview.
What do you want, seekers of the “meaning of life”? Aren'T you interested in living? No children? (If you don't have your own, then at least two of them will… troy… yes, just those that are around!) The world around us is not interesting – how does it work? Learn it, share knowledge? Not all the same” in tanchiki ” to drive…
Do you think that if there is no Heaven, then there is no meaning to life and it is better to go straight to the coffin? How can you be sure that you will go to heaven? Or maybe to Hell? Why rush, then?It's all selfishness. Believers are selfish and live only for themselves, only for their own salvation. Therefore, if you live without a reward in the form of paradise, then they immediately get sick of such a life. But if they lived for other people, for children, for the whole society, then it would make sense for them to live even without paradise. But for them, apart from heaven, nothing makes sense for themselves. And it becomes bitterly unbearable for them, if only they imagine that there is no paradise.
does a believer have a different meaning of life? everyone works, starts families, mostly gives birth to children..so it's all the same…and the unbeliever also helps others…the instinct of self-preservation is natural, so everyone lives..and who is afraid of what it's all fantasy priests
Here a counter-question arises : what semantic meaning does the word “meaning” have in the framework of this question? In other words, what is the meaning of the phrase “meaning of life”? This is no longer just a philosophical question, but a “supra-philosophical”one. And what is this “meaning of life”for?
One person will say “live and rejoice, be fruitful, achieve success in your field”, and the second person will answer ” and what is the point of all this if it all ends for you one day?”. And these two people definitely won't understand each other. Because the reactions to the above questions will be totally different for people who have different attitudes to time and the fundamental values of this world.
All this, of course, from the point of view of religious people (I'm not a believer, but I'm not an atheist either) will seem like “foolishness”, “empty cleverness”. Therefore, I will try to answer this question from the point of view of a believer. There is a certain probability that in the future science will reach the level that people will be able to use DNA and other data (which I do not know) to resurrect a person along with his consciousness. So far, we have not clearly answered the question of what consciousness is, but I think this question will one day be closed. And then people, sometime in the future, will resurrect (I can't guarantee that this word at this time will have the same meaning that we put into it now) those people who, in their opinion, can be useful to society, who at one time proved themselves to be the best. Unfortunately, we do not have a “code of right actions” (an allusion to the Holy Scriptures), because we cannot know what will be in the minds of those people who will live after us in 100-300-1000 years. But we can act here and now according to our subjective concept of conscience, honor and virtue, in order to hope that someone will be interested in us later.
Such a person tries to invent the meaning of life for himself, to design his existence and justify at least somehow his actions that contradict the meaning he invented. But in fact, he just doesn't know it, trying his best to fool himself, to make himself think that life has meaning.
Because the meaning of life can be only if life does not end in the grave, that is, if it is eternal. And the thesis of eternal life implies the existence of an Eternal Source, which is God. Therefore, a stubborn denial of the Creator blocks the atheist's access to the reasonable conclusion that the meaning of life should be sought from the One who invented life and shared it with the created person. It is He who has instilled in our souls the thirst for Truth and the fire of Search, which is religion.
What nonsense Smirnov sometimes carries. Well, first of all, no living being on earth, except for humans, is not looking for the meaning of life. Everyone is content with a set of instincts and the natural needs of the body. Secondly, why should an atheist immediately go to the grave if he is still alive, thinks logically and his natural instinct for self-preservation works as it should. Just( and this is scientifically proven through laboratory and clinical studies) to suicide slopes more superstitious and impressionable people who believe in all sorts of supernatural phenomena. A person who is far from prejudices and mental disorders, who has critical thinking, understands that after death it will no longer exist, which means that you need to use the time of your existence for specific tasks. For example, he wants to leave something behind .The same natural instinct of reproduction and genetic exchange is triggered. Mammals, insects, many plants, etc., do not divide like cells, but reproduce sexually, so that new genetic mutations occur and evolution continues further. Natural selection rejects unsuccessful variations. The strongest survives, because the meaning of life is in life itself. So it has always been, and so it will always be, until man disappears as a species. Fear of death is normal, it is a natural defensive reaction of the body. When a person is not afraid, they are either lying or mentally ill. Only an atheist knows that time is the most valuable resource that a person has, and a believer mistakenly believes that he has an eternity ahead of him, so he is not sorry for the time spent on prejudice…
This is not about the meaning of life, but about ideology. And the meaning of an atheist's life is individual with a unifying understanding-life is finite). We live in the here and now, and the priest is wrong. If the meaning of life is to serve God, then why do everything else that he does in his free time?
In fact, initially all people are born atheists,
Faith in God is imposed on people by calling a spade a spade.
Moreover, it is unpleasant that people are trying to get it into their heads that faith in God is the meaning of life)
Well what is the peak interest here it is clear to everyone)
The beneficiaries of this process are clear)
I'm not really against God as such. But on the other hand, I understand that it is precisely its anthropomorphic nature and such a “live participation” in people's lives that says that it was invented by people.
In any case, very much for themselves and for their own selfish interests adapted,
Although here, too, not everything is so simple. The fact is that there is a social need for a single field of consciousness that is generated by the social structure of humanity and its economic organization, the need for effective interaction of people with each other.
Religion allows (or allowed) to establish such a common field of interaction, such a system of identification “friend-foe” that saved stupid time to check whether it is possible to deal with a stranger.
If you know what a person believes, then you know what to expect from them.
Oops, I'm a little distracted from the question asked))
So the meaning of life cannot be privatized by religion and in general religion as well as any ideology is needed only by those who use them to feed the flock)
And people do not need anything from these demagogues, except that they are competently led…
IMHO that's why fools will always be ruled by scoundrels… Amen to that!
Ha,is the life of an atheist interesting?A non-atheist believes that after he has done something wrong in the world, he is guaranteed a place in paradise after repentance.The atheist,on the other hand, sees the post-death state as non-existence.Nothing to regret, no one to blame.
It is good to ask such questions when behind the back of Article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation there is an insult to the feelings of believers. If you don't answer, you'll run to the court to complain. And after all, you need to twist the answer so as to please the questioner. I want him to feel proud that he is a believer. So think, anyhow that didn't work out.
And the meaning of a believer's life is to go to heaven after death? What if it doesn't work out and it's all down the drain? I tried, observed, shared, stopped , and found myself in the wrong place and not with those with whom I would like.
Therefore, the atheist version of the believer is not life, but torment. So I suffer, and not looking for meaning, not before that.
It is the same as that of a person who has drugged himself with religion or esotericism – to run away from Himself and from the Meaning of Life. BEHIND ALL these beliefs, there is a problem with the inner child, father or mother. And this is a reason to go to a therapist, if there was at least one right thinker.
There is an amazing book called Divorce by C. S. Lewis.
And there is a moment in it when philosophers and theologians refused paradise, because they will not be able to argue about the essence of Christ. Although Lewis's overall paradise was more pleasant than hell, this moment threw a small weight into the creeper of hell.
That's the beauty of atheism-the freedom to choose the meaning of life and opportunities for self-realization. Faith in God is more difficult. Let's assume that there is a God, but what religion is the truth from the set and what actions lead to it? And if it does not exist or the dogmas were chosen incorrectly, then the life was lived in error. After all, if God existed, then he is probably a much more complex being, and not as primitive as described in world religions with his purely human actions and vices. The reason for this is that God did not create man in his own image, but man copied him from himself.
Both the believer and the atheist are almost equally motivated by life. However, when faced with death, they have different reactions. Those who have realized their own immortal nature also go through death. The atheist loses his footing, this world.
Since death is inevitable, this makes the atheist depressed. Depression is a scourge of modern society.
Therefore, the meaning of an atheist's life is this world, life.
The meaning of life for an atheist is to get pleasure, i.e. to test the hormones of happiness (dopamine, endorphin, serotonin).
In general, the ideal of a happy person for an atheist is drug addicts and prostitutes, since their happiness hormones are off the scale.
There is no meaning in life for an atheist, only goals that allow you to get more pleasure from waiting for death.
Thus, one's own existence is equated to biomass. The realization that we are capable of more, the belief in ourselves is possible. We can stop burying our heads in the sand and start walking.
After all, everything is according to God's providence. And atheism, too. A believer is deep in spiritual search. But someone must also know matter. Perhaps it is the atheists who will get to the bottom of understanding: what is the Kingdom of God? After all, it will be not only purely spiritual, but also material.
Wow, how distorted that is! Yes, atheists do not believe not only in God, but also in life after death and until life itself. However, each one has its own meaning. Globally speaking,at the most basic level, like any other being, we have the desire to live and the desire to continue our race sewn into us. If we speak less globally, then we can say in Ostrovsky's words: “Life must be lived in such a way that it is not excruciatingly painful for the aimlessly lived years.” We all die. But no one wants that. Again, if you make out the words of the priest, and the arguments of the faithful: why don't you go straight to heaven? What is there to do here on mortal earth, especially temporarily? And there it is closer to God. Atheists realize that they live only once. That's why they strive to make life better here. That's the point. In justice, not in an imaginary paradise,but here. The meaning is in the well-being and happiness of others and yourself personally. The point is that a person-it sounds proud.
People make their own lives meaningful. What meaning a person gives to his life, that will be. There is no difference here between atheists and believers, it is the same for everyone. For those who do not want to spend energy on creating the meaning of their life, there is an opportunity to take existing meanings invented earlier.
The meaning of this thing is very subjective, the concept is more likely from the field of psychology rather than from philosophy or religion. And here in general it is not a fact that the meaning that a person comes up with for himself will be shared by others and this is normal.
