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> Your brain is not for thinking. Everything that it conjures, from thoughts to emotions to dreams, is in the service of body budgeting. This perspective, adopt

> Your brain is not for thinking. Everything that it conjures, from thoughts to emotions to dreams, is in the service of body budgeting. This perspective, adopted judiciously, can be a source of resilience in challenging times. No. This is such a dreadful, and terrible and empty perspective that disembowels life of deeper meaning and of true purpose. It’s another one of those sad perspectives that tells people that they are nothing but automatons, that their lives are fundamentally meaningless, and that they are a product of “accident or chance”. It’s a highly depressing, and a dark and empty way of looking at life. (For full disclosure, I’m a Christian and believe in God and in a higher purpose for all that exists in this universe.)

trevyn 6y ago
>their lives are fundamentally meaningless Yes. >they are a product of “accident or chance” Yes. >they are but MeetMe automatons Hahahahahah no, only if they choose to be. Deeply understanding the implications of points 1 and 2 give you the freedom to not put up with bullshit, and can lead to, dare I say it, salvation? Where science and religion merge into a coherent whole is the true kingdom of heaven.
- ElectronShak 6y ago
  Christianity, in the mind of God, is NOT religion. Read the New Testament.
  - trevyn 6y ago
    I'm curious about what you're saying, but I do not currently have the time budget to read the New Testament. Could you explain?
    - winter_blue 6y ago
      I think he’s alluding to thaw idea where Christians call a Christianity a relationship with God (and not a religion). In my opinion though, the relationship nature of Christianity holds up well both in the Old Testament and New Testament.
      - ElectronShak 6y ago
        True, although I do think that in the Old Testament, this relationship was based on works, and on what you did to fulfil and not break the law. In the New Testament, this relationship is based on Grace, the free gift of God.
        logical_proof 6y ago
        But Abrahams righteousness was accounted to him by faith and not by works. The entire premise of the book of Hebrews is centered around the idea that Gods covenant with man has always been by grace. In the Old Testament looking forward to the promised Messiah from Genesis and in the New Testament looking at and back to the manifested and risen Christ.
        ElectronShak 6y ago
        True, great point! thanks. Also key to note, Abraham was, before the law was given. Paul in the book of Romans, does explain that by considering Abraham the father of the Faith or Forefather, the point is missed when we forget that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works.
    - ElectronShak 6y ago
      Religion fundamentally gives you a set of rules that you must follow to achieve acceptance, or the ultimate goal of a particular "religion", usually getting to their definition of "heaven", after life on earth. The law of Moses in the Old Testament for the Jews was such that if you broke one law, you broke all, essentially making it impossible for anyone to achieve salvation by following the law or by working for it. The Gentiles (non Jews) who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it Enter New Testament: Jesus Christ of Nazareth, comes not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it, such that every man (being) receives the FREE gift of salvation, and eternal life. Now this life bears good fruit in all that believe.
      - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
        > Enter New Testament: Jesus Christ of Nazareth, comes not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it, such that every man (being) receives the FREE gift of salvation, and eternal life. The obvious question is: why? Why was it ever necessary, if God is omnipotent? Why was it so late, so that people living earlier had no chance? And so on. The Gnostics, Marcions and so on came up with another interesting idea: there were two Gods, one from the Old Testament, and another from the New Testament. The former was the creator but wasn't really caring for his creation. The latter was the God of Love and he sent his son in order to save mankind - Jesus was a kind of ransom paid to the former. This theory has slightly more sense than the one presented in mainstream Christianity.
        ElectronShak 6y ago
        > The obvious question is: why? Why was it ever necessary, if God is omnipotent? To answer this, God is a just God. If the penalty of sin is death, then surely someone had to die to pay the price. God could have just swept all mankind's sins under the rag, and acted like nothing ever happened. But such would not be considered integrity or righteousness on God's part. Also if by one man (Adam), sin came into the world, and all men were considered sinners, then justly, by one man (Jesus Christ)'s death and resurrection, the price was fully paid, all men (mankind) can now freely claim the gift of righteousness. >Why was it so late, so that people living earlier had no chance? Well just like you stated, God is omnipotent, and not limited by time and space. It's never late or early in God's eyes. We would not explicitly say they had no chance, then or now, goes back to God being Just.
    - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
