DirkGently
DirkGently's JournalBeing a good parent fits into purpose. I've yet to see anything pointless or purposeless in Nature.
Agree re: "destiny" and so forth. These are grandiose, human-centric ego dreams of what's going on. This kills me about Abrahamic religion. But I don't equate the lack of those sorts of pat ideas with utter meaninglessness.
In addition to a lot of nothing, we're surrounded by a whole lot of fancy stuff. I think the notion that it's all some kind of random hiccup would be the rare hypothesis. I don't mean us -- humans could easily be just what sprouted here best -- but I think it'd be a weird conclusion to decide that the 9999(etc)% of existence that we don't understand is meaningless, just because we haven't managed to figure it all out in a few thousand years.
Just my take, but it's important to me. I don't like conflating atheism with nihilism or "nothing-ism." That seems presumptuous and irrational to me, i.e., if religion doesn't explain everything, there must be "nothing." There's not nothing. There is Something. The fact that it's not a trite fable about the massive importance of humankind and who we have sex with and whether we eat pork makes it more meaningful, not less.
As you say, our lives can mean something to US, first of all. But as for whatever the big picture may be, we're obviously in it, and nothing we know of in our universe is without cause or effect. So, we come from somewhere, and we impact something. That takes "meaningless" off the table in my view.
Atheism isn't nihilism, for God's sake.
And there's nothing about not buying anyone's transparently bogus bill of goods about Sky Fathers watching your diet and your sex life that's "bleak," either. Nor is the lack of literal truth in stories about deities an indication of a "purposeless" universe.
On the contrary, existence is immense, fascinating mystery. Life is a shockingly rare opportunity to Do Things and Think About Stuff. Most particles floating around out there are inert. Sure, life is short, and there's the misery and so forth, but there's obviously plenty to enjoy, and at least it's a chance to participate.
Think about that. You could be inert particles.
Saying life is bleak once its stripped of the notion that it's all about pleasing a superbeing whose ideas bear a curious similarity to some pretty backward stone-age desert dwellers doesn't make any more sense than saying there's no reason to act ethically without a set of instructions literally carved in stone, and the threat of hellfire if you don't follow them.
How small would your mind have to be to think THAT?
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