Bee carrying honey to the hive, what meaning does it put in its actions? And what is really behind it?
From the point of view of Christianity, such searches are a manifestation of pride. And here only one analog with Santa Claus suggests itself. For the concept of the “meaning of life” originated in the depths of the restless human mind. And people who have stepped on a new stage in their development have long understood that the” meaning of life ” does not exist, just like Santa Claus.
It is impossible to see a mountain while sitting on a mountain. So it is impossible to understand the meaning of one's own existence from the present position. Unfortunately for us, this will always remain a secret behind seven seals. For only by transcending one's own pride can one realize this.
Because there are no believers or atheists in this world. Differences in the world are brought only by people. You don't know what you were born for or what you live for. And only a restless mind torments a person with the question of his own greatness, of the meaning of life.
The only thing you can do is ACCEPT existence as it is. And only then will your soul find the long-awaited peace.
I would like to praise atheists for the fact that in spite of everything, they find the strength and meaning of life and the desire to live on. They work hard, provide for their families, find entertainment for themselves, and raise their children trying to instill moral norms and principles in them. It's nice to hear when they cherish family values, and are faithful in marriage, and are determined to live together to the end. I personally know more than one such example. This shows that you value life and those who live near you. This is very commendable. Some atheists are determined to live life with dignity and perceive death as something natural. Others would be ready to reflect on spiritual topics, but apparently after so many contradictions in religions, they no longer want anything. And yet, if you are one of those who still hope that you can get a clear answer, what is the meaning of human life from the point of view of the Bible of the Word of God, which often contradicts what is taught in the religions of the world, then I suggest that you pay a little attention and discuss this topic. Perhaps it will be something new and useful for you. 👋
Yes, there is no meaning for an unbeliever,I myself am like that, if there is no eternity and you are in it in a good corner of course, then there is no meaning either in the life of 70-80 years, or in pleasures, since everything is fleeting and the memory of them does not warm and will not be at all.Only going THERE has both meaning and purpose in life.The rest is tinsel with all the philosophers.
Hmm, I'm thinking about how he'll burn in hell) There is an atheist friend, I asked him once: what are you created for ? What is the meaning of your creation ? His answer was obvious: I was born just like that, and I just exist…
You can't see a mountain while sitting on a mountain. “…if there is only one life, then death – and that's it, the end?… ” This is the great mystery of being. We have no experience of dying, and we learn about death from others.
The pupa is stuck in the boundaries of its cocoon, and it does not know what is beyond these limits. The butterfly does not know what will happen beyond its existence. And we can only come up with different theories of reincarnation. But we'll never know what's really going on THERE.
Indeed, how do billions of Chinese, and Hindus, and millions of Buddhists live, and millions more people who do not have the concept of God. (anticipating the objection, I will say right away that Hindus have slightly different meanings of the divine). And a thousand years before that, our ancestors did not know the concept of God. And how did they all survive, poor people?
And regarding “burdock on the grave”, this is a banal manifestation of pride, which should be known to Father Dmitry. Even if we rely on the essence of Christianity, it is a great sin to give meaning unknown to man, which only the Lord knows about. Live a conscious life, and that is enough for a Christian.
A restless mind asks questions about the meaning of existence. A calm mind lives the life that is measured out for it. It just needs to be realized. And by the way, Christianity gives the same answer to this question, it's just that reading the Bible has more than one hundred interpretations, and everyone says-I know it's right.
And how does the meaning of life relate to God? Does it depend on it? The meaning of life is to enjoy all the little things and achieve big goals. That's the whole point. For me, it's like this, but everyone has their own way. Yes, and it does not happen that there is no point in living. Everyone gets pleasure from it. Not everything of course, but it is treated
Although an atheist, even if not an atheist, the meaning of life is simple and simple in fact. To understand it, you don't need to be a philosopher and think for a long time, just look carefully around.
The meaning of life of any creature on Earth is to eat other forms of life and make food for other forms of life.
Slightly confused dear colleagues sour with fresh! – Only narrow-minded people can claim that atheism is true godlessness! – …The question is, who introduced this inverse dogma into the ideological aspect of people's consciousness ?
Most likely in a simple continuation of yourself, in your heritage in the form of children or useful work for other people or for the whole of humanity. And atheists, by the way, do not deny God. They seek a more reasonable explanation for it than believers who blindly accept knowledge about it.
It is hard to imagine that you will simply stop being, and this is the paradox of self-awareness.
Therefore, since time immemorial, a person comes up with ways to avoid this fate.
And the question of where, why and what to do with it, also excites the minds.
Both religion and science are trying their best to find answers and give hope.
To whom that is closer, he is guided by that.
and why do we need any specific meaning at all?
well, that is, the meaning of life itself is important, if life sucks…
then you ask yourself, ” why am I enduring all this suffering and continuing to live?”
it is quite possible that religion also arose in this way, because the life of ancient people, and indeed the ancient ones, was not sugar at all just a couple of generations ago
and in some even regions of Russia, not to mention poorer countries, life still sucks
but if life is beautiful, if you have comfortable housing, delicious food, sex is all right, there are friends and hobbies, interesting work, and you are healthy and at the same time you are sure that it will all be not only today, but also tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and always, then just live and rejoice, this is the point
but when something is wrong, you need some kind of image in the future that will make you endure the current problems in order to see this goal
or even not to see it, but to believe that it will be achieved
and the very idea of the goal warms the soul
actually this is dopamine motivation
for a believer, this may be paradise, but for an atheist, for example, it may be something that he invented and believes that it will bring happiness either to him personally or to the whole of humanity
Orthodox – praises the Right;
Orthodox – believes in the Right;
Eligible – wets the Right;
Why am I doing this? Yes, all the same – until the generic definitions are given, everyone will “blow their own trumpet”. And, due to the absence of a conductor, the orchestra will not work. Therefore, in order not to offend the feelings of believers (apologists of the Church, or Science) and non-believers (apologists of the Church, or Science), I suggest that everyone, and first of all – the Questioner, give these generic definitions.
What is “meaning”? At the same time, do not confuse or replace the meaning with synonyms – content, meaning, essence, essence, and other specific concepts. Perhaps you should use the existing definitions of meaning, which are more than available on the Internet, and they, in the vast majority, more or less correspond to each other.
What is “life”? At the same time, do not confuse life with existence, which is the sin of the Questioner himself and many of the Commentators. Here the Internet can fail. As for me, ” Life is a property of the Living that supports its homeostasis with the environment (OS).” And in this case, the question of meaning moves to the Living. Within the framework of the system approach, a Living thing is a system consisting of four subsystems. The first is the subsystem of freedom from the destructive influence of the OS. The second is the freedom subsystem for providing OS resources. The third is a management subsystem for matching freedom from the OS and freedom for the OS. The fourth is the subsystem of reproduction, reproduction of Living Things.
Who is an “atheist”? At the same time, there is such a difference of opinion, both among Commentators and on the Internet, that anyone can be taken into consideration, since the above is fully applicable to any agnostic. As, however, and not to agnostics, too. This opinion is supported by some commentators. For which they have my respect.
Is it possible for a Living Person to have meaning? I agree only with those Commentators who consider the existence of meaning exclusively in the highest form of Life – a Person who is able to formulate this “inexhaustible totality of all mental (conscious) cognitive processes associated with the word” (Wikipedia). Thus, each of us can formulate his own, inherent in his beloved, meaning.
And all this is due to the fact that each of us has our own, so far, OS. But the unification process started thousands of years ago. However, if it was previously sluggish, then recently it has gained a frenzied pace. So, soon we will all be able to answer such questions clearly and uniformly.
This is a complex question that has interested many philosophers and ordinary people, perhaps at all times. And, of course, everyone has their own opinion. I will share the most common opinions, and then, at the end, my thoughts on this topic.
The meaning of an atheist's life is exactly the same as that of any believer or any person.
From beliefs, the wash does not change.
Atheism is exactly the same religion.
Meaning-love.
If you look at nature, the meaning is the same: to give offspring. The further purpose of this process is unknown to anyone living on Earth. There are only guesses and conjectures, and they each have their own.
The meaning of zhyzni is Her Majesty zhyzni herself. Will zhyzn will be found in it and some business, printsyp idea and SO on. Zaradi what the person zhyvet. And there is no zhyzni there is nothing. Who believes in God, some do not believe, but everyone lives. And then everyone dies. And then who believed in life after death, whether he had enough faith to live after death is not known. I only know one thing if a person is ill, then he tries to recover, get out, but does not rush there. Whether he is a priest or an atheist.
And what can be the point if they buried it and the burdock grew in the place where it was buried ??? There is no sense , there is a routine and burial grounds that the world has never seen. That's probably all … The senselessness of being, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life… Pig lifestyle and madness at its end …
Surprisingly, but a cruel truth.A Christian, like an Atheist, has only one God! Only with different tasks.Atheists come to the entrance hall of God, the Archangel says, my dear ones, he himself goes to the study, so they say there are Atheists there anyway…what to do.Lord with a smile…Tell them I'm Not here!!!
The meaning of life has been pondered for thousands of years, and may also be the focus of all philosophy. It is difficult to convey the answer in a few short paragraphs; in fact, there may not be a single answer. So this is at least a very short guide to rationalizing the question and the various answers to it.
