The Meaning of Life Essay

In some ways, it is refreshing to read H.J. McCloskey's article, "On Being an Atheist". Most people assume atheists are simple nihilists who do not subscribe to any sort of convictions or beliefs. The author's text, however, refutes this conventional viewpoint by producing several reasons for embracing atheism, many of which are studied and labored counterarguments to typical claims of theists. The most important part of this essay is found in its opening paragraphs, in which the author makes a very prudent point in explaining the fact that most theists do not require elaborate proofs or empirical evidence to substantiate their beliefs in a divinity. Those who do have not completely subscribed to faith, but to testaments of man's deductive prowess, which should not be confused with faith. However, the author makes a number of points that he believes alludes to fallacies in theism that those well versed in theism can handily refute.

Having completed the unit of philosophy of religion, you are now ready to respond to an article written by an actual atheist. This article titled “On Being an Atheist,” was written by H. J. McCloskey in 1968 for the journal Question. McCloskey is an Australian philosopher who wrote a number of atheistic works in the 1960s and 70s including the book God and Evil (Nijhoff, 1974). In this article, McCloskey is both critical of the classical arguments for God’s existence and offers the problem of evil as a reason why one should not believe in God. Please note the following parameters for this paper:

What is the meaning of life? This probing question is often debated by human beings, and people from all recesses of the world will answer this question differently. However, not a single individual has presented an answer to this question that the world universally accepts. Different factions of people adhere to different answers. Often times, individuals will follow religions or philosophies because its beliefs provide answers to the question. More recently, in the middle Nineteenth Century to early Twentieth Century, this very question confused the brilliant writers of what is known as the “Realism Era” of literature. Their desired effect in writing was to present “a slice of life” which would explain part of the meaning of life,

H.J. McCloskey published an article in February of 1968 called “On Being an Atheist,” in the journal Question One. McCloskey compelling exposition in why the arguments of God’s existences is ineffective. The response paper to McCloskey’s arguments will be answered by way of theistic worldview.

For instance, one is comfort because he or she is not worried about why God did a certain deed, since there is no God, and there is no worry concerning where the soul will be in the afterlife since there is no afterlife. Atheism provides virtue, according to McCloskey, since, for example, instead of advising a person who is in need to pray to God, one can personally help that person. Contrariwise, William Lane Craig argued, in the article “The Absurdity of Life without God,” that theism is superior in virtue and in comfort. If there is no afterlife, no God, Craig argued that life has no meaning, no value, and no purpose. When life is temporal, life seems to have no meaning since all that it does has no value. If it all ends, there seems to be no purpose in continuing living, and if God will not reward or punish, doing good appears to have no value. Furthermore, Craig suggested that those who continue to reject God and continues to believe that certain things, such as morality and life, have meaning, value, and purpose, are merely pretending. They, according to Craig, uphold a Noble Lie. The Noble Lie that atheists uphold compels them to go beyond self-interest, ego, family, nation, and race, to do the good. Because they believe the Noble Lie and, moreover, because they do not believe in God, they live a lie that leads them to not live a life

Canadian author, W.O. Mitchell, is fascinated with the meaning of life. Whether this is a result of growing up during the depression or simply indicative of Mitchell’s deep philosophical thinking, this theme constantly shows up in his work. In both his humorous drama, The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon and the eloquent children’s Canadian classic, Who has Seen the Wind, Mitchell tackles the age-old question with grace, humor, and care. Not only is Mitchell concerned with the minute details of human existence, throughout his work, Mitchell constantly evokes a Canadian persona and creates literature based on the country. Despite Wullie MacCrimmon being a Scottish character, the drama itself is set in Canada during a curling

H.J. McCloskey is an author who expresses his belief in atheism through his work. In 1968, He published an article called, “On Being an Atheist”. His view of God and the Christian belief is well thought out and addressed, however, in this essay I will be responding to some of his atheistic views and will be attempting to respond to them from a theistic worldview approach.

