IS GOD THE OR EVEN A SOLUTION IF YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO HAVE MEANING
FOR YOU AND OTHERS?
Belief in God is linked to meaning. That is an argument for belief. That is not
an argument for God. It implies that if somebody came up with something as good
as God or better then it would not matter. So that the God "solution" refuted
already. But let us go on and get some idea of how nonsensical it is from so
many angles. Its persistence is alarming and shows how religion is immune to
truth.
As people have no life if they have no meaning and social
order will collapse this view only leads to society and religion trying to force
faith on people by getting religionists into hospitals and schools to spread the
message.
Why does God give meaning?
Is it because many believers say so? But more believers don't care about God. So
why believe them? To say God gives you meaning means you are boasting that you
let him and that you are special for others have let him too and felt even
worse.
Or is it because God is goodness?
Is good good because God says so or is good good even if he says it is bad? In
other words, is goodness a standard that God did not make and that even he
should live up to? The Christians answer that God is the standard of goodness.
That means God has to define for you what justice means and what love means. All
it does is tell us not to decide but to let God decide.
It is good in itself for goodness to be independent of any being. Why? Because
even if God will never harm, to have him making good good is still in principle
open to saying it is okay if he commands something terrible just for fun. The
notion that goodness depends on God and that God is the moral standard is
incoherent.
If goodness is independent of God, then it follows that the meaning of life is
about it not God. In fact getting meaning in God would be evil. It is failing to
get meaning in goodness.
Money cannot buy happiness, it helps you to be happy and is proof that God alone
is not enough. Yet the word God means that which alone matters. To say that God
uses money to bring you to him is
Religious people fear anything that they think could take their faith away from
them. The atheist has faith, but not in God. The atheist has faith that it is
worth cooking the dinner and that he will be alive to enjoy it. He is glad to
have the endearing arrogance to assume and feel that he will be. That is better
than having the stark humility of the believer in God who refuses to believe he
will or won't be alive to eat the dinner. He is not allowed to second-guess God
for what he wants or expects might not be God's will. God is always right so one
must always take care to be in concord with him.
It is people who give meaning to life. If a religion didn't make a community
nobody would bother with the religion even if it were true! It is not religion
or God that give meaning. Atheists have died beautiful deaths surrounded by
friends and family. Those who say God gives them meaning are never hermits. They
think they see God at work in the people around them. It is thinking that that
works not God. Thinking you see God is not equivalent to seeing God.
They say that unbelievers concoct a sense of meaning in life despite arguing
that life has no absolute or intrinsic or objective value. The believers call
that delusion. This objection is twisted and by it they show their mental
disturbance. Life has value just because it has value. The baby values life
though he does not believe in God. It is untrue that you need to believe in God
to hold that life is valuable in itself. If life were really intrinsically
valuable to you, you would not need to bring God into it as justification for
attributing value to it.
If you told people you wanted creativity and wisdom and confidence and freedom
you would be considered prissy. If so, then it is far more prissy to say you
find them and thus the meaning of life in a God of creativity and wisdom and
confidence and freedom.
The idea that God can give meaning and purpose to life is fallacious. God cannot
need anything for he is almighty and all perfect. Meaning and purpose mean that
you see your life as important and valuable. However, God ultimately reserves
being prized for himself and he cannot be used as a ground for moral belief.
Therefore it is only a God you imagine exists and the God you would like to
exist that you get meaning from in your opinion. He is the God that fits your
preconceived ideas of what is good for you. He is a mental idol - in other
words.
Religion says that people are valueless if there is no God. That implies that
you need to believe in God even if there is not one. With belief in God you can
declare that people count and matter. They are intrinsically valuable. If you
need that prop then you do not really value people. If you value people because
of the horrors of not valuing them then you are forcing yourself to value them.
That is not valuing them in reality.
If you consider people important enough to try and believe they have meaning
then you already do value them at least more than you devalue them. Basically
valuing people is a default. It is automatic.
The meaning or meanings of life have nothing to do with faith in God or God.
They are distractions from what really solves the problem and so they hurt. They
do harm. If you want meaning, then keep away from God and religion.