You asked me the question, and I answered it sincerely, now might you do the same (not implying that you would speak insincerely!)
What do you understand about an offer of infinite joy?
Your comment is interesting. Most Christians think there is some kind of purpose in life. As your opinion differs, I am interested to know why? Do you have a justification you can tell or is it just a gut feeling?
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Excellent. There would be meaning to existence in God, but that would not necessarily translate to any meaning to the vicissitudes of life. In fact it necessarily doesnāt. There is no connection whatsoever to God grounding existence and how humbly instantiated nature autonomously unfolds. The significance of life is transcendent in God and therefore the proof or even the belief of that should make us better people.
It doesnāt much.
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Good question. I guess I am still organizing the pieces of the puzzle in my mind to get to more accurate questions.
I think that our purpose is related to the question: why did the Creator make the universe, including life?
Did He have a purpose for life? It could be that He just liked to make a universe and as a side effect, life emerged. I do not believe it. If the Creator created our universe with life, then life very likely has a purpose.
My life experience suggests that God is in a relationship with humans and at least occasionally, answers to prayers. This indicates that God is interested in humans and their life. The gospel about Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for our salvation speaks even stronger about the interest. Would He be as interested if He did not have a purpose in His mind for humans?
God having a purpose for humans does not necessarily mean that the life of every human has a purpose. I think that every human is valuable and there is at least potentially a purpose for each of us. What I am unsure about is whether the purpose is āautomaticā or is it just a potential in us?
It is possible that our potential may be lost or happen only partly without cooperation (synergy) between us and God.
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And yet it is not only possible to turn productivity into an idol, but even when done in the service of others.
Itās easy for the vast majority of people to agree on the goodness of the second commandment, and even that can become a curse if the first is neglected.
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The underlying thought is shockingly nihilistic, isnāt it? And then topped with the view that out of all humanity, only the tiny segment, to which I belong, possesses or experiences meaning demonstrates a hopeless ignorance of other peopleās lives ā at best.
I think your points about biology and psychology make a lot of sense.
Mitchell, could you attempt to describe what you mean by āmeaningā?
And also, how do the biological and psychologoical features you mentioned connect to our sense of meaning (as you describe it)?
Thanks for joining in.
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Thanks for the topic and the questions. Naturally I need to work them over a little to make them my own but Iāll put answering them off until after second sleep
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I agree that the word āproductiveā is dangerous. The demand to earn our place in our society, or at least to not be a burden, may lead even to nazi-type extreme solutions but more often, to neglect of those who are not productive in the society.
I wonder what kind of comments Jesus would say about our way to treat the poor and disabled in the society. My guess is that he would not be kind in his words. I am not saying that things have to be organized in a particular way, what I am saying is that the poor and disabled are not always treated according to the value they have as equal humans. One reason is probably that western societies serve a creedy god called money or wealth. Tax rates are more important than humans. Writing this may irritate some but I think that sometimes there is a need to speak truth, even when it is not popular.
Disclaimer: as a non-US person I do not vote or support any of the political parties in the US. My comment is not meant as political, it is just an observation of the money-worshiping culture in the western societies, including the attitudes of many regular participants in various churches.
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The NT is perfectly clear that both economic fairness and desert are valuable ends (2 Corinthians 8:14 and 2 Thessalonians 3:10). How these two interrelate and the dilemma they pose for a single theory makes for a fantastic discussion.
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That was a good addition to my comment. I was not thinking of those who are not willing to work (2 Thessalonians 3:10), my comment was about those disabled, having various health problems, who are unemployed against their own will or get so low salary that they cannot support their family with it (poor people).
This would be an interesting side track but I am not sure if it is a suitable topic for this forum.
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Iām very aware that my opinion differs greatly here from stereotypical Christian view, but I was trying to speak as broadly as possible, not just about fellow Christians, as in āwhatās general purpose of existenceā rather than purpose given to us by religion, because not everyone is religious, therefore would those who donāt believe not have any purpose but we do? I see danger with this kind of thinking.
If there was a purpose then it would apply to everyone, infact if humanity didnāt exist at all thenā¦it would probably be better for the planet.
Sure, if anyone believes they have a purpose, God given or not, Iām not going to tell them they donāt. Perhaps they do. But once itās accomplishedā¦back to no purpose.
And on a related noteā¦
I feel thereās too much pressure, especially in the western culture, to have purpose and meaning etc.
The fact that weāre alive is amazing in itself.
Staying alive is a task in itself.
Actually being successful and staying alive at the same time is no mean feat.
But that isnāt enough for some, there has to be some intrinsic meaning/purpose, and some people go to different lengths to find it, and if we donāt find it then we think weāre worth less, depressed etc.
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Thanks for the clarification. It is great that you understand the need to speak in an understandable way, not just some kind of jargon used inside various bubbles of christianity. Use of jargon is a pet weakness of many Christians. I am not completely free from that weakness myself.
There might be a purpose given by God/faith if we assume that there is a hidden potential inside every human. That potential may be partly wasted in the life of most people, including those who do not want to have anything to do with God/gods. Using the skills and life to spread something that is not truth is worse than having no purpose at all.
If we have a special purpose, it is probably more as a part of a chain than something unique. There are probably few exceptions, like apostles Peter and Paul. Being a part of a chain is not spectacular but it is still important. It is also possible that the purpose may change from one part of the life to the next - a series of smaller purposes instead of one great; being a part in several chains.