      There is a difference between spirituality and religion. Spirituality is a system built up inside every individual that fills their life with meaning and expands their consciousness. The common spiritual texts, including the new testament are a good tool to build up this spirituality, inside each particular individual, that works for a large number of people. It has been selected by the group consciousness as a particularly good tool, good aid in helping people this way. It is not the only tool, and for a particular individual might not even be the best one, but it is a good one that has stood the test of time. The religion on the other hand usually refers to the outside structure that is often built on top of a spiritual tradition/text. It includes structural elements like the network of churches, some additional practices, political movements, attempts to control population, hierarchy systems between priests, reputation etc. It is this additional structure that much more often gets corrupted by the natural human corruptive forces, just like governments, corporations or large open source frameworks do. When people get power, they sometimes corrupt, and they do it with whatever the underlying structure was.
  - loopz 6y ago
    The New and Old and Everything and Nothing is parts of God, not constrained by any particular part! Parts are forever apart.
- loopz 6y ago
  The best path is The Middle Path, where one cherish the whole spectrum of life! There are different periods for different focus as well.
terryf 6y ago
The way I've been thinking about thing is that - yes, life is (relatively) short and meaningless and there is no point or purpose to the universe, from an outside viewpoint (this is important). However, a deep understanding of that gives you freedom. Because if everything is objectively meaningless, then just by virtue of finding something interesting, you have just given that something MORE meaning than everything else. Thus, whatever you find interesting is almost infinitely more meaningful than anything else. That's pretty cool - your choice changes the entire universe, for you. If you manage to be persistent enough, then for others as well. Kind of makes you all-powerful ;)
nathias 6y ago
If you can't enjoy a life without a deeper meaning, maybe you just don't value life enough ...
PaulRobinson 6y ago
Realising that you are a product of accident or chance is not depressing or a dark and empty way of life. It's quite incredible. You are born out of stardust, your life in its beginning is indeed free of any deeper meaning and true purpose. You are a brain fighting for survival, against the monstrous odds. What you now choose to do with that shell is up to you. You can train that brain, you can choose habits that are good or bad, and you can decide how to apply the bag of random accident that is you and your life to deliver on a purpose. You may have certain privileges over others to help you on your way - richer family, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. can all make certain doors open or shut for you - but your meaningless life, born with no purpose, is yours to shape as you see fit. You don't need God to find purpose. In fact, defining your life as being in service to a deity narrows your potential. You might be happy with that, and I won't try and convince you otherwise. But your stance that not grabbing life for what it is and needing to believe in God to give yourself a sense of meaning and purpose - that's the dark and depressing version of the story for many of us.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Realising that you are a product of accident or chance is not depressing or a dark and empty way of life. It's quite incredible. You are born out of stardust, your life in its beginning is indeed free of any deeper meaning and true purpose. You are a brain fighting for survival, against the monstrous odds. I see this argument used, but it always feels forced to me, trying to make lemonade from the lemons given. Or stardust, in this case. I don't think it's necessarily "depressing", but neither it's "incredible". It is what it is. >You may have certain privileges over others to help you on your way - richer family, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. can all make certain doors open or shut for you - but your meaningless life, born with no purpose, is yours to shape as you see fit. Well, in this version, you still age, decline, and die forever anyway, so one can argue there's no much meaning into this "shaping". Temporary struggle (and often hard struggle) for no great reward, just ultimate old age and death.
- trevyn 6y ago
  A touch that I think would help this argument: It was evolutionarily beneficial for our brains to demand a sense of purpose or higher meaning, which explains why we consider these questions important, which explains why we have generated fantastical narratives to fulfill these desires for purpose/meaning, and continue to use these narratives even after we have created new narratives that have better predictive power — because we haven’t explained the feeling in a way that resonates. I mean, maybe it was just important for the brain to have a model of threats. Once we created models of obvious threats, the human capacity for abstract thinking generated abstract super-threats and then began to model such potential threats in the manner to which it was accustomed — via personification in the beginning, and then mathematically. Really, physics replaces God as the dominant belief system because physics is scarier than God.
xornox 6y ago
The truth can not be defined based on how pleasant the theory is.
FeepingCreature 6y ago
I'm not a Christian, and I generally disagree that mechanistic approaches deprive the life of meaning, but I have to say that "Your brain is not for thinking" is a remarkable level of contrariness rarely attained even on the internet, and also of course complete hogwash.
coldtea 6y ago