Rationalism tells us that, in all likelihood, what awaits us after death is very much like what we experienced before birth: a complete lack of any awareness. No one alive today knew about this in the 16th century, just as no one alive today will know in the 31st century (ignoring any such suggestions that “immortality” is so close that the first immortal has already been born). This is a pretty scary thought for most people, as most people enjoy being alive and aware, and death sucks.. If you are going to die, it helps to focus on what we want to achieve now. Assuming that your current awareness is all you will experience, and that it is far from permanent, it will make it more special and make every second something to enjoy and cherish. This gives people more flexibility and the potential to discover their own meaning of why they are here, or even completely ignore the question, considering it inappropriate or just the wrong question. On the other hand, the afterlife actively reduces the value we attach to life as we see it now (since attention is focused on following religious instructions on how to achieve a positive afterlife and avoid a negative one), despite how comforting this is. to believe that consciousness can transcend the temporal nature of life.
Existentialists Believe that life has the meaning that you put into it. One of the great freedoms of an atheist is the ability to decide what is important for you to get out of life, and not to impose it on you with the weight of history and traditions. Some people see success as the best person they can be within the limits set for them by society, while others will prefer to succeed beyond those boundaries. Other philosophies find inherent meaning in a life filled with good deeds. Of course, what exactly constitutes a “good job” varies by philosophy, but most of them basically agree that living a good life is about doing the best you can with what you have. Some things seem more meaningful than others,
If it is important for you to live in some semblance after death, you have several practical options. Children are the most direct way to provide some continuation of both your physical qualities and your thought processes. Just make sure that the kids behave decently! Becoming an organ donor can help many other people extend or improve their lives as a direct result of your actions. Performing a new feat or creating a new invention or idea is a great way to make sure that something from you survives after death and benefits the future. Of course, committing great misdeeds is likely to cause you to be remembered in future generations, but evil deeds are usually contrary to the principles of fulfilling your personal duties and improving the world.
If you can look back on your life in your old age and identify only a few regrets, then you probably lived your life in the best possible way. Alternatively, you might come to the conclusion – or at least suspect – that life doesn't matter, that its meaning is beyond human knowledge, or that whatever meaning it has is not very important. Any of these probable possibilities.
You can't even imagine the interesting and eventful life of atheists. And there is no need to be afraid that you will inadvertently sin. You don't need to justify yourself to some mythical creature for your actions,and you don't need to listen to the moralizing of some priest whose body thickness and width exceed the height.
You might as well ask believers – if they have an afterlife, why are they suffering here? Samovypililis would be normal. And the atheist knows about the end after life and captures every moment of life😎
From the point of view of believers, life without God is meaningless – the key here is “from the point of view”. It doesn't matter whose POINT of view it is, if the viewer can't imagine life outside of their swamp. You probably WON'T UNDERSTAND an atheist. But I'll try.
Don't you see the deepest selfishness in seeking ETERNAL BLISS? (There is no need and it is impossible to share bliss with SOMEONE: if anyone gives it, it is God, who believes not in deeds.) The atheist is at least more honest with himself: life is finite, and we must make the most of it. A separate question is WHAT is included in this maximum. Catch the moonlight in the picture? Rid humanity of cancer? Adopt and raise ten children as human beings? Yes, even if you climb Mount Everest, testing yourself – why not?
Suppose the universe has a creator (an atheist is not forbidden to think experiments), and life is a “text”, a creation. Who is the “reader” other than the author himself? It is from this position – external to the work – that one can speak of its “meaning”. And even if the character has a “meaning of life” – it does not coincide with the author's.
Well, we note that the question of the meaning of life is raised EXCLUSIVELY by a person suffering. From “why do I work three jobs – so that the children live better” (and they will not live better, as well as requests and discontent grow with prosperity) to “why do I put up with a concentration camp” – “because someday I will tell the whole truth”. Well, the believer suffers, apparently, from the fact that he is alive, and not in eternal bliss 😉
Atheism and superstition are all sick mind games. They will continue to fight until it dawns on them that both are unimportant. It is important that a person is in his essence: an animal that is dominated only by instincts, or it is a rational being. A person is not a person, a person is formed in the course of his life. The human soul is man himself. She comes to this world, learns something, and goes back.
The same as all normal people – to benefit human society. Because without society, there is no human being. Mowgli is only in fairy tales.
There are no absolute atheists, nor are there any absolute believers. In addition, a person is not born with a particular worldview. He gets it. And in the course of life, it can change. What can be the meaning of life for a newborn? Maybe the father and mother put some meaning into this, but the newborn himself does not ask exactly this question. He doesn't really separate himself from the world, either. It has no idea of itself as a subject embedded in objective reality. He and his world are inseparable. A single whole. This is how not only babies, but also most animals feel about themselves. And this was almost always the case, before the advent of Homo sapiens with his super abstract thinking. And so he gave rise to this super-duper abstract question “Why the hell is all this necessary? What's the point of all this?”. If we consider this question not in isolation from the entire prehistory of the development of life, but as a natural stage of evolution, then everything is more or less clear. The question of the meaning of life did not arise out of nowhere. At first there were questions – how to sharpen a stone, how to catch a fish, how to start a fire. The question of the meaning of all this appeared only after solving other pressing issues.
This is one approach. And there are others. Here we have already answered above that there are “vulgar materialists” with their fruitless atheism, and apparently non-vulgar believers who know well what the meaning of life is.
It can be absent – life doesn't have to have meaning. But you can also take standard ideas: life for the sake of life, life for the sake of the future, life for the sake of posterity, life for the sake of universal happiness, life for the sake of knowledge, even life for yourself and your desires. The meaning of life is a free thing, and atheism gives you complete freedom to define it. It is more correct to say, not even atheism, but the lack of final commitment of one's life to a particular religion.
The “straight to the grave” attitude is not so stupid, if you set aside your instinctive prejudices. My opinion is that if there is no God, then this is an absolute victory for nihilism and there is nothing more to discuss. The fact is that helping others also does not make sense for the reason that they will also die, return to the state in which they were before birth. Is it really scary? No. For many, it is even better than the state of being. People who do not believe in God have the same love of life as believers. Live because they said you should live. Most of the answers under this question boil down to just that. But if the universe has no Creator, then there can be no meaning in it. In this case, the universe is the result of a chaotic chain of chaotic events, and most likely as perishable as life.
For the fact that a person is weak, he can't help himself, only play on his nerves. A believer, looking for support, grasping at straws, hoping for no one but God! The Kingdom of Heaven is not for everyone! But the atheist doesn't even want to know, so let him! When, even in a dream, I saw it, I would stop being stupid, but….
The meaning of life for an atheist is the same as for any believer. Why? Initially, God created man with the prospect of living on earth forever in excellent conditions. However, what happened at the dawn of humanity explains why today people are fighting, getting sick, getting old and dying. As if something went wrong initially. But God has not forgotten why He created the earth and people. However, because neither atheists nor most believers know why God allows people to suffer, some do not believe in him, while others believe in everything that people teach them. That is why the faith of many people contradicts each other. Therefore, the true meaning of life is hidden from most people, and everyone finds it in something temporary, (atheism), while others are eternal, but far-fetched, making any of their business meaningless. But such a time was predicted:
“For the time will come when they will not receive sound teaching, but will choose teachers according to their own whims, who will flatter their ears; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn to fables” (2 Timothy 4: 3,4).
The meaning of any person's life is the continuation of a kind. Whether you are a believer (be fruitful and multiply) or an atheist. The whole point of our existence is to give a worthy continuation of ourselves. There is simply no other meaning.
If a person could not raise a worthy descendant, then he has lived his life in vain on all sides. And this applies to all its aspects: no continuation – no washout.
Separately, it should be said about the immortal creations of geniuses who have passed through the centuries. The people who created them could not have imagined that their works would survive many generations. And when they passed away, they didn't really see the meaning of their existence if they didn't have children…
Thus, the meaning of life of any living being, including humans, is to give a worthy continuation of its kind. There are no other meanings and cannot be.
The meaning of life for an atheist is no different from a believer, Only an atheist does not wait for bad deeds to be threatened with a finger from heaven and put in a corner and threatened that they will not be allowed into paradise,” A thinking atheist living according to conscience does not understand how close he is to God, Because he does good without expecting a reward, Unlike believing hypocrites ” (G, X, Anderson)
There is no meaning to life. The Romantics came up with this idea during a certain period of cultural development. What's the point of electricity? Does interference make sense? Does the neutralization reaction make sense? Life is the same physical process (all biology and all chemistry is reduced to physics, as we know). Indifferent to us.
I wasn't there for billions of years before I was born, and I won't be there for billions of years after. This short period of time between birth and death is all I have. If you wait for eternal life in Christ's bosom, then in comparison with such a prospect, all this is very much devalued, of course. “Only burdock will grow” – that's right. Just think, some 60-80 years… pfft. And this is an unbearable experience – then really, it's better to go straight to the loop. What else did Smirnov say? A consistent atheist should commit suicide? Well, if you accept eternal life as the truth – then of course. If we cling to this possibility of life after death, then earthly life becomes a real suffering, the only justification for which is to accept it as a kind of “preparation” for eternal life. What is the value of constant suffering? Negative, of course.
But think about how atheists see it all. Just try it on yourself… If you give up this imaginary “prize” for suffering, from the unverifiable idea of life after death, then this only earthly life, as an asset entrusted to you, immediately increases greatly in value! The value of this earthly life is growing, you know? From minus-to ogogo what a plus! I'm alive! I'm breathing! I can do all sorts of cool things!
