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As An Atheist Can Your Life Have Purpose and Meaning?

I was wondering what other people thought about this.

I realize we weren't born with a purpose. No creator or "higher calling".

But as a non believer can your life have meaning and purpose without god?

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on November 16, 2012 at 10:01pm

Since you are defining the rules for the purpose of those objects, then they are hardly "outside of ourselves". The mind is required to make the connection between "chair" and "sit", or "litter" and "pollution".

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Permalink Reply by JP Carey on November 16, 2012 at 10:13pm

Instead of chairs then, gravity and spheres vs entropy and fog. spontaneous SYNCH between pendulums and other oscillators. self organization out of chaos. Strange attractors. Evolution, fractals, ~3 BILLION perfect heart beats in a lifetime.

There is order and it's opposite which is NOT order.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on November 16, 2012 at 10:19pm

If order is just any phenomenon that can be measured, then I fail to see what that has to do with human purpose.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on November 16, 2012 at 11:44pm

No middle, gray?

Nothing has some order and some disorder?

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Permalink Reply by TNT666 on November 16, 2012 at 9:14pm

Sure... if you're trying to win a political election!!!

But in the world of academics are not learned via "niceties". You spend a large part of your life in a university and study HARD, and work HARD. There are people who never learned unless they're boinked on the head, some are incapable of learning because they did not have a proper childhood cognitive development phase through parental incompetence, those are hopeless.

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Permalink Reply by Glen Rosenberg on November 16, 2012 at 9:07pm

If the universe is not eternal it may have started like this blog in an uncaused cause.

Mammals have trended smaller.

Steph should have reproduced to pass on her extra serving of nice genes.

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on November 16, 2012 at 9:17pm

Well thank you Glen! : )

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on November 16, 2012 at 9:18pm

How sweet of you to say Damien - thanks very much! Smiles : )

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on November 16, 2012 at 9:18pm

All I see is the Latin alphabet, but I see no English being written... Is this a divine intervention, or an alien conspiracy, to remove the concepts of 'grammar' and 'context' from existence?

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Permalink Reply by TNT666 on November 16, 2012 at 9:26pm

God is created in the image of man, therefore all the praise and shit bestowed by god onto humanity is actually bestowed by humans. Consequently, atheists have invented nothing in this regard. Notwithstanding, Humanists do religiously applaud humanity... but that's the Christian roots showing through.

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on November 17, 2012 at 10:24am

Thank you Damien for those definitions.

I've been reading over the responses here and thinking.

I appreciate everyone's input.

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Permalink Reply by TNT666 on November 16, 2012 at 10:14pm

@Johnathan, yes, in the same exact context that until there is evidence of the supernatural and gods, there are none. Evidence is king, queen and ace.