>This is such a dreadful, and terrible and empty perspective that disembowels life of deeper meaning and of true purpose. That would be irrelevant if it was also true. The universe doesn't guarantee/care for meaning and/or true purpose.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  You realize that's just your opinion, right? It's a value statement, it's not reflective of any falsifiable (even in theory) truth?
  - coldtea 6y ago
    If you believe in theories and falsifiliability, then you have even less reason to doubt "just my opinion" and think that the universe "cares for meaning/purpose". What exactly falsifiable indications do you have of that?
    - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
      > If you believe in theories and falsifiliability I don't know why you would phrase it that way. What does "believe in" mean? That they are a tool that can be used for some purposes? Yes sure. That they are the only tool that has any meaning, the only one that matters, or even the one that produces most truth? In that case - no, not even close. I wrote that your original statement is more of an opinion/spiritual statement than a falsifiable scientific statement. Then by extension and simple logic, of course the exact opposite of your statement (does care vs does not care) is also obviously an opinion/spiritual statement. As such, it of course doesn't neither have falsifiable indications. How could it be any other way? It just didn't sound like you realize that what you wrote is an opinion, and not some hard-cut proved and obvious statement, so I was wondering whether you realize it? Or do you have an illusion that you have provable grounds for it?
      - coldtea 6y ago
        >I don't know why you would phrase it that way. What does "believe in" mean? It's just a casual way to say "If you're all for theories and falsifiliability". (It's also pedantically correct. In the end everything comes down to believing it). >I wrote that your original statement is more of an opinion/spiritual statement than a falsifiable scientific statement. It's also empirically consistent. The observed universe is mostly gas, rock, nuclear reactors we call stars, and so on. Where are the proofs that it has a "purpose" or "meaning"? >It just didn't sound like you realize that what you wrote is an opinion, and not some hard-cut proved and obvious statement, so I was wondering whether you realize it? Or do you have an illusion that you have provable grounds for it? No, I have the certainty that it's the only empirically matching to observables conclusion, and that it's the less extraordinary claim (and the simplest one). It's any further claims that need to bring proof. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, Occam's razor, and all that.
thinkingemote 6y ago
To be charitable for and against: Don't worry winter_blue. Your soul is not your brain! Life begins for us when we don't have brains after all. God also exists outside our brains and bodies. God has given our souls tools (brain, body) which work in marvellous ways. What motivates you and gives you meaning isn't something that is conjured up by your brain to just to budget energy in the body. For those who don't believe in souls: Your heart is not your brain. Love is not your brain. What you feel deep down to be right, good and true is our heart. What motivates you and gives you meaning isn't something that is conjured up by your brain just to budget energy in the body. To those who don't believe in (one or more of:) heart, soul, love, meaning, motivation, or anything higher: Assuming your thoughts are that humans are a bio-robot, the system itself creates meaning and motivation. The system, as if in a simulation, creates these sub-systems which for all intents and purposes are designed to be as if they are real. These sub systems are present in nature also to a lesser (or at least more opaque) extent. If you believe that X is not real because your body, brain and the robot you are in, simulates X, then X is at the very least functionally real if not fundamentally. Thus, similar to the question about what we should do if we were in a simulation, it's probably going to be best to go along with the ride.
dandanua 6y ago
Believing in that you were born already with a purpose means that you're just a servant of another entity. Sometimes we call servants as bots, or, "automatons". I'm sorry to break your feelings, but your belief can't survive the logical analysis, even if we accept the existence of higher conscious entities. It's more reasonable to believe that we are free to pick a purpose.
username90 6y ago
That isn't really a problem, that is how most in Scandinavia thinks about it, and we are among the happiest places on earth. See this article for example, it is based on the book "Society Without God". > Social conformity or not, Mr. Zuckerman was deeply impressed with the matter-of-fact way in which many of his interviewees spoke of death, without fear or anxiety, and their notable lack of existential searching for any ultimate meaning of life. > A long list of thinkers, both believers and nonbelievers, have posited something like an innate religious instinct. Confronted by the mystery of death or the puzzle of life’s ultimate meaning, humans are said to be hard-wired to turn to religion or something like it. Based on his experience in Scandinavia, Mr. Zuckerman disagrees. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/us/28beliefs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/us/28beliefs.html
gerbilly 6y ago
> disembowels life of deeper meaning and of true purpose. Meaning isn't out there to be found in the universe, it is a purely human concept. We can't find meaning, we must create it. If this article prevents you from doing that, then your sense of meaning may need shoring up.

