The Meaning of Life for Atheists

No. Atheists are just people who lack faith in any gods. There's nothing that they necessarily agree on philosophically, unless you count that lack of faith, but babies are atheists, and they don't philosophise. An atheist may not have an opinion on the likelihood of there being a god or gods of some kind, and may or may not care about the question. Some atheists are believers in non-theistic religions, which may well include a belief in an objective meaning of life. An adult atheist could even conceivably be from a remote non-theistic animist culture, and never even have had a concept of "gods", although this would be rare today.All you can say of atheists is that they don't believe in any gods. Wrong, for reasons explained above. That would also be wrong if you were talking about metaphysical naturalists, who might well not perceive any objective purpose in life, sex and reproduction just being part of it, like eating.Having thoroughly disagreed with your post, I'll comment that you apologised at the end for the only good part of it!

The idea that life has no objective meaning is not objectively verifiable, and that idea has nothing to do with atheism. If life is objectively meaningless, then it would have no objective purpose.Why are you relating "meaning" to deities. Deities could exist without meaning, and creator deities could create universes just for the hell of it. And if a deity created a universe with meaning and for some purpose, there is no reason to suppose that life had anything to do with that purpose.

Here's something that a lot of EvC non-theists might identify with. Igtheism, or Ignosticism.Often, when theists ask the question "do you believe in God", they say it as though there's some generally accepted described thing that we all understand, so we know what they're talking about. So, I'm often tempted to ask "what do you mean by this word "God"? Describe this thing, please. Then the answer, of course, varies, depending on which theist is talking, indicating that lots of different gods are being believed in.An Igtheist (ignostic) is someone who thinks that a meaningful definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be discussed. In other words, what the hell are we talking about? Then, if the definition given cannot be falsified, the ignostic considers the question of the existence of God (per that definition) to be meaningless.Some Ignostics just skip the first bit, and consider the basic question "does God exist" as meaningless. It sounds a bit like a kind of ultra-agnosticism, and could be described as a kind of non-theism or weak atheism, but the distinction from agnostics is that igtheists are not saying that the question can't be answered, but that it's meaningless.I have some sympathy for this. "Does God exist" is a bit like asking "do doodlubumfloops exist". Why bother with the question?Anyway, I thought I'd introduce the synonymous terms "Igtheist" and "Ignostic" to EvC, just to add to the general confusion. I think I'll be an Igtheist/Atheist myself for a few weeks, to see what it feels like.The igtheistic answer to the O.P. question on the meaning of life for atheists is that it's a meaningless question. More on IgnosticismEdited by bluegenes, : extra word deleted (parsimony)

Why are you lying to yourself about what atheists claim? How can anyone know that there are no gods? Think about it. If there's a proposition for which you have no evidence, it doesn't make sense to believe in it. Let's try one. There's a chest full of gold buried in your backyard. Surely, if you have no evidence for this you wouldn't believe it. But if you were digging in the yard, and found it, you would. You don't walk around claiming to know there's no treasure under your backyard, do you? There's absolutely no need to go through life believing in things for which there is zero evidence. Not believing in Zeus is easy, don't you agree? You don't have to explain reality at all to lack faith in him. What a parochial world you live in. Most of the world's religious people have never read the Bible, and aren't Christians. If you really want to see two sects fighting, there are many places you can go in the world and witness that, literally. Fighting and killing. But the two sects will be two religions. Try Kashmir. I did, long ago, and got caught up in the crossfire.

Vehemently? Religion has been a mass killer historically, so don't you think it should be criticised, just as you would criticise a dogmatic political ideology if it had been responsible for millions of deaths? And how many posts have you made here "fighting vehemently" against atheists? And why do you need to lie to yourself about what they are? Do you think it's a radical position not to believe in fairies? Are you radical if you don't believe in the Hindu gods? Just as we keep saying. Atheists do not necessarily believe gods (or fairies) are out of the question. A pantheon of 10,000 gods is not out of the question. On the basis of evidence, any given number of gods is just as likely as another. Now, strip away your subjective cultural conditioning, and work out the probability of there being just one god (or any specific number, because it's the same result). Then you can see that anyone with a specific religious belief is behaving in the same way as you would be if you believed that there was that treasure chest full of gold under your back yard that I mentioned earlier.It is belief in specific supernatural propositions that is active and "radical", not disbelief in them. Right. And most people here, you notice, have defined themselves as something close to the second definition. Yet read your posts, and you keep insisting that all atheists are not only defined by the first definition, but dogmatic about it. Goddesses aren't an impossibility to me, just as fairies aren't. There's just no evidence for them at this point in time, so no reason to believe in them, and zero evidence does not make them a 50/50 proposition. So why are you fighting "vehemently" for the belief that you've just stated, my little hypocrite? And since when is disbelief (second definition) in relation to supernatural propositions belief? Unless you believe in all the gods of all the religions, your level of disbelief is actually approximately the same as an atheist's, minus apparently, about half a god.

