Comments on: The TCA Open-Mic Night

By: hayesy

hayesy — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:03:59 +0000

Wow – very high quality discussion here! I’m just going to watch…

By: eyedoc

eyedoc — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:42:58 +0000

If only one knew…

By: Luke C

Luke C — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:24:34 +0000

The answer is 42, hope this helps.

By: SmartLX

SmartLX — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:37:42 +0000

Don’t bother with the capital A, my good man. It’s not a religion, it’s not a school of philosophy and it’s not named after anyone called Athe. It’s just a position, like “abolitionist” or “vegetarian” or “theist”.

Anyway, I get your distinction. Your innate purpose is closer to your “meaning”, or the reason you’re alive, while your imposed purpose is your plain old “purpose”, or what you’re meant to do. To be automatically supplied with both would simplify life no end, if only one knew what the two actually were.

By: joelpj

joelpj — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:41:33 +0000

Thanks for digging deep – really helpful for me to understand the mind of an Atheist.

Re: imposed or innate purpose:
I think both exist.
There is an imposed purpose that belief in God provides.
ie God has a plan for my life to fulfil

And then there is an innate purpose that belief in God provides.
ie God designed me with a purpose to glorify Him

This all assumes that God exists and God created the universe.
But like a toy, a child can impose a purpose onto it, or the child can seek the maker for it’s designed purpose.

By: SmartLX

SmartLX — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:15:47 +0000

Good question. I don’t have one, at least not in the way you mean. Yet.

There are things I want to do, for myself and others, but I haven’t dedicated my whole life to any of them and I certainly don’t think one of them is the reason I was born.

If I ever did find something towards which to pledge my whole life, that would be a conscious imposition on myself. Either that, or it’s possible I could be co-opted towards someone else’s purposes and a “meaning” would be imposed upon me from outside. Even God’s plan in your worldview is an imposition, albeit a widespread one imposed long before birth. The relatively small goals I set for myself are certainly self-imposed.

I’m not sure who would just “have” meaning or purpose in their lives, in anyone’s view.

By: joelpj

joelpj — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:17:20 +0000

"if it’s a god then ... it’s got its own purposes for people to serve"

That's a very wise statement. I think this needs to be heard by many religious people as religion is usually fed to them as: believe in and you'll receive blessing rather than: believe in and discover it's purpose for you

"If there are no gods, individualistic meanings are about the truest you can get."

As an atheist, do you have a meaning/purpose for your life? Or do you impose a meaning/purpose on your life? Or something else? Interested to know

By: SmartLX

SmartLX — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:46:52 +0000

Heh. Don’t worry too much about formatting, jpj. These days I read and I just see italics.

Those who I’ve known to believe in a single meaning think it’s automatically universal in the absence of similarly supported competition. There may yet be exceptions.

By “several”, I did mean individualistic meanings, as in that which we decide for ourselves, or for each other. That doesn’t mean that we each have a different one; a whole lot of people might decide on the same meaning and then try to spread it to others. That’s more or less what proselytisers do, especially from an outside perspective.

Whether individualistic meanings are “true” depends on the adjudicator; if it’s a god then probably not, mainly because it’s got its own purposes for people to serve. If there are no gods, individualistic meanings are about the truest you can get.

By: joelpj

joelpj — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:22:41 +0000

Opps! Used written html! Haysey can you delete my last post? Cheers

POST EDITED:

SmartLX, good points.
Although I don’t think Haysey’s question carried the underlying assumption of universal meaning, because as you pointed out, the answer could be: what if there are several meanings?

To me, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe I’m simplifying this topic but is it fair to say that:
the meaning of life is either non-existent or universal
For the answer to be plural, life’s meaning would be individualistic and therefore an internal designated meaning. In my opinion this is not a true answer to the meaning of life.

Thoughts?

By: Anika Q

Anika Q — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:14:16 +0000

To ‘fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

By: SmartLX

SmartLX — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:33:21 +0000

Such a simple question, and yet such a tremendous assumption: that life has a single, universal meaning at all. What if it’s not there, or it’s different for everybody, or there are several?

By: joelpj

joelpj — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:44:08 +0000

Hey all!
It may seem cliché from a Christian but my answer would be:
The meaning of life is to know the source of life
So how are you supposed to know the source of life? We don’t have the ability to find that out!
Exactly… only by the initive of the life giver can we find the source of life, and therefore life’s meaning.

Good night for open mic – i’m working back till 9pm!