trevyn 6y ago

>their lives are fundamentally meaningless Yes. >they are a product of “accident or chance” Yes. >they are but MeetMe automatons Hahahahahah no, only if they choose to be. Deeply understanding the implications of points 1 and 2 give you the freedom to not put up with bullshit, and can lead to, dare I say it, salvation? Where science and religion merge into a coherent whole is the true kingdom of heaven.

ElectronShak 6y ago
Christianity, in the mind of God, is NOT religion. Read the New Testament.
- trevyn 6y ago
  I'm curious about what you're saying, but I do not currently have the time budget to read the New Testament. Could you explain?
  - winter_blue 6y ago
    I think he’s alluding to thaw idea where Christians call a Christianity a relationship with God (and not a religion). In my opinion though, the relationship nature of Christianity holds up well both in the Old Testament and New Testament.
    - ElectronShak 6y ago
      True, although I do think that in the Old Testament, this relationship was based on works, and on what you did to fulfil and not break the law. In the New Testament, this relationship is based on Grace, the free gift of God.
      - logical_proof 6y ago
        But Abrahams righteousness was accounted to him by faith and not by works. The entire premise of the book of Hebrews is centered around the idea that Gods covenant with man has always been by grace. In the Old Testament looking forward to the promised Messiah from Genesis and in the New Testament looking at and back to the manifested and risen Christ.
        ElectronShak 6y ago
        True, great point! thanks. Also key to note, Abraham was, before the law was given. Paul in the book of Romans, does explain that by considering Abraham the father of the Faith or Forefather, the point is missed when we forget that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works.
  - ElectronShak 6y ago
    Religion fundamentally gives you a set of rules that you must follow to achieve acceptance, or the ultimate goal of a particular "religion", usually getting to their definition of "heaven", after life on earth. The law of Moses in the Old Testament for the Jews was such that if you broke one law, you broke all, essentially making it impossible for anyone to achieve salvation by following the law or by working for it. The Gentiles (non Jews) who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it Enter New Testament: Jesus Christ of Nazareth, comes not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it, such that every man (being) receives the FREE gift of salvation, and eternal life. Now this life bears good fruit in all that believe.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
      > Enter New Testament: Jesus Christ of Nazareth, comes not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it, such that every man (being) receives the FREE gift of salvation, and eternal life. The obvious question is: why? Why was it ever necessary, if God is omnipotent? Why was it so late, so that people living earlier had no chance? And so on. The Gnostics, Marcions and so on came up with another interesting idea: there were two Gods, one from the Old Testament, and another from the New Testament. The former was the creator but wasn't really caring for his creation. The latter was the God of Love and he sent his son in order to save mankind - Jesus was a kind of ransom paid to the former. This theory has slightly more sense than the one presented in mainstream Christianity.
      - ElectronShak 6y ago
        > The obvious question is: why? Why was it ever necessary, if God is omnipotent? To answer this, God is a just God. If the penalty of sin is death, then surely someone had to die to pay the price. God could have just swept all mankind's sins under the rag, and acted like nothing ever happened. But such would not be considered integrity or righteousness on God's part. Also if by one man (Adam), sin came into the world, and all men were considered sinners, then justly, by one man (Jesus Christ)'s death and resurrection, the price was fully paid, all men (mankind) can now freely claim the gift of righteousness. >Why was it so late, so that people living earlier had no chance? Well just like you stated, God is omnipotent, and not limited by time and space. It's never late or early in God's eyes. We would not explicitly say they had no chance, then or now, goes back to God being Just.
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    There is a difference between spirituality and religion. Spirituality is a system built up inside every individual that fills their life with meaning and expands their consciousness. The common spiritual texts, including the new testament are a good tool to build up this spirituality, inside each particular individual, that works for a large number of people. It has been selected by the group consciousness as a particularly good tool, good aid in helping people this way. It is not the only tool, and for a particular individual might not even be the best one, but it is a good one that has stood the test of time. The religion on the other hand usually refers to the outside structure that is often built on top of a spiritual tradition/text. It includes structural elements like the network of churches, some additional practices, political movements, attempts to control population, hierarchy systems between priests, reputation etc. It is this additional structure that much more often gets corrupted by the natural human corruptive forces, just like governments, corporations or large open source frameworks do. When people get power, they sometimes corrupt, and they do it with whatever the underlying structure was.
- loopz 6y ago
  The New and Old and Everything and Nothing is parts of God, not constrained by any particular part! Parts are forever apart.
loopz 6y ago
The best path is The Middle Path, where one cherish the whole spectrum of life! There are different periods for different focus as well.