How to fill it – this segment – with what meanings, I decide only myself, as well as each person. The meaning can be one, large, or many different meanings. Meanings can change over the years, and this is normal. In terms of meaning, you can be disappointed, or you can strengthen. Meaning is neither a dogma nor an obligation , but practice shows that it is better if meaning is still present in life.
Filling life with meaning (or meanings) is a certain job, quite difficult I must say. It is connected with self-knowledge, with awareness of your desires and needs, with establishing a dialogue with yourself. But you can not do this work, do not look for your own meanings, but take them from other people – from books, from religions, from opinion leaders. This is easier – there are a wide variety of options in modern culture, one is more attractive than the other.
The real modesty is to recognize finiteness (and by and large transience) your own life and take responsibility for your decisions on yourself. Of course, eternal life under the care of an omnipotent being is a much more attractive idea, which makes the concept that everything will end with death pale like a speck of dust in front of the galaxy.
But it is necessary to recognize this idea as a myth, an invention, to reduce your requirements from the ever-galactic to the level of a fleeting speck of dust – to the level at which we actually exist-as this very speck of dust takes on many facets, connections, interesting outlines. It turns out that a nondescript speck of dust consists of many interconnected parts, each of which also consists of something. Suddenly it turns out that you can do a lot of interesting things with it!
Then the meanings that fill the speck of dust also gain value in the eyes of the living.
Much has already been said about the meaning of life, and much more will be said. I believe that we were lucky to be born in an era where people don't whip us and burn us at the stake for having “the wrong meaning of life.”
Such cases. We have one life, and it is finite – fill it with your own meanings and do not be afraid to experiment with them. Then you will live a full life – and it will not be so scary to die:)
Yes, then death and the end. Unfortunately, the end is also for believers. To believe in God does not mean that God really exists.
The point is that it is necessary to comply with the laws of nature. It's not just about procreation. I wrote my vision of the Meaning of life. Here I put a short fragment.
Absolutely everyone mixes the concepts of the PURPOSE of life and the MEANING of life.
The purpose of life is HOW to live life. And the point is to leave descendants with better living conditions than their own. We are ruining life on the planet, and each generation only makes the situation worse. Look at the earth from space, at the ulcers of human activity. I just want to yell-PEOPLE COME TO YOUR SENSES !!! Even for example, what will happen by 2100? After five generations…..
It is necessary to restore the balance of consumption and the ability of nature to restore the destroyed- “Eaten”. But NO ONE wants to do that. Give EVERYONE a palace, yacht-ship, plane, foreign food….. And we are more than six billion! We are still holding on at the expense of the poor and the hungry… and others.
I'm an atheist. I understand that I have only one life, and my goal is to live it as best and happiest as possible. See as many countries as possible, taste as many exotic dishes as possible, experience as many positive emotions as possible, and so on. And after that, I agree to burdock on the grave ( although it will not be, but that's another story):)
I envy the faithful–no need to think too much about something- – – there was a question–the priest will explain–or I looked in the Bible –there is an answer to everything–what is lightning-thunder–electricity? but no, this is Perun showing his displeasure-it's simple
There is such a thing as evolution. And one of the factors of evolution is natural selection. This selection culls those who do not want to live or do not want to live very much. And who wants it very much, leaves it. So here we are. We just live, and we don't need any excuses, any legal grounds and technical justifications in order to live.
Well, many people are afraid of death, but the meaning of an atheist's life is not that he is afraid to die. For some, the most important thing is career, for some-family, for the third-fleeting pleasures (hedonist philosophy), and so on.
A person, as a biological unit, is mortal and his life span is not so long. But by its very nature, it is a rational and social being, thanks to which each person has the highest creative abilities that allow him to step beyond the limits of his biological life and survive in society. Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Bacon, Newton, lived many centuries ago, but their contribution to the development of mankind is still alive today.
It turns out that in order for a person's life to have meaning, he needs to have time to do something in the time allotted to him that contributes to the maintenance of the existence of human society and its development. It can be:
– the birth of children and the transfer of their own cultural and value matrix to them by upbringing;
– production of material goods;
– formation of valuable ideas.
This is actually the meaning of any person's life, regardless of whether he is a believer or an atheist. Without it, human life does not rise too much above the life of other animals, the surrogate of meaning is consumption, materialism, the pursuit of pleasures that no one will remember when life is over, there will be no trace of it in society – “we live to eat”.
Just like a religious person, I believe that they should live this life in accordance with their own moral principles.
After all, in order to do good deeds, it is not necessary to do it for the sake of someone or for fear of someone's punishment, there are universal principles and universal criteria for “good and evil”.
The presence of faith in a person or the fact that he adheres to the postulates of any religion and its rituals is not a guarantee that this person is good and there is no evil in him and he does not commit evil deeds.
But again, how many people only have opinions.
And a person's identification of himself as an atheist or a believer is also a purely personal opinion of this very person.
“There are no atheists in the trenches” is such a wise expression, that is, at critical moments when there is no hope, almost everyone will believe in higher forces or hope for their intervention. PS. this is not proof that atheism does not exist and everyone has faith, as well as not proof that the fear of death is at the heart of all religions, there are such interpretations on both sides and they seem inappropriate.
You don't have to impose your point of view on others!!! I'm an atheist, I'm not saying that there is no God and all this is bullshit. Respect the choices of others. Your priests fatten up for your money.
The meaning is different for everyone, for some it is material benefits, for others it is spiritual growth.
The finiteness of life does not make it meaningless, everything is subject to the end, from this its value.
Just because of the finiteness of life, you don't want to lose it, you don't want to lose a single moment, because life is one, there will be no more.
And death can also be treated differently, because the concept of life and death is set by people, but for the universe there is no difference. That is, we may not be alive, or maybe everything will be life, but as a concept it will not be in this case. To be more precise, there is no life, we are all sets of atoms, so complex that due to equally complex chemical processes we feel pain, joy, delight.
But the realization of this does not make us a biorobot for our consciousness, we are either too weak to accept it, or from this we simply do not cease to be ourselves.
What I was saying is that after a conditional “death” we do not die, we continue to “live”, merging with the universe.
Yeah… I paid a lot of attention to the question of death when I was asked about the meaning of life.
Strange reasoning… Why do penguins live, or do they believe in the Lord? I doubt. I am more confused by the question of why believers live, if after life they expect something eternal, bright. Well, it's a little difficult for them to die, usually the acceleration of the approach of the fields of paradise does not approve. Well, in this case, why do believers need cars, embroidered clothes, why do priests sell candles in churches? Usually a believer should turn the other cheek, but in our country he runs to court to protect his rights. Why believers are not ascetic, because to wait, to suffer just nothing, and then eternal happy life in paradise and no curses from the grandmother, who did not have enough money for a candle in the temple. In my opinion, any believer should use all available biblical methods to try to bring his demise closer in order to speed up the meeting with his creator and get as far away from the world of consumerism as possible.
The meaning of an atheist's life is to die, giving his species a chance to survive. Nature, evolution, does not care about a particular person . They care about a particular species and its ability to adapt to changing conditions, sacrificing individuals for the survival of the species. From the point of view of evolution, there is no difference between a dead man and a dead donkey. Both, food for scavengers, and biofertilizer for plants.
An atheist, also known as a human being, is just as much a living being as any animal, plant, or insect on the planet Earth. What is the meaning of life for a dandelion? A mosquito? An elephant? Our only nuance is that we are aware of life, life and ourselves in it. And there is no meaning as such, but everyone, in order to live more happily, finds it. We will not see the future, we can only roughly imagine to what point in history we will be able to live. But we see the present and it can and should be known. Nature, other people, the world around us, it's so fucking interesting! Physics, biology, astronomy, oceanology, chemistry, psychology and all its fields. Here is the meaning, as an example, to live, learn as much as possible and each time admire what you learn.
And in general, most atheists don't look for this meaning, they just live and enjoy themselves to the best of their abilities. You don't need to think about God and how to please him in order not to go to hell, there are many other things worthy of attention and it is on them that you stop looking for this meaning, because you yourself are him.
Your philosophical topics are called “Woe from wit”!!! The biggest perverts (not sexually) just the same philosophers, pervert everything and turn it upside down. Don't mess with your brains, such philosophers make people commit suicide, don't mess with people's brains!!!
God is Love. This is also not a scientific concept, not subject to scientific proof, invisible, not felt by everyone, denied or distorted by many to the level of “random reaction of certain hormones” , etc., and from the point of view of earthly laws, its meaning (especially sacrifice) does not fit into the rational theories of “struggle for a place in the sun”, “the strongest survives”, etc. But the most curious thing is that most atheists who deny the existence of God are not strangers to this great human feeling, and where true love arises (in its broadest sense), atheism ends a priori. And even if such a person insists on his words, his actions will indicate the opposite.
As an Orthodox Christian, my attitude towards atheists is quite tolerant, unlike blasphemers. They are completely different people. The latter are those who are very difficult to define otherwise than as “raging”, sometimes just from the mention of the Church. Moreover, what annoys them so much at the sight of the Cross or the image of the Savior, they can not clearly explain, except for an even greater flow of profanity. Ordinary atheists, on the other hand, are people with their own particular worldview, who are not strangers to the basic Christian positions in the moral, moral and humanistic understanding, and most of them do not deny the possible existence of a “Higher Mind”, but whose knowledge of the world is based primarily on scientific evidence. Unlike blasphemers, these are people in search, including the meaning of life.
