Is God required for a ‘meaningful life’?
Stephen Law continues to collect your feedback on his upcoming book on humanism.
According to some, questions about the meaning of life are inextricably bound up with questions about God and religion. Without God, it is suggested, humanity amounts to little more than a dirty smudge on a ball of rock lost in an incomprehensively vast universe that will eventually bare no trace of us having ever existed, and which will itself collapse into nothingness. So why bother getting out of bed in the morning? If there is a God, on the other hand, then we inhabit a universe made for us, by a God who loves us, and who has given us a divine purpose. That fills our lives meaning.
But is God, or religious belief, really a necessary condition of our leading meaningful lives? And how is the existence of God supposed to make our lives meaningful? If meaningful lives are possible whether or not there is a God, what makes for a meaningful existence? This chapter examines these and related questions.
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2010/01/meaning-of-life-for-comments-about-5k.html
We all need some sort of crutch to get through life and, for many people, that crutch is their god. It’s not so much that god provides meaning, but more that god provides certainty, a ‘comfort’ that life cannot guarantee. God does not make life meaningful, but provides answers for those troublesome times in life over which we have no control (like illness, death, and being at the wrong place at the wrong time). This ‘trust’ in god to take care of matters we have no control over then leaves people free to get on and do what we have evolved to do, to live. God may also provide a justification for a course of action which people chose to take for their own personal reasons (for example, seeking to escape the world, political ambition, or vent their anger), which may be mistaken by the naive as providing ‘meaning’. But this is just self-delusion.
As for what makes for a meaningful existence, I believe there is no universal truth. Each one of us has to find our own. As for me, I am amazed that I exist at all in this truly wondrous world. That makes me feel so privileged, and ensures I make the most of the years granted to me. I have never understood the need for a god to validate my existence, and have felt curious about the need of those that do. Power to your book and I hope you find the answers you are looking for.