I agree that there is sometimes too much pressure for finding a purpose. That is not as bad as the pressure to be happy because search for a purpose may give a drive that leads from a passive or fatalistic lifestyle to something useful. Not finding a purpose may be a sign of not identifying the purpose or not valuing the āpart in a chainā purpose. Maybe we get a possibility to help some people who struggle with this problem.
Still, I do believe that being in a loving relationship with God and learning to know the truth is part of our purpose. This belief is a very Christian explanation (gospel) but we do have a right to tell what we believe, even if the majority of the global population would disagree.
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Hereās a short philosophical blog post that defines āpurposeā as different from āmeaningā that I found interesting. āPurposeā is a proximate conceptā¦simply what one chooses to do in lifeā¦but āMeaningā would be something that requires intentionality-- and would answer the ultimate āwhyā behind oneās actionsāwhat the action accomplishes towards a goal beyond and outside of oneās own (subjective) choices.
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Mark, these are not homework assignments.
Thinking and discussion prompts are part of my former professional tool kit. Pick and choose what sparks with you.
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Part One:
Iām afraid Iāve lost you somewhere, Mike. Sorry. Iāve looked back over your posts in this thread and am not finding what you indicate I missed.
I also donāt see a previous question about infinite joy.
Thereās a lot going on in this thread already, so it would help, if you pulled things together a bit for me. Sorry.
Part Two:
Well, it may do for some people.
It doesnāt in my case. I know the theology. Iāve said the theology. I live in it.
However, theology that claims non-christian lives are devoid of meaning, are meaningless, are absurd, simply doesnāt reflect what I see in the lives of others. It never has.
You asked me how I would formulate the question and to then answer it. This is what I meant by the question.
So I would like to know how you understand the offer of infinite joy.
Thatās not evangelical theology, or to be more precise, biblical theology.
Just needed to clarify that, because it felt like you were lumping a bunch of people together in hopeless ignorance.
I see it similarly as far as purpose being more elective while the meaning we infer from our experience sets the parameters for the purposes we invest in.
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What??? Why? Like I said I am of a median position. I am both scientist and Christian. I see a value in the Christian answers but I donāt see life as being such a void without them. Consider my beginning point with God in this equivalence between a fundamental faith that life worth living and a faith in God. I came to see how God can fill this role, but clearly I also already saw people doing the same thing without it.
They provide a starting point to see where this idea of meaning comes from. But clearly our reasons, desires, beliefs, goals, and choices add a great deal to this. And as you pointed out this is not a matter of consensus ā it is highly individual depending on the rather different reasons, desires, beliefs, goals, and choice people have.
This question confuses me, because I thought that is what I did already. Meaning is what makes this connection between sensory data and our actions. Of course we do that in many different ways. I suppose I could try to connect this up to meaning as you see it in these question you asked in the OP.
I guess I have both the Christian answers and pre-Christian answers. And for me at least the Christian answers make sense to me because they fit with the pre-Christian answers.
So yeah I believe God created the universe for the purpose of having a relationship with beings which have a life of their own (which means they make their own choices about who they are and what they will do with life and all they find themselves having). Yes I find the Christian view as these things given by God as helpful, but I donāt see it as particularly unsolvable without that addition.
Without this idea of God creating life for a relationship there is still life and all the reasons God sees value in it are still there even without God as part of the picture. Life is about making choices and it is these choices which make us who we are. And even without God as an ultimate origin there is still the very long and interesting process of developing self-organization to answer this question of origin. We find significance and value in life for ourselves and the most we can say is that the different answers people come up with are not equal because there is a difference in how much they engage us like how a pet rock, a plant, a pet animal and a child are not equal. How much they respond to the efforts we invest does matter.
Perhaps it also helps to consider this difference I see between science and life. Science consists of objective observation, but life requires subjective participation. The latter is all about making this connection between sensory data and our action to decide what we do with our life. It is the role I see for religion in human life to help with this need we have, but it is not something we can avoid doing so it is not like people without the Christian (or other religious) answers have nothing. Atheists are doing it too without all the God stuff.
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Just running over your helpful questions with highlighter and bolding to make them more helpful still for me. 
I tend to agree with Marta that purpose is more elastic. We arenāt cogs in a machine who have to figure out our role so we can get on with it.
Our attention is drawn to what we find meaningful, sometimes even before we have figured out what that meaning may be. It is satisfying to make connections and gain understanding about the world, ourselves and our place in it. The meaning in life is found in that process. I donāt think The Meaning Of Life is something finite which, once we have it, we no longer need to pay attention to anything. What we can conceptualize about life will always be incomplete and selective. We might ask why it matters to verbalize something summative about the whole process of acquiring insight and inspiration about life. Simply living it is the main thing but these glimpses into āthe big pictureā have their own charm.
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So, are you referring to all of this from the other day? (Sorry about the screwy formatting.)
Kendel
It helps to clarify what the question means before one can answer it, doesnāt it? The very term āmeaning of lifeā is so ill-defined, it can mean nearly anything. As it is used, its meaning must be subjective.
How would you phrase the question in order to answer it in the way you find best describes reality?
heymike3
It either defines you, or you define it.
I wouldnāt dispute subjective elements to it, like the way gifting plays a part, but the question is ultimately do you define it, or does it define you.
Kendel
Ok. Great.
So how would you phrase the question in order to answer it in a way that you find best describes reality?
And what would your answer be?
heymike3
What is the chief end of man?
And then you asked more recently:
While I have a vague idea what your āinfinite joyā question means, Iād rather not guess. What are you asking precisely?
I was.
Itās a common view among my broader evangelical tribe.
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