Because we Igtheists cannot discuss the meaning of life for a group who are defined merely in their relationship to an undefined word: God. (Although it could be argued, in that way, that we can't discuss ourselves for the same reason).I'm glad you have something in common with us. Why not try Igtheism/Igonosticism for a week or two, like me? Trouble is, it would be hard to stay on topic in your own thread according to what I've just stated above. Some interpreters of Igtheism think that you can be a soft atheist or an agnostic at the same time, but I suppose that could be problematic, considering the interpretation I've made!Being an Igtheist may be difficult, but I think that their attitude is reasonable. Does what exist?

You may well have a point. I just discovered the term a few days ago, and put it in the thread to lighten things up, really. I like the sound "Igtheist".I've just come up with an opposite for it. It's a "Dogtheist". The dog is from dogma or dogmatic, and it means someone who is absolutely sure on the specific definition of the one true God. We have quite a few on EvC, I think.I want the copyright on that one.

The dictionary? The dictionary?! Are you a mono-dictionariest? Certainly, an extra-universal scientist can fit some definitions of "God", but there are many that he wouldn't fit. It's arguable that Mod's scientist could be a natural part and product of her universe, as we appear to be of this one, and that her own existence is objectively meaningless, but that the subjective meaning that she has for her creation of this universe confers a meaning on it which is objective from our perspective. It would be meaning that exists outside our minds. Indeed. And we may not have the mental equipment to understand it however many signs there were. But, please don't encourage people to believe that there might be signs around, because there are plenty of our brethren who are capable of receiving signals that have never actually been sent by anyone. Here's another kind of "objective meaning of life" example that atheists could believe without involving gods or extra-universal scientists."The meaning of life is to learn as much as we can, so that when our souls depart from these dimensions, we are better equipped to exist in the (non-life) dimensions."That requires religious faith, but not theism. The kind of mistake that Agobot is making on this thread is common in people from mono-theistic cultures. They mistake "theism" for religion, and they frequently mistake "monotheism" for "theism". It's an interesting illustration of cultural conditioning, and is often done by non-theists as well as theists. Agobot also conflates lack of faith with faith in relation to religious/supernatural propositions.If I were a theist, I'd be a polytheist, as it's more interesting. If one wants an imaginary friend, why not have a whole crowd of them and party?Welcome to EvC.ABE{I didn't see your last post before replying to the first, if this sounds a bit odd} Edited by bluegenes, : see ABE

To undermine your point slightly, RAZD, the supernatural is not usually defined as being relative to our perception. Some low-tech human cultures have taken the phenomena produced by high tech cultures as being supernatural (cargo cults, for example) but they are wrong, and we would be wrong if we made the same mistake in relation to aliens from this universe or another.The supernatural is generally considered to be above nature, not just above our perception of nature and its laws at any particular time.I say "slightly undermine" because you probably can find definitions of supernatural that say things like "perceived to be contrary to natural law".Modulous uses the word "scientist" for his creator, and if we look up "scientist" in dictionaries, we don't find the word god in any definitions. Because his scientist (as a universe creator) can fit some definitions of "god" doesn't mean it is a deity. Dictionaries can use "A" to describe "B", and "C" can fit "A", but that doesn't mean "C" is necessarily "B", because language is not maths, and it's certainly not logical.However, the question that's important to this thread is related to the point that some of us have been making, that there's nothing that you can say about atheists other than what defines them, which is, encompassing all definitions, that they don't believe in any gods. So, the idea that we can say that there are no atheists who believe that there are objective meanings to life is wrong. They certainly could, because their belief in meanings, like those of theists, does not have to be evidence based or rational.So, an atheist could say "meaning is an inherent property of the multi-verse, and that meaning is "x",", and believe that without putting himself outside the definition of "atheist".In fact, an atheist could in believe in anything, except gods.That's why a discussion about the meaning of life for atheists as a group is really a non-starter. They are not a group defined in relation to their views on the meaning of life.Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.