terryf 6y ago

The way I've been thinking about thing is that - yes, life is (relatively) short and meaningless and there is no point or purpose to the universe, from an outside viewpoint (this is important). However, a deep understanding of that gives you freedom. Because if everything is objectively meaningless, then just by virtue of finding something interesting, you have just given that something MORE meaning than everything else. Thus, whatever you find interesting is almost infinitely more meaningful than anything else. That's pretty cool - your choice changes the entire universe, for you. If you manage to be persistent enough, then for others as well. Kind of makes you all-powerful ;)

nathias 6y ago

If you can't enjoy a life without a deeper meaning, maybe you just don't value life enough ...

PaulRobinson 6y ago

Realising that you are a product of accident or chance is not depressing or a dark and empty way of life. It's quite incredible. You are born out of stardust, your life in its beginning is indeed free of any deeper meaning and true purpose. You are a brain fighting for survival, against the monstrous odds. What you now choose to do with that shell is up to you. You can train that brain, you can choose habits that are good or bad, and you can decide how to apply the bag of random accident that is you and your life to deliver on a purpose. You may have certain privileges over others to help you on your way - richer family, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. can all make certain doors open or shut for you - but your meaningless life, born with no purpose, is yours to shape as you see fit. You don't need God to find purpose. In fact, defining your life as being in service to a deity narrows your potential. You might be happy with that, and I won't try and convince you otherwise. But your stance that not grabbing life for what it is and needing to believe in God to give yourself a sense of meaning and purpose - that's the dark and depressing version of the story for many of us.

coldtea 6y ago
>Realising that you are a product of accident or chance is not depressing or a dark and empty way of life. It's quite incredible. You are born out of stardust, your life in its beginning is indeed free of any deeper meaning and true purpose. You are a brain fighting for survival, against the monstrous odds. I see this argument used, but it always feels forced to me, trying to make lemonade from the lemons given. Or stardust, in this case. I don't think it's necessarily "depressing", but neither it's "incredible". It is what it is. >You may have certain privileges over others to help you on your way - richer family, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. can all make certain doors open or shut for you - but your meaningless life, born with no purpose, is yours to shape as you see fit. Well, in this version, you still age, decline, and die forever anyway, so one can argue there's no much meaning into this "shaping". Temporary struggle (and often hard struggle) for no great reward, just ultimate old age and death.
trevyn 6y ago
A touch that I think would help this argument: It was evolutionarily beneficial for our brains to demand a sense of purpose or higher meaning, which explains why we consider these questions important, which explains why we have generated fantastical narratives to fulfill these desires for purpose/meaning, and continue to use these narratives even after we have created new narratives that have better predictive power — because we haven’t explained the feeling in a way that resonates. I mean, maybe it was just important for the brain to have a model of threats. Once we created models of obvious threats, the human capacity for abstract thinking generated abstract super-threats and then began to model such potential threats in the manner to which it was accustomed — via personification in the beginning, and then mathematically. Really, physics replaces God as the dominant belief system because physics is scarier than God.

xornox 6y ago

The truth can not be defined based on how pleasant the theory is.

