Recently I’ve been following some discussions between people questioning the theory of evolution, seeking some meaning in life. It’s interesting and hopeful and sad. One problem with refusing to believe in God and/or resisting the spiritual entirely, is that you eventually arrive at nihilism. You discover that life now has no purpose, no meaning, and no morality. There is no where else to go when you logically walk down that path. There is nothing at the end of it but the abyss.
It is extremely challenging to try to explain the meaning of life in that context, in an imaginary world where there is no God. In fact, I can’t do it. We are either meaningless bits of biological goo randomly springing forth for no reason with no purpose, or we aren’t. If we are, then we shouldn’t even be having this conversation, because it’s all totally irrelevant. We should all be out there pillaging and plundering and getting ours while we can. Which does appeal to a certain percentage of the population, but fortunately most of them are too lazy to try it.
Some people are so arrogant and prideful, they can cope with nihilism and manage to suppress the obvious contradiction and paradox there. They do this by endlessly praising themselves for being one of the elite few allegedly able to face reality as it really is. I am braver than all others, I can see the world as it really is and not deny the horrible reality of our meaningless existence. That is a very seductive deception. I’m special. Denial, you’re all in denial. Weak, delusional, y’all need a crutch and I don’t.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at these people. They strike me as kind of funny because they’re like the Mouse that Roared. Good grief, that’s not brave. That’s nothing. You have looked despair in the face and you’re still standing. Big deal. Now, go look at God and come back and tell me how big and bad you are.
A somewhat silly aspect of many humans is that we don’t fear the bad things so much, the despair, the meaninglessness. What we really fear is love, meaning, purpose. Accountability. The lengths we will go to avoid these things is just staggering. Mostly we do it with our heads and our intellect, not our hearts. Our hearts know better.
Accountability is a huge one. If our lives have no meaning or purpose, then we are not accountable for how we have spent them. If our lives do have purpose and meaning, then we have failed epically, failed our own selves, by not recognizing it sooner. If we have purpose and meaning then we have wasted so much time trying to deny it and failing to live up to it.
I can’t provide anyone with the “meaning of life.” I can tell you that I believe we were lovingly and deliberately made by a God that loves us more than we can even imagine. We were placed on a garden designed to meet all our needs, spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, and invited to walk with Him in the cool of the evening. To know Him and love Him. He is our Creator and we are created in His image, sent forth to create too, in smaller ways.
The world is a bit broken and ugly, but we are to squeeze those lemons and toil away, and attempt to produce something pleasing, not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally too.
What people often need in order to feel fulfilled is a deep and personal relationship with God. You simply cannot be a whole person without a spiritual component to your life. We are not just meant to toil away but also to receive all the blessings that life has in store for us. To receive is a form of praise, to rejoice is to pay tribute to our Creator.
Sometimes we desire to have a family, children, to build a legacy to bestow upon them. Those are generally the kind of things that bring us satisfaction. To serve others can help us feel that purpose and meaning in our own lives. Learn all you can, love deeply, receive life and all it has to offer.
Mostly however, we are to make ourselves pleasing to Him, to offer up our lives as a sweet fragrance that pays tribute to the One who made us. At the end of our days, that’s the one thing that goes with us. That is what it means to store up our treasures in heaven.
Bell of Peace said:
It is a new way to see this matter. It is interesting as well. http://www.bellofpeace.org
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Paul said:
Indeed IB. Well said. Just beware of Christian bears, Ha!
As an aside I did a guest post over at https://julienoblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/love-and-gravity-an-essay-by-paul-curran/comment-page-1/#comment-367 that partially deals with this – how does anyone know there is a God? If you have time to drop by I would be honored to hear your opinion..
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insanitybytes22 said:
It’s a great essay, Paul! “Love and gravity,” two incredible forces in the world 😉
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wlloydjr said:
Reblogged this on William Lloyd (Author) and commented:
Another good read by Insanitybytes22!
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for the reblog,much appreciated 😉
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wlloydjr said:
You said it in better words than I could. A reblog was necessary.
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wlloydjr said:
I use to be one of those people that believed there is only an abyss waiting at the end of my life. It was tough to want to do anything else or even try to make something of myself during that time cause I thought that I was just wasting my time. After accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I realized there is something greater than what I was doing at that time. My path was finally revealed and life started making sense again. I would rather have something eternal in my life than wait for something so dark and frightening. If it wasn’t for Him, I would probably be another suicide statistic. Returning to my faith changed my life acc made me realize that someone may not know their meaning to their life now, but it will be revealed somewhere down the road. Be there when it happens and don’t leave early. You never know what you might miss.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amen! Thanks for your comment. Life does indeed have meaning and there are good things coming down the road. The bible reminds us that no matter how tough things get, this too shall pass.
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wlloydjr said:
Yes it does! That’s why it’s the greatest book ever written
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Michelle Styles said:
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at these people.” <– pray for them, don't laugh nor cry. I find no delight nor joy in people without God nor do I feel sorrow when it is themselves keeping them from knowing God. So I pray for them. 🙂
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Aimer Boyz said:
Why do you assume there is only morality through God? You do not need to believe in a patriarchal figurehead to know that hurting someone through word or deed is wrong.
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Michelle Styles said:
This is true. One does not need god to be moral or good. Some would argue it’s easier to be moral knowing god and that punishment awaits if you are not moral. But you do not need god to be or have morals.
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insanitybytes22 said:
People can behave morally based on learned behavior and empathy, but I do believe we really need God in order to truly define what morality truly is. People are very subjective with our thinking and we tend to define morality through our own perspective and experiences.
Something like murder for instance, thou shall not murder, sounds pretty simply on the surface and yet look at all the red tape and bureaucracy we try to attach to that one. Thou shall not murder….except in times of war, self defense, accidental manslaughter, abortion, state sanctioned executions, crimes of passion……and so it goes. Then we proceed to debate the actual scriptural intent of that word murder, did the original word refer to “killing” or “murder?” Because “murder” has an entirely different meaning than killing. Murder reveals some kind of malevolent intent. But what is truly malevolent? In our own legal system we’ve got dozens of laws attempting to define that one and then each case is different and subjective,which is why we have lawyers and juries. Then we have people we excuse from the very act of murder itself due to their obvious incompetence and assorted mental issues. The human definitions of incompetent however, vary from country to country.
So there you go, morality in the hands of humans can fall down so many rabbit holes it becomes nearly unrecognizable. Morality is also heavily influenced by culture, environment, the behavior of others.
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Aimer Boyz said:
Ah, but God does not define what morality is, we interpret ancient texts and decide what we think God’s definition of morality is or else “Thou Shall Not Murder” would be a very simple thing.
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brianbalke said:
After a long walk through secular philosophy, I concluded that “morality is found in any system of values that expands the domain in which love is expressed.” Eventually, I made the connection drawn by the Apostle John: “God = Love.”
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Aimer Boyz said:
Nice definition of morality 🙂
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brianbalke said:
I value your contribution here very much. In resolving this myself, the issue of original sin was significant. My sense is that God found us, the winners of the Darwinian competition, to have enormous potential that was stunted by biological programming. We were taken under his wing to serve in healing the world of the wasteful side-effects of the brutal Darwinian competition.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you. I perceive it much the same myself, we are often stunted by biological programming or perhaps by our own rebellion and deceptions, but God knows our potential.
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brianbalke said:
I won’t dwell on details, but it’s been a hard week, and you just let some sunshine into it for me. Thanks.
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