One of my ex-girlfriends (a devout Mormon) told me essentially that she wasn't sure if Mormonism's religious claims were true, but that the Church made her happy. I've thought many times that this stance, which seems fairly common among religious people, was inauthentic. But given the existential crisis I'm facing right now about the meaninglessness of life, her position on the issue is sounding less and less crazy.
Sure, I can bash religious people for maintaining beliefs that are easily disprovable. I can call them inauthentic and willfully blind. But they don't get up in the morning and wonder what the point of life is. They know what the point of life is - or at least they think they know. But why does it really matter whether they're right or wrong about the meaning of life?
This morning I got up and went to the gym as usual. But when I got to the weight room, lifting weights just seemed so meaningless that I couldn't do it. What's the point? Maybe I get big muscles and lose some fat, and maybe women like that, and maybe my athletic performance improves. But what's the meaning of all that? I never had that problem when I was religious. I never walked away from something I wanted to do because it felt meaningless.
So congratulations fellow atheists, we've correctly solved the puzzle. We've seen through the bullcrap and have correctly surmised that life is meaningless. So what do we do, now that we know the true nature of life, which is that life is meaningless? Well, it really doesn't matter what we do, because life is meaningless! We can team up and spread the good word that life has no meaning. We can paint our bodies orange and climb to the top of a mountain and play a harmonica. We can join a religion. We can pray to the flying spaghetti monster. We can make scientific discoveries to help the world, but it doesn't matter, because all the people we help are going to die anyway, and they will die in meaninglessness.
So maybe religious people aren't that crazy. They have meaning. Even if their sense of meaning is rooted in fictional beliefs, at least they have a sense of meaning. And if life is meaningless anyway, then why does it matter whether a person's sense of meaning is based on fact or fiction?
Sure, I can bash religious people for maintaining beliefs that are easily disprovable. I can call them inauthentic and willfully blind. But they don't get up in the morning and wonder what the point of life is. They know what the point of life is - or at least they think they know. But why does it really matter whether they're right or wrong about the meaning of life?
This morning I got up and went to the gym as usual. But when I got to the weight room, lifting weights just seemed so meaningless that I couldn't do it. What's the point? Maybe I get big muscles and lose some fat, and maybe women like that, and maybe my athletic performance improves. But what's the meaning of all that? I never had that problem when I was religious. I never walked away from something I wanted to do because it felt meaningless.
So congratulations fellow atheists, we've correctly solved the puzzle. We've seen through the bullcrap and have correctly surmised that life is meaningless. So what do we do, now that we know the true nature of life, which is that life is meaningless? Well, it really doesn't matter what we do, because life is meaningless! We can team up and spread the good word that life has no meaning. We can paint our bodies orange and climb to the top of a mountain and play a harmonica. We can join a religion. We can pray to the flying spaghetti monster. We can make scientific discoveries to help the world, but it doesn't matter, because all the people we help are going to die anyway, and they will die in meaninglessness.
So maybe religious people aren't that crazy. They have meaning. Even if their sense of meaning is rooted in fictional beliefs, at least they have a sense of meaning. And if life is meaningless anyway, then why does it matter whether a person's sense of meaning is based on fact or fiction?