And the meaning of life can only be found in love – again, in its broadest and most comprehensive understanding: for people, for nature, for the motherland, for business, for knowledge. And from God, this feeling or something that requires initial evidence-based confirmation – everyone decides for himself “as far as he can accommodate”.
everyone has their own experience. It is good that all of us in Russia or the world do not have one common meaning of life. And that's good! And it is better not to think about it and enjoy every day! I also used to search for the meaning of life. It's good that I didn't find it.
Well you need to start with whether there is any meaning to life at all! And whether you need to search for it. that's probably not the point. I think an atheist and a non-atheist have the same problems and joys in life. And so and so I want a family, a wife, children, my house.
About burdock on the grave – this is from Turgenev, actually. Father Dmitry could at best quote it. And it is very stupid to try to bring all atheists under one comb. Atheism itself, apart from denying the existence of God, means nothing. Usually, atheism is an application to some other worldview that claims to be “positive.” Here are some types of atheists that the author of the answer you found best listed, but this is not a complete list either. The same father Dmitry, judging by his various statements, made a caricature of atheists. Google “Dmitry Smirnov circus bears” – I am, if anything, the same “circus bear” who, being an unbeliever, has been living with one wife for 15 years, contrary to the ideas from Dmitry's father's head. However, I don't consider myself a convinced atheist, I'm an agnostic anymore.
Personally, I tell myself that the meaning of life is how to live the most intense and pleasant life for yourself. Learn and try the most. I also believe in an afterlife, but not in the form of heaven and hell.
An atheist does not accept questionable truths, and the search for meaning is not connected with the attitudes of pastors. Sad is the fate of the “believers”. They are afraid of posthumous torments, they try to please the priest, God, they are at a loss, they hate other people and sane people, they run to visit and kiss everyone. But the life of believers is spent in society and they will never be righteous. Fear is not a way to make yourself spiritual. Eternal punishment awaits all.
The meaning of an individual's life is an individual problem, depending on its properties. The meaning of community life follows from the definition: “Life is the existence of beings (organisms) capable of reproducing their own kind”, or in modern language: Viable (healthy, educated) offspring in life-friendly (comfortable, eco-friendly) conditions. To do this, everyone can strain themselves according to their inclinations and abilities.
The meaning of an individual's life is an individual problem, depending on its properties. The meaning of community life follows from the definition: “Life is the existence of beings (organisms) capable of reproducing their own kind”, or in modern language: Viable (healthy, educated) offspring in life-friendly (comfortable, eco-friendly) conditions. To do this, everyone can strain themselves according to their inclinations and abilities.
The most interesting thing is that atheists are children who for some reason believe that they do not have a Father. No one made them think that way. They decided so themselves. But they can also change their point of view voluntarily. If a person recognizes the Creator as the Father, he will have the opportunity to acquire accurate knowledge; those who do not take God into account often draw incorrect conclusions from their observations. People who receive this exact knowledge have learned from the Bible what the meaning of human life is. It says,” You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for You created all things, and all things exist and were created according to Your will.” God created people. People became atheists themselves, of their own free will. Each person makes their own choice.
The most relevant question! I consider myself an atheist believer: I believe in the Good (Humanity, Love, Conscience, Purity, Good Sphere, Happiness, etc., etc.). I consider my main task to be the constant creation of my own “Teaching of Good” and compliance with it. https://proza.ru/avtor/dobrod – “Dobrouchenie”, etc. I'll try to answer your questions.
And also videos, but with speech even worse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l04JQ04UZlA ,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_0CEaRD_XIT-G9icvW8a9g
I'm an atheist. The most real and convinced. Not only do I not believe in gods, but I know for a fact that there are no gods. I believe in science and in proven facts. So I live to have fun and to leave some trace in history and in the memory of other people. I want my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be proud of me and pass down stories about me from generation to generation. That's the whole point. And I'll always have time to go to my coffin. Not a single one has arrived there yet. By the way, I'm not going to rot in my grave. I gave instructions to my wife that I should be cremated and scattered over the sea when I died. I don't want a grave. It is not necessary for me, nor for my descendants, to go and take care of her. Something like that.
Everyone has their own faith. It's personal. There's nothing to talk about at all. Especially to impose.
Miracles do exist. The spirit exists. This has nothing to do with the fictional god. There is no God. Religions have invented a convenient god for them. A believer, why? Because semi-literate stupid and lost. Wants an eternal high like a drug addict? Is he afraid of death, so he prays? The truth? You're kidding! Go to school math at least learn incompetent! Here are the exact questions. You can believe in anything, reassure yourself. This will not add sobriety and clarity. But fanaticism and unhealthy aggression will add as much as + 1000%. Priests receive money and attention and believe that they are right. Even if they are mistaken. All religions are examples of imposed delusions. The biblical devil is hidden in this – all scammers are afraid that they will be discovered.
The atheist feels that there is a catch in religions, so he fights. Usually this is a sober-minded person, reasonable. Well-read. But usually he doesn't know himself. So he doesn't know for sure. But at least not aggressive. Fiercely dislikes fanatics. And it has EVERY reason to!
A Man of Knowledge. There are still very few of them. This is someone who spends his whole life trying to learn about himself. He puts his psyche and life on the line in an attempt to look beyond the horizon. Know yourself – you will know the universe! Not all of them survive. Someone is going crazy. But those who make their way are the first-time heroes! These are the people of knowledge that both atheists and believers should respect and fear in the good sense of the word. Because such people will easily tell you how everything really works. Not as they believe or deny. Not how they like it. But just as they saw it. Knowledge does not require faith. Here you can talk about the meaning of life with such people. They can share a lot of things. One discovery of the energy body – our double-is worth a lot. There is no need to believe or deny. Fly away! Explore! Check it out for yourself! Who's stopping you? Stop scratching your tongues. I say this to myself 😉
The Era of Knowledge is Coming! So let's be worthy!
Counter question. And what is the meaning of a believer's life ? In the service of God? But WHAT is God, or WHO is he ? The meaning of an atheist's life is in life, the meaning of a believer's life is in serving God. I just want to live without worrying about my faith.
You can put it briefly-to make the world around you better for yourself and for everyone who lives in it. Starting with your loved ones; but not only for them, but for all people and inhabitants of this world.
In general, the value of love for one's neighbor, which for some reason was recorded in Christian books , is universal. It's just that we atheists are intelligent enough to accept and share the idea of loving one's neighbor without attracting unnecessary (and possibly harmful) ideas about God.
Human development should lead to the fact that consciousness will prevail and people will behave humanly by themselves, without threats from the grandfather with a beard on a cloud.
I am a materialist (and then cling-atheist, agnostic…)
On a global scale, there is no meaning to life. Eventually, the life of the planet will end. The law of nature: there are conditions – there is life. The law of life is a struggle for life. (otherwise, the type of “living creatures” will be cut off – they will be eaten)
Humans are no exception, but now this struggle is going on “by inertia”, as it is inherent in the genes of who has more, who has less. Man is an insatiable being, and all MEANING turns into the PURPOSE of life. How to live comfortably without straining.
Since the issue of ECOLOGY is now acute, it SHOULD make sense for HUMANITY to preserve the balance of nature in consumption and the ability of nature to restore what has been destroyed.
But the laws of BUSINESS will not allow this until ” the roast rooster bites.”
I don't know if I'm an atheist or not, but as for life, I think it's just a way of organizing energy and matter, which has become just that
in the process of evolution under the influence of the laws of nature. Evolution is a blind process with no definite purpose; its byproduct is our current way of life and the entire civilization as a whole. The point is to survive by climbing, learning, building, and enjoying the release of dopamine, endorphins, and other pleasures. If you want, you can become a businessman/artist/parent – all this can help you live the rest of your life happier, or vice versa, which is why you need to skillfully analyze information. Live as you want, but don't interfere with others. After death, there will be no life, it will be about the same as it was before birth-the absence of anything, the pushta worldview exists due to the complex and interesting brain chemistry that will not flow after kaput. On the other hand, you can bypass the instinct of self – preservation and finish right away, but this is not given to everyone-for example, I managed to get some joys in life, because of the anticipation of repeating these feelings, I am not ready to “become a hero”, and I do not advise anyone.
Atheism makes a person more responsible. The atheist does not rely on the principle of “the Lord will weigh and understand.” People can judge a fool who builds his own happiness at the expense of the misery of others. People can appreciate the merits of a fool who, at the expense of his misfortune, made the lives of others a little better.
Those who can no longer look at the ground are looking up at the sky. Farsightedness, alas, has a biological explanation.
Speaking of atheism, people usually talk about it under the guise of religious editing, which is usually a lie, and atheists themselves are not allowed to talk.
And the contradiction between atheism and religiosity is not whether there is a God or not, dialectically it does not matter, but whether the world is knowable or not.
– From the point of view of religion, it is not knowable – it is impossible to be higher than God and everything is determined by him. You can say that religions have changed, but this is a lie, no one has changed the paradigm – you are a servant of God and that's all, and do not confuse tourism (PR) and a place of residence (a system of personal suppression). Try asking the question: “Who is God's father and mother…»
A secular society can also be religious in its paradigm.
– Atheism defends the comprehensive knowability of the World and the limitlessness of possibilities – you can do everything here, but “at your own expense”, that is, under personal responsibility to yourself and you do not owe anything to any gods (presidents).
In atheism, your spirit, soul, and entire personality are immortal and this is yours and only yours, the gods and any masters have no rights to this, although religion (and in secular execution) insists on the opposite.
Only created things make sense.
Atheists have no creator, so they are not created, so their lives are meaningless. Their lives don't make any more sense than any bug's.
