Secular Symposium: Meaning Without God

Last updated on: February 4, 2016 at 3:38 pm by Martin Hughes

Secular Symposium: Meaning Without God 2016-02-04T15:38:35-06:00 Martin Hughes

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Ryan H.

When I strive to improve myself or some facet of the world we all share, it’s really not the same as masturbating to Muppet porn, but rather I’m taking an action that displays a virtue and connects to a world larger than myself.

I find the most meaning in achievement and in furthering either my own interests or the interests of the larger community. Relationships can be meaningful. Experiences can be meaningful. Mistakes can be meaningful. Many things we experience, like that time in line at the DMV, or the time you stubbed your toe, can be meaningless.

I think at root of all of this is the concept of living well. Happiness is a part of living well, but struggling with depression or facing adversity are not equivalent to living poorly and they don’t mean that a person’s life is meaningless. Also, when I strive to improve myself or some facet of the world we all share, it’s really not the same as masturbating to muppet porn, but rather I’m taking an action that displays a virtue and connects to a world larger than myself.

So, to “act virtuously” is to engage in an abstract and widely recognized world of ethics, to “help others” is to engage the larger community, and to “improve myself” is to engage with a larger sense of myself and that world of possibility. I think the fact that meaning is so deeply attributed to a connection with/purpose given by things larger than oneself is part of why many theists connect it so deeply to the character of God, but the value of the world and the things in the world is not dependent upon God’s existence — which brings me to a last point.

I find meaning in knowing/finding my place in the world and doing a good job in filling that role. I find meaning in doing things that are meaningful. I don’t think I decided one day that volunteerism was a meaningful activity, but rather that the meaning was already there. People will tell you that it’s a meaningful thing to do, and the fact that I find meaning instead of it being my own fiction is part of why it is so meaningful, as meaning is there for me and not contingent upon how I feel. I can freely engage in meaningful things and even use them to assure me that I am going where I need to go and doing what I need to do.

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