Atheists believes that the number one cause of war that had happened through history of mankind is the religion of the people. Sam Harris, an Atheist, said that religion is the most known source for violence. There is no disagreement that the Islam was behind the violence of 9/11, and that if without religion, 9/11 wouldn’t have occurred and their would be no israeli-palestinian conflict, as well as problems in Northern Ireland, as well as an Islamic state. Overall, Atheist’s believes that religions is the main cause for conflict to rise between countries, which will then lead to war, religion is a practice that people believes in and is willing to follow. Religion may have derived the action that had occurred during 9/11, yet it's not the religion itself, but the people who let themselves be driven by the words of the book and had taken action upon it. (Ridley, Louise. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/14/religions-war-cause-responsibl & Robin, Schumacher. https://carm.org/religion-cause-war ). Religion is one of the reason for war to rise, yet there are more reasons to uphold the

Firstly, one can define a theist in a simply sense as someone who believes in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, totally good being who formed the world. In comprehensive sense theist can be defined as someone who believes in the reality of some sort of godly being or heavenly reality. However, atheist can be defined in a simply sense as someone that rejects the presence of any sort of marvellous being or great being and in easy they sense they also deny that there exists a divine being that is omniscient, all influential and flawlessly good. It is a person who does not believe that God or divine creature

Although we are living on the same planet – we all understand that life is what make our existence happens – each of us has a different idea on how life should be and express these ideas in many different ways. Writers express their ideas through writing about different subjects while send the similar messages to their readers. In her “Water Incorporated: The Commodification of the World’s Water” Maude Barlow expresses her meaning of life through providing the true appearance of those who manipulate of a natural resource for their interest. On the other hand, in Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” a letter to his enemy, the clergy men, he claims to be a modern prophet and says that no one should decide the

Atheists then give an example that assumes that “lighting attacks a lifeless tree causing a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is stuck and horrifying scared and lies in awful pain for numerous days beforehand death releases its grief”. Atheists see this sorrow of the fawn as pointless. For there does not seem to be any better good such that the deterrence of the better good such that the avoidance of the fawns suffering would require either the loss of that good or occurrence of an evil equally bad or worse. Atheist argue the problem to evil is that an almighty being could have easily stopped the fawn from being extremely burned or, given the burning, could have spared around the fawn or it could have quickly ended its life, rather than permitting

In the article, “On Being an Atheist”, H.J. McCloskey discusses the reasons of why he believes being an atheist is a more acceptable than Christianity. McCloskey believes that atheism is a more rational belief versus having a God who allows people to suffer so he can have the glory. He believes to live in this world, you must be comfortable. The introduction of his article, he implements an overview of arguments given by the theist, which he introduces as proofs. He claims that the proofs do not create a rationalization to believe that God exists. He provides 3 theist proofs, which are Cosmological argument, teleological argument, and the argument of design. He also mentions the presence of evil in the world. He focuses on the existence

Consequently, each person at some point in life asks some question about life. Some ask if they actually want to live the kind of life they are experiencing, while some will ask other questions like “who am I” or “The importance of their

My few years on this planet have been a bit confusing. I have learned of many aspects of life from which one can draw meaning, if indeed such meaning can be drawn. I have also learned that there can be no singular meaning of life to stand for us all, or even any one of us. What I have learned above all is that trying to put words to the meaning of life is a task of absolute absurdity. This is not to be confused with the idea that life has no meaning, for life certainly has meaning. However, there is no single meaning of life to be defined - life is different for us all. Therefore, rather than define life for an entire planet, I shall try to explain what life means as I perceive it, and why it means so.

     I can remember as a child always asking myself the “why” questions of life. What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Why do certain things happen? And is there really a God? I had always kept these questions to myself and eventually pushed them out of my mind altogether. I was raised in a Christian household and you just were not allowed to ask questions of that nature and doubt the faith. The world is the way it is because God made it that way and that is all there is to it. I was really excited to take this class because it would finally give me the opportunity to exercise my personal thoughts and beliefs. I have come to agree with Socrates that “the unexamined life is not