But we are friends with logic, and we understand that their lives have meaning.
The meaning of life is the same for all of us. The meaning of the life of all people is to bring the development of human civilization to a higher level of quality on the way to the return of civilization, first human, then more highly developed to its former prosperity and power.
Let's go back to the meaning of life for believers, Who do we mean when we talk about believers?Who believes in Jesus who believes in Magomed ,What to do with those who believe in Sabaoth, Jehovah, Who believes in the seventh day Who believes in a hole in the ceiling, Who prays to a crashed plane (there are such precedents)Who is in Saint Walrus And who is in Tonacasihuatl, And according to the law must respect their views, And there is Adonai, Yahweh,Elohim, There are castrati,(Or were?) Deal with this and then go through the atheists,
Everything is much simpler. Atheism is the belief that there is no God. Believers live by faith, and so do atheists. Do not have an afterlife, rebirth, etc.: washed away in faith disappears. So believers just believe in a convenient version of reality, and atheists believe in reason, and reason is a tool of knowledge.
And the meaning of life for both of them is simple and the same – it is a struggle with death, an attempt to live life. The main thing here is what the priest said about fear. There is nothing worse than fear, so this priest is a servant of the devil, who sincerely hates people.
There is no point, just to live. We are all biological robots.
And all the religious nonsense, dreams are the internal memory of a person, a kind of bug. There is also an external one, on the basis of which the perception of the external world is built. Both types of memory can interact with each other, which would better be unacceptable, also a bug.
Some people were infected with viruses of God, the devil and other garbage.
All in fact there is one big bug.
The answer for me has changed over the course of my life.
Until the age of 21, I lived to help humanity. At 21, I became not only an atheist, but also a nihilist. From 21 to 24, I lived so as not to upset my parents. From 24 to today (now I'm 26) I live simply because I enjoy it. And, oddly enough, I get the greatest pleasure from a job well done. I'm also just interested in living. Previously, I was interested in playing computer games – but they are not played for anything specific, but simply because it is interesting and exciting. Now I'm also interested in life, and it also captures me. Half a year ago, I made a discovery that you can meet girls just on the street – and it's damn interesting and exciting-to overcome your fear, get acquainted, and also have a great time. A week ago, I had a conflict with my supervisor – and I was interested in it, it's something between a game of chess and a card fool, only everything is real, and instead of the rules book of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Last week, I ran my code on a cluster of thousands of computers, and this attraction turned out to be not just free for me – my employer pays me money for it! Today my nephews came to visit me, and we played hide-and-seek and “the floor is lava”with them. We didn't play for the sake of humanity or going to heaven, but simply because it's fun. 2 years ago, I sent letters to three scientists in my field – one of them answered me – I was shocked, and only one question: “What, was it possible to do that??!!”. And then we did something with her and her colleagues that was impossible before. It was a wild thrill, to realize that you can reach the limit of scientific progress, and move it a little. When I did it, I didn't care if it was going to do any good or not, I was just thrilled that I could do it at all. Tomorrow I will wake up and wonder how it is that my more experienced colleagues can complete tasks 5 times faster than me? How would I learn to do my job just as quickly? I will also think about how to improve object detection based on lidar data – it's like a puzzle, some parts of which are scattered in the scientific literature, and some parts need to be invented by myself, and at the same time I am limited not by the imagination of the puzzle author, but only by my own imagination, and the limitations of nature. And it's interesting!
A person was born. He learns, begins to get to know his parents and other people. Learns to walk, talk, and communicate. Begins to explore the world. He learns to understand his place in life, learns to understand himself in the society of people. Learning relationships. Learning to create something. Learning to be creative. Studying art. Finds something new and interesting all the time. It is developing. Finally, she gives birth to children, raises them, teaches them the wisdom of life. Gets a new experience.
Isn't that enough?
There are so many interesting things around the world. interesting and unknown things. The point is not to stop. develop constantly. move-move-move, learn, learn, observe, enjoy, solve questions, overcome obstacles and difficulties.
And religion and faith in God arise either from cowardice that all this can end, or from a passive attitude to life-the desire to have something that takes a person by the hand and shows everything, protects them, explains what is “good” and what is “sin”. The desire to wait for rewards and punishments. But, people, religion is the position of a small person, a slave, who is afraid to take a step without approval. So they came up with a “search for the meaning of life” to somehow justify their passivity.
The life of an atheist is the life of a free man. He is not enslaved to any false Abrahamic religion.
And stop trying to figure yourself out at the expense of others.
*)
The question of life is based on the system of being, that is, vital activity, so there is “no point” in searching for the meaning of life. The meaning of life is in the very “life, which as you spend, so it will pass” (O. Khayyam)
There are many answers to the question of the meaning of being and they carry the philosophy of generalizing self-consciousness. For this reason, people's opinions differ on subjective ideas, objective knowledge and absolute understanding of the essence of the phenomenon of “Being”.
Since the function of thinking is based on antinomic arguments from being and consciousness, the subject of thinking must understand the subject of the phenomenon and consider the question from the standpoint of mediating “divine” and “undivine” consciousness. In other words, the meaning of humanity's existence is predetermined by the fact that man is a consciousness that Nature (the Deity) uses to satisfy a “cosmic need.”
It is necessary to distinguish the subjects of the biological mind according to the level of self-consciousness, and not to divide people into believers and atheists, because both of them believe and do not understand the meaning of faith given to a person a priori by birth, which stimulates the neophyte of life to set goals and achieve them. Faith drives the practice of realizing expediency, and the meaning of being lies in mediating activity itself.
The meaning of life is in life itself. Not in death, not in God, but in life itself!
The universe exists not because it makes any sense, but because it can exist. So all living things live not because there is some great meaning in it, but simply because they are alive!
But a person keeps trying to come up with a meaning, according to the type of plants needed so that people can eat, and people that would believe in God…
Every person, regardless of their religion and attitude to religion, has their own meaning of life.
After forty years, I have a desire to understand the true meaning of my own life. I regularly made attempts to find what I should come to, realizing that time and life are passing, and I do not understand why I am here and what is the true meaning of my stay in this world.
It wasn't until a few years later, shortly before traveling to Tibet to “places of power” on Mount Kailash, that I came to the true intention of knowing myself; knowing who and what I am; being who I am; being myself.
To understand and reach the true goal of one's life is the work of one's entire life, or even of a much longer period.
Russian reality is characterized by a lack of understanding of the meaning of people's lives. For neither the atheism that prevailed in our country, nor the perverted religious ideas can clearly explain why we live here and what we should do here-from a philosophical point of view. And that is why people who are deprived of spirit, including children, are massively and irrevocably plunged into drunkenness and other drug addictions (because of new sensations), into crime, which turns into a normal, habitual way of life for them. At the same time, practice shows that no calls for a “healthy lifestyle” can create a sustainable perspective for the masses of people — if there are no solutions to the main question of philosophy: the question of the meaning of our stay on Earth.
Can I help them? Yes: by introducing true knowledge about the meaning of our lives — starting with school curricula!
I can say that stable success in finding balance and true happiness in life cannot be achieved without embracing God in your Worldview.
Many people around us suffer from their failures in the material world, from diseases … The result is depression, neurosis and other mental disorders… Many of these people get drunk, become addicted to drugs, take the path of crime, commit suicide…
There are two main reasons for this: first, a lack of understanding of the meaning of our lives and, second, a lack of knowledge about how to change ourselves-in order to successfully face the difficulties that we inevitably face while living on Earth.
Most “believers” are quite satisfied in their religiosity with references to the word God in one or another human language. But God — in reality-is not just a symbol, but He is a fully living Organism on a universal scale! And true faith should lead to the desire to know Him, to fulfill His Commandments on how to improve ourselves, to an intense desire to serve Him and merge with Him in love!
And-people should learn to understand what is meant by the word – GOD.
The word God refers primarily to the Primordial Universal Consciousness that exists in the deepest, most primordial, subtlest layer of multidimensional space. The Primordial Consciousness is God the Father,
This Primordial Consciousness is one for the entire universe and, accordingly, for all its living creatures, including all people on planet Earth.
In different earthly languages, people call Him differently: God the Father, Jehovah, Allah, Ishvara, Tao, etc. He is the God of the Jewish prophets, of Jesus Christ, of Muhammad, of the faithful in China, India, and other countries where there is a correct understanding of Him. And only human ignorance leads to the opinion that, since the “names” are different,then the Gods are different…
The statement that there is only ONE God is true. The Divine Teachers in the Abode of the Creator are mutually integrated components of a Single Primordial Consciousness. The criterion of evaluation here is that Their Abode is precisely the primordial spatial dimension, called the Abode of the Creator; from it, Each of Them proceeds into the world of Creation only as a part of Himself, remaining consubstantial with the Creator.
It is necessary to learn well that God the Father is both an Integral Consciousness and a set of former human Consciousnesses that have merged into It, because these individual Consciousnesses that have reached Perfection in the past remain in the Abode of the Father in a state of mutual dissolution, forming a single Whole ( and each person will have to reach the same Perfection-this is the Life and Evolution of the Creator).
…Speaking in general terms, this Path begins, first of all, with the acceptance and fulfillment of ethical principles (the growth of emotions of love and getting rid of aggressive ones – through self — analysis and penitential work; including-in creative love-service to other people. The service of the people who are helping them in their positive evolution — this is the service of God; the refinement itself – through harmonious interaction with nature, through the development of compassion and love for animals, with help in refining the works of different art movements, gentle, affectionate communication with loved ones — all this contributes to the improvement of the shower, closer to Perfection.).
