Burrattino: 2011

My purpose in life isn't completely clear to me. I admit it...and I doubt that anyone else completely understands their purpose either. I suspect the idea of purpose that we've each individually embraced only serves to move us forward as a whole. Meaning, for the religious "hope" is an incentive scenario and an atheist's "fear" or deadline motivator. Both serve to move those individuals forward through life efficiently producing, consuming, and propagating the species as a whole when added to rest of the individuals that believe they are working on an independent level. So the question from there moves to; what is our role as human beings as a whole? I think that question would best be answered by asking what changes would occur if human beings were removed from the big picture.

Assuming some "sub-purpose" in lieu of understanding our true purpose and presuming enlightenment is delusional. Everyone serves their true purpose (whatever it may be and whether they choose to or not) and chase the carrot until they are no longer a physical asset to the larger picture and then they are recycled into it. Each persons mind, from the moron to the superintellect, has got to have a level of satisfaction or a promise of satisfaction as a motivator and we achieve this satisfaction at different levels.

The best way to describe how I myself view life is probably naturalism with passive nihilism. I lean towards the idea that religion is a product of the evolved sentient mind. But I also add to that, that it is does not matter whether or not individual religious and philosophic beliefs are substantiated because they serve the same basic evolutionary purpose. I think that religion being an evolutionary product serves an undeniable role in our willingness to fulfill our biological role and in its absence some other philosophy or world view would take its place to fulfill that role. That role unfulfilled would indicate a defective human being. So even if atheists and naturalists were disprove religion or religion were to be wiped out, we basically will still be in the same spot. Its not about religious deception because it doesn't matter one way or the other whether one believes in God or relies on empirical evidence to advance himself forward through life, either way you will still fulfill your function, which is purely biological and unstoppable, constantly moving forward. So contempt for religion is pitiful in the same way as if we were to have contempt towards any other evolutionary adaptation.

I guess that if any species became sentient it would create its own religion and philosophies in a very short period of time. These beliefs don't have to be accurate or true, they simply have to serve to occupy and motivate the species to keep species moving forward in our role.

Religion and philosophy divide us and make us cull and thin our numbers through conflict so it serves the purpose of population control which is a necessity in any species and at the same time it drives us forward by binding huge groups together with a common agenda which aids in survival and effeciency the whole. While individualism and ego inside the group make it impossible to discern truth and validity within the group.

We are here. There is a reason we are here. I don't believe anyone acknowledges or recognizes the reason. I'm not sure anyone including myself, is looking in the right place. Also, I'm not sure that if we discovered our true purpose that we would be content with it.

The next logical question for both the religious and the naturalists is "What next"? So you achieved enlightenment, heaven, complete understanding of the natural world so..."What next?" The answer is "nothing next". Either way you have been given the satisfaction needed to fulfill your biological obligation to the world and that is what matters. This giant machine that we lubricate will promise us anything (answers, salvation, eternity, superiority, love) to keep us moving forward to fulfill our biological purpose.

Again I ask, if we knew our true purpose, would we be satisfied with it? Nihilism in a sense reveals our true purpose and as expected it is unsatisfactory. I have a tendency to interpret nihilism as meaning that eveything has no meaning in the terms that we generally want it to. We as a whole want it all to be about us but I don't think it is. We tend to want ourselves, our actions, our families and legacies, to be the "end all be all" of all existence; and for all of exisitence to cater to our self importance and our idea of a having "higher" purpose. Nihilism only shoots itself in the foot when it has a complaint either against meaninglessness (in the form of despair) or embraces a higher purpose or assuming a superior position (a truer understanding of the universe; the equivalent of a mayfly gaining sentience and assuming higher purpose and higher value over the rest of the mayfly population).

Probably the best mark to aim for should be contentment with the "None of this means anything in reality, but it means something to me because its all I've got and all I know, so I am going to do my best to appreciate and enjoy it." mentality. The first step to contentment...acceptance.

Rejection of one sort of motivator (religion) for another (atheism) is simply falling into a different failsafe. Neither is superior to the other. They just appeal to differently minded and differently egoed individuals. There is really no difference between the cadaver of a Christian or atheist, or in the carbon dioxide they breathed out, or in the food they consume. Our bodies live in the big picture with the universe, and our minds live in the small picture with religion, philosophy, hopes, and desire for satisfaction and there is no way around it. There is a strong partition between those two places. I guess that our role as whole is probably not a grand one and we would not be satisfied with life if we completely understood our true role/purpose for existence. Philosophy and religion are most likely evololutionary defense mechanisms and motivators for higher intellegence sentient animals and neither would be superior as they both serve that same purpose just as red and blue are both colors neither are superior.

That isn't to say we shouldn't chose our own path, or decide on our own how we wish to live our lives. We actually have no other choice. We will simply occupy our years with our seemingly important self given tasks and purpose until our bodies deteriorate. The world would keep on turning even if every religious person in the world died or if every atheist on the planet died. So it is just delusional for either party to believe that they are on the more meaningful path. So my question to an atheist would be; Assuming all of the religious convert to atheism, what then? What happens then? Forge ahead with no restricitons on science and development of the "true" nature of humanity? Nope. The answer is that everyone divides into factions and devise new conflicts based on the nuances of atheism, ethics, and morality. It would be the same dynamic just painted a different color.

As far as despair in the face of a godless world is concerned, I do experience despair and dread. Not due to the attempted social engineering by the religious though. I simply can't comprehend not existing except in the most abstract manner of thinking thinking about it. Existence is all I know and once I can wrap my mind around the idea of not existing, I'll be fine.