FeepingCreature 6y ago

I'm not a Christian, and I generally disagree that mechanistic approaches deprive the life of meaning, but I have to say that "Your brain is not for thinking" is a remarkable level of contrariness rarely attained even on the internet, and also of course complete hogwash.

coldtea 6y ago

>This is such a dreadful, and terrible and empty perspective that disembowels life of deeper meaning and of true purpose. That would be irrelevant if it was also true. The universe doesn't guarantee/care for meaning and/or true purpose.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
You realize that's just your opinion, right? It's a value statement, it's not reflective of any falsifiable (even in theory) truth?
- coldtea 6y ago
  If you believe in theories and falsifiliability, then you have even less reason to doubt "just my opinion" and think that the universe "cares for meaning/purpose". What exactly falsifiable indications do you have of that?
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    > If you believe in theories and falsifiliability I don't know why you would phrase it that way. What does "believe in" mean? That they are a tool that can be used for some purposes? Yes sure. That they are the only tool that has any meaning, the only one that matters, or even the one that produces most truth? In that case - no, not even close. I wrote that your original statement is more of an opinion/spiritual statement than a falsifiable scientific statement. Then by extension and simple logic, of course the exact opposite of your statement (does care vs does not care) is also obviously an opinion/spiritual statement. As such, it of course doesn't neither have falsifiable indications. How could it be any other way? It just didn't sound like you realize that what you wrote is an opinion, and not some hard-cut proved and obvious statement, so I was wondering whether you realize it? Or do you have an illusion that you have provable grounds for it?
    - coldtea 6y ago
      >I don't know why you would phrase it that way. What does "believe in" mean? It's just a casual way to say "If you're all for theories and falsifiliability". (It's also pedantically correct. In the end everything comes down to believing it). >I wrote that your original statement is more of an opinion/spiritual statement than a falsifiable scientific statement. It's also empirically consistent. The observed universe is mostly gas, rock, nuclear reactors we call stars, and so on. Where are the proofs that it has a "purpose" or "meaning"? >It just didn't sound like you realize that what you wrote is an opinion, and not some hard-cut proved and obvious statement, so I was wondering whether you realize it? Or do you have an illusion that you have provable grounds for it? No, I have the certainty that it's the only empirically matching to observables conclusion, and that it's the less extraordinary claim (and the simplest one). It's any further claims that need to bring proof. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, Occam's razor, and all that.

thinkingemote 6y ago

To be charitable for and against: Don't worry winter_blue. Your soul is not your brain! Life begins for us when we don't have brains after all. God also exists outside our brains and bodies. God has given our souls tools (brain, body) which work in marvellous ways. What motivates you and gives you meaning isn't something that is conjured up by your brain to just to budget energy in the body. For those who don't believe in souls: Your heart is not your brain. Love is not your brain. What you feel deep down to be right, good and true is our heart. What motivates you and gives you meaning isn't something that is conjured up by your brain just to budget energy in the body. To those who don't believe in (one or more of:) heart, soul, love, meaning, motivation, or anything higher: Assuming your thoughts are that humans are a bio-robot, the system itself creates meaning and motivation. The system, as if in a simulation, creates these sub-systems which for all intents and purposes are designed to be as if they are real. These sub systems are present in nature also to a lesser (or at least more opaque) extent. If you believe that X is not real because your body, brain and the robot you are in, simulates X, then X is at the very least functionally real if not fundamentally. Thus, similar to the question about what we should do if we were in a simulation, it's probably going to be best to go along with the ride.

dandanua 6y ago

Believing in that you were born already with a purpose means that you're just a servant of another entity. Sometimes we call servants as bots, or, "automatons". I'm sorry to break your feelings, but your belief can't survive the logical analysis, even if we accept the existence of higher conscious entities. It's more reasonable to believe that we are free to pick a purpose.

username90 6y ago

That isn't really a problem, that is how most in Scandinavia thinks about it, and we are among the happiest places on earth. See this article for example, it is based on the book "Society Without God". > Social conformity or not, Mr. Zuckerman was deeply impressed with the matter-of-fact way in which many of his interviewees spoke of death, without fear or anxiety, and their notable lack of existential searching for any ultimate meaning of life. > A long list of thinkers, both believers and nonbelievers, have posited something like an innate religious instinct. Confronted by the mystery of death or the puzzle of life’s ultimate meaning, humans are said to be hard-wired to turn to religion or something like it. Based on his experience in Scandinavia, Mr. Zuckerman disagrees. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/us/28beliefs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/us/28beliefs.html

gerbilly 6y ago

> disembowels life of deeper meaning and of true purpose. Meaning isn't out there to be found in the universe, it is a purely human concept. We can't find meaning, we must create it. If this article prevents you from doing that, then your sense of meaning may need shoring up.