This is followed by the stages of cleansing the body of bioenergetic pollutants (switching to a no-kill diet, with the emotion of compassion developed by this time, giving up bad habits, starting with smoking) and developing yourself as a Spiritual Heart (this practice was in hesychasm and was called the “Jesus Prayer”).
Here is a short path to God.
Developed love should fill the whole life, all aspects of life.
*
Addition.
Why do we live on Earth? What is the meaning of our lives?
In the history of philosophy, we know a number of unsuccessful attempts to find answers to these questions.
For example, the founders of existentialism argued that the life of each of us on Earth is just a ridiculous accident; moreover, none of us gave anyone our permission, consent — to live. They lamented this and saw only suicide as a worthy solution to this “ridiculous situation”.
They were atheists.
And many modern believers in the existence of God do not ask themselves this question at all. They… only dream of earthly well-being and escaping hell after the death of the body… and what do you have to do for this? – it turns out to participate in various “religious” rites, repent of true and imaginary sins, and also “pray”, that is, first of all, beg for “salvation” from hell — from God or from the “gods” and “saints”invented by representatives of these confessions.
And this absurdity has always been actively promoted by the priests of such religious trends. They instilled in their “flock” the idea of God — as an evil Bogeyman who only does what punishes, and therefore it is necessary to be afraid of Him! And we, they say, the priests-we are your intercessors before Him: we “pray” for you and teach you how to “pray”correctly…
Why do I call this form of pseudo-religion absurd? But because, in fact, we, according to the Will of God, should PERFECT OURSELVES (as souls) in accordance with His Teaching-and not cry out to Him about our sinfulness! And not to beg before Him for “earthly” goods — but to strive to become “perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect,” in the words of Jesus Christ!
And another thing: does fear help bring someone closer to someone else? No! – love! And it is not for nothing that Jesus and all the other Divine Teachers teach us not to fear, not to hate — but to LOVE!
THERE is no DESCRIPTION OF GOD IN the entire Bible. And, accordingly, there is not even an indication of where to look for It in order to realize that very consubstantiality with It …
Part 2.
The Creator (or God the Father, Primordial Consciousness, Ishvara, Tao, Allah — and so on, no matter in which of the human languages we call Him) is the subtlest Part of the Universe, and it is the MAIN Part of It — INFINITE in size and ALWAYS existing.
It is a Layer of the most subtle energies — it is God in the aspect of the Creator. It looks like an endless stretch of pure Light, similar to the light of the gentle and warm morning sun. There are no forms in it. Once in It, all forms immediately dissolve.
*
The task of incarnating souls (that is, including each of us) is to advance in their development to the Original Consciousness, to the Creator.
In the end, Souls who have reached Perfection flow into the Creator, enriching Him with Themselves. Having settled forever in the Abode of the Creator, now living in Fusion with Him, becoming His integral components, They continue to work, helping other evolving souls. In the world of incarnate beings, They now manifest Themselves as Representatives of the Creator, also called Holy Spirits (or, collectively, the Holy Spirit).
This is the meaning of the existence of all Creation, as well as the meaning of our existence and the existence of all beings here!
Well, the lot of those who do not go this Way, who, on the contrary, develop rudeness, malice, cruelty — their lot is hell.
What you are hearing now is not an “invention” of the speaker now. No: this is the knowledge that God has at his disposal, what the Divine Teachers — that is, the Messiahs and Holy Spirits-have always taught incarnate people and are teaching them now.
This was taught, among others, by Thoth-Atlantean (aka Hermes-Trismegistus in His next Divine Incarnation), and Pythagoras, and Krishna, and Gautama Buddha, and Jesus Christ, and the Divine Teachers of later epochs and our modern times. (This information is most fully presented in the book “Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and Modernity”).
part 3.
I will tell you about the fate of a famous scientist who was a stubborn, stubborn atheist. But he devoted his life to the Good, heroically, self-sacrificingly helping people with the highest knowledge and methods that he possessed. The premise of his atheism was that he, having the terrible brand of a Jew in Russia during the Brezhnev era, also lived here in the cruel era of” militant atheism”, and from religious concepts he was familiar only with the one that, as an intellectually highly developed person, could not satisfy him in any way.
He left his body in a feeble old age, suffering from it and realizing with heavy sadness that the “end ” was approaching.
And you can imagine how stunned he was later when he realized that there was no “end”!
Summing up his life, he said very sincerely: “After all, I have lived an honest life! I also gave my all to make people better!
He, living in Russia for those decades, suffered a lot of troubles. And of course, he could not accept the “Christianity” that managed to officially curse all Jews and has always treated them with varying degrees of hostility ever since… He endured everything humbly, never getting angry. Only marveling in silence at the savage moral primitivism that surrounds them… And he was right! His abode is now paradise!
But here is one of his closest colleagues, also a scientist and a Jew by nationality of the earth body, who did a lot in the last years of his earthly life to bring people to an understanding of the immortality of the soul, published a lot of publications on psychology, spent his life in endless fuss, made the main theme of his efforts to establish his name among other people at any cost, developed superliveness (even in the course of one conversation, he used to “lie”, exposing himself), insisted that” man is an autonomous, closed system”, who did not think of God and did not conform his life to His Being, who developed the “lower self” to the stage of “sticking out” in all directions of bright vices, who ended his earthly life from a brain disease — now, having disembodied, he is seen “distorted”, black and still deprived of rest. The hell he created for himself continues…
I say this with great sadness: this man helped so many people on Earth to start looking for true Freedom. But it turns out that he wasn't looking for her at all…
After all, a person remains in an out-of-body state exactly as he trained himself to be during his life in the body and as he was caught by the death of the body…
Everything has a beginning and an end, only the entire universe is infinite and, perhaps, then we will be reborn in a parallel reality. But this is unknown. Therefore, it is necessary to live here and now and not think about any special meanings.
Self-reproduction. We are part of this world. But believers refuse to reproduce themselves (monks, hermits and other rabble). So they don't even have that meaning in life. That's unfortunate.
an atheist is a person who denies all existing religions.a person who lives and exists only because of his ancestors mother and father grandfather and grandmother great grandfather and great grandmother and so on along the family line.a person who owes everything that he has to his ancestors because what they put in him with their genes turned out to be the output. these are potential rodnovers.they don't think about it but they worship only their ancestors remember them and honor their memory. they subconsciously do not recognize the imposed belief in a golden calf named Yahweh, which causes them to protest.and the meaning of life for an atheist, like Rodnover, is one continuation of the family .
Everything has an end, as well as a beginning. Here it is correctly noted that someone is striving for paradise in this life, someone is preparing it for their afterlife. So what is the difference between them? Some live all their lives in fear of the Almighty and the possibility of going to the so-called Hell if they behave badly, others go over their heads, trying to make themselves bliss during this life.
Many people are interested in the meaning of life, but it does not exist as such) The meaning of life is in life itself.
I am an atheist and I believe that the purpose of my life is to create something that will exist after me. It doesn't matter if it's a technical achievement or a work of art. It is important that people know and remember this, and it is also important that people feel good about it. If I succeed, my name will outlive me. Living in people's memories is also a form of immortality.
as it is said in some Japanese book-a samurai has no goal, he has a path. I don't know how to properly transfer it to a modern way, but I think it's clear enough
The meaning of life for any person is always only one-the one that he has found or invented for himself. What exactly it will turn out to be is a completely different question, it depends on the person himself, his culture, education, mindset, etc.
Then, yes, the end, but now there is life. And the answer to your question depends on what is meant by meaning, as they say, to ask a question correctly, you need to know most of the answer.
If something is on a universal scale , then there is no such meaning. The universe doesn't care if I die or not. And not just me, but the whole of humanity. This speck of dust is nothing to the universe. But from the point of view of a person, it makes sense. Which one, you might ask? Do you seriously expect to get a one-word, unambiguous answer? It won't be there. It will not be because it follows from the very definition of the word “meaning”. Meaning is the internal content of an object or phenomenon, perceived or brought by the mind. And the human mind, whether yours or mine, is not a motionless thing suspended in a vacuum. All decisions and conclusions are made by the mind on the basis of experience. But in life, everything changes. You get new information, meet new people, and are interested in new activities. How can you have one static and immobile meaning of life? Are you sitting in a box? Even an age-old hermit's experience is too diverse to be so one-sided.
Nothing. Whatever you think up for yourself-it will be like this. There is a lot to choose from. Career, business, politics, sports, art… In any activity, you can develop almost until death, there is no limit.
In fact, everything is simple: the believer does not live for himself or for the country, he lives to believe in the mythical supreme, he understands the origin of man very primitively, so it is convenient for him to identify everything with the machinations of divine intervention, sometimes this borders on terry fanaticism, in those cases when they say: God will punish, they will be judged at the top, etc. nonsense. It is much easier for an atheist to understand himself in the context of time and history. He lives to live, as strange as it may sound. The unbeliever does not see the point in lamenting and pleading with the Lord, because he understands the meaninglessness of the situation. When a person is hit by a car, it is not God who punished him, but human stupidity, which occurred for various reasons. No one would be in their right mind to take the place of chance and punishment from heaven, would they? If you are accidentally killed by an icicle from the house, it is not because you are a sinner, but because the manager of the house did not fulfill his duties and your personal inattention. The problem with believers is that they believe in myths. They do not know when Jesus was born, do not know how he died, only according to the rumors of witnesses, even worship the spear with which he was killed, which is no less strange. The difference between a believer and an unbeliever is one thing: the first person begins to pray at every problem that arises, and the unbeliever goes to solve the problem, no matter how overwhelming it may be. If a person is going to have a very difficult operation and survives, the believer thanks God, and the atheist thanks the surgeon. In this case, of course, the surgeon will be partly annoyed that the believer did not understand his merits. Don't impose your faith on anyone, it may be false.
The meaning of life is in life itself, and to spoil it with a meaningless belief in an afterlife fairy tale is stupid. The most valuable thing that a person has is freedom. Faith in God by self-determination is God's slavery in life and supposedly freedom after death. So the meaning of freedom in life. An atheist lives with a chickadee in his hands, and a believer follows a crane in the sky.
The expression: “For atheists, life is meaningless. Why live, if then only burdock on the grave will grow. It's better to go straight to the coffin then” is the result of narrow thinking. The meaning of life is different for everyone. Personally, I have the meaning of life to bring my point of view to the masses. And also to achieve any goals. I believe that every person should have a goal to strive for.
I don't see the point in entering into a long discussion with a “specialist in topics”, but I will say that I don't agree with his presentation of the philosophy of atheism, since due to the consideration of atheism in the framework of a religious paradigm, he deprives the content of the main accents and levels all the meanings to formalism – “how to eat right so as not to die from bloody diarrhea before the deadline”.
For atheism, the meaning of life is reduced not to dogmatics, but to its denial, and as a result, the search for truth arises. All humanistic, civic, intellectual, existential, and even hedonistic trends are nothing but the search for truth. The search for truth is the true happiness of an atheist. Translated into a religious language , this is ” the search for God.” But not the Christian God, since Christianity monopolized the right to truth, thereby alienating the right to search for truth. Therefore, there is a second point at once: “the search for a God who does not exist” – now you can leave the right to choose the truth for a person, and not a (religious) association (tautologically). Or, to return, “the search for truth(meaning) that does not exist” – this is the meaning of an atheist's life.
If we translate it back into the language of religion: active search for meaning is the main spiritual practice of an atheist.
I wonder what is the meaning of a believer's life? Obviously, for him, life is a preparation for paradise. Well, what's in paradise? I have friends who are believers. I asked them what they were going to do in paradise. None of them answered! That is, their life is meaningless. And I have a son, I want him to have a good life. I taught the students, and I hope that it was good for them. I am developing my own scientific theory, and I have defended my PhD thesis. My works are published, and I receive invitations to publish more, participate in international conferences. The meaning of an atheist's life is to make people's lives better, not to ensure eternal bliss in paradise!
Dmitry Smirnov is a somewhat inadequate person, to refer to him, in my opinion, is like referring to Napoleon from a mental hospital. As for the meaning of life, it is the same for everyone, both believers and non – believers-the reproduction and development of humanity.
I already wrote about the types of atheists here (well, as here, on the question) . Their meaning of life is extremely different for everyone.
1. Ancient ancient (pagan) philosophical atheism (Democritus, Epicurus) and so on. These atheists considered “rational enjoyment” or “civic virtue”to be the goal of life. That is, their goals in life were only this side, they set goals within the framework of life and considered death to be its end. Consequently, life (since it was, as they believed) one, must be lived most intelligently (in harmony) and in such a way that, at least through stupidity, one does not die from excessive eating, drunkenness, and so on.
2. Philosophical vulgar materialism of the Enlightenment (Holbach, La Mettrie, Vogt, Buchner, etc.). The main goal of their life was to spread scientific truth and fight against madness (they considered religion to be superstition).
3. Humanistic atheism by L. Feuerbach (and partly by O. Comte). The meaning of this atheism lies in the fulfillment of Christ's commandment to love one's neighbors, which Feuerbach considered the greatest achievement of moral thought. At the same time, Feirbach assumed that faith in God as faith in an imaginary being interferes with the love of one's neighbor and distracts a person from this, making his activities meaningless and even leads to fanaticism (harms the love of one's neighbor). O. Comte wanted to replace the “religion of God”, the “religion of man” (in this sense, Comte's humanism assumed for practical moral purposes “to deify humanity”).
4. Marxist atheism (K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, etc.) Marxist atheism saw the meaning of life in a transcendent-temporal goal-the achievement of planetary communism, which, according to Marxists, will achieve the goals of religion, but in an inalienable form (that is, without faith in God and paradise). In this sense, it is incorrect to assume that communism is a “paradise on Earth”, since communism was understood as an eternal movement towards the humanistic ideal. Marxist atheism can therefore be regarded as a step forward from humanistic atheism, since it is not a religious movement. if humanistic atheism simply says “love people”, Marxist atheism says “let's create a society in which it will be easier to love people, because we will get rid of a number of injustices.” But Marxist atheism has a disadvantage – it says well what should be done by collectives of people, but it does not address individuals in an ethical sense. The individual is called upon to “live for the triumph of communism”, i.e., in fact, he is still alienated from the ultimate goal of life (something for which Marxists criticized religion).
5. Atheism of the “philosophy of life” (F. Nietzsche, Nietzscheanism). The meaning of the life of such an atheist is to destroy all illusions, that is, to create values for oneself, to assign values to oneself. Nietzsche suggests overcoming alienation from oneself through culture and philosophy, making them the object of a sermon about overcoming the “too human”.
One might even say that the moral of Nietzscheanism can be expressed as ” love life and don't humiliate people with false feelings.” The only problem is that Nietzscheanism comes to the deification of the natural in man (and not just the cultural one), and here begins the preaching of “trampling on the weak”, “educating strength” and angry philippics addressed to Christianity for the fact that Christianity, they say, preached humility and mercy, and not strength and love of life. Nietzsche also came up with the” atheistic consolation ” that supposedly the history of mankind moves in a circle (eternal return) and, therefore, your individual life will also repeat itself an infinite number of times, so there is nothing to grieve about death.
6. Psychoanalytic atheism (Z. Freud, K. Jung, E. Fromm). Psychoanalytic atheism mainly sought the liberation of man from the forces of “enslavement” to instincts and the development of his mind (in this sense, it is closer to enlightenment atheism). From the point of view of psychoanalysis, the “fear of death” in a person is the result of not living. and it follows its fears, instinctive feelings. Freud's motto in general was ” Let the Id (unconscious) be replaced by the Ego (consciousness).” Hence, basically, the goal of life was seen as maximum awareness and freedom from mental disorders. It's funny, but the more psychoanalysis developed, the more the struggle against moral evil was visible in the analysis of mental disorders, so that, as one modern priest noted, the saints in Orthodoxy could tell Z. a lot. Freud about the nasty stuff trapped in the unconscious of the individual. In this sense, the same K. Horney in the description of neurotic development resorted to … Christian metaphors, saying that a neurotic person alienates himself, putting his own pride on a pedestal and literally “makes a deal with the devil of pride and this is followed by his own hell – the hell of self-abasement and self-hatred” (this is almost a Christian quote, again, I draw attention to the fact that hell for Horney exists also on Earth, as for the patristic teaching, the sinner punishes himself already on Earth). The difference, however, was this: all theorists and psychoanalysts, while not necessarily strongly negative about religion, put reason above religious knowledge about man. For them, a person must pull himself out of the hell of biological destructiveness by himself, as Munchausen pulled himself out of the swamp by the hair.
7. Existential atheism (J. P. Sartre, A. Camus). This atheism came entirely from a deep awareness of the fact of mortality. According to existential atheists, life as such consists in the struggle with death. Albert Camus emphasized that in the face of death, any life is absurd (hence the “philosophy of absurdity”), but any suicide is desertion (surrendering oneself to the enemy). Consequently, there was a theory of “moral courage”, so to speak, in which any life that spits in the face of death for as long as possible is justified, even immoral, as long as it does not give rise to illusions.
Well, there is of course the “atheism of the new atheists” – like Dawkins and so on, but they are basically the same vulgar materialists, nothing interesting.
So, as you can see, atheism itself has not created much. Atheism is simply a worldview based on the denial of the existence of God. When combined with certain theories (Marxism, psychoanalysis, philosophy of life, existentialism, humanism), atheism could be “fruitful” in appearance, but it was not atheism that was fruitful in them, but their philosophically positive content. Atheism itself is philosophically barren and empty. There is nothing in him except the denial of the existence of God, there is no purpose in life, and so on. Goals of atheism are set by external “guests” in the form of various types of philosophical theories. Take them away and there's almost nothing left. I'll even go further and give you some examples. It is quite possible to take away F. Nietzsche's atheism – and the doctrine of the superman, culture, and so on will remain-about 30% of his legacy will suffer. In general, atheism can be taken away from Karl Marx and about 1% of his legacy will suffer. У З. Freud can be taken away by atheism – and somewhere around 5-10% of the legacy will suffer. Only existential atheism, which consists of 80-90% belief in the “fact” of the “eternal death of the individual”, will suffer greatly (of all the types listed above). Well, existential atheism has brought almost nothing new to science (unlike Marx, Freud, etc.)
It is interesting, by the way, that “Soviet atheism” gave rise to a special type of worldview, since it was partly based on Marxism, and partly on the Russian traditional life of the lower classes. Hence, there was such an interesting idea that “a person continues to live in the memory of posterity” or “a person continues to live in what he did” and so on. These thoughts are generally not compatible with atheism, so V. V. Rozanov, an Orthodox philosopher and writer, wrote about the bodily “pseudo-immortality” in his descendants (and in him he saw a harbinger of eternal life of the individual).