What Gives People a Purpose in Life? Essay

As the world grows, diversity follows. With this diversity different faiths, or even lack of, are created; one being Atheism. Atheism is the unbelief of God or any other supreme being. Atheism is becoming more present within the community which sometimes leads to criticism. Since Christianity is the is the polar opposite of Atheism, their beliefs, practices, and symbols (or lack of) are bound to clash. Nonetheless, Atheism continues to grow.

People in our society today who have the atheist point of view on religion, which is the belief that there is no god, are going against the so-called norms of society, and therefor are seen as deviant. Deviance is just an idea. Society determines what is deviant by the ideas they hold of what should be the norm. Atheism is seen as a negative deviance, or below the norm. They have a status that is placed on them in society. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they believe in evil, although that is how it is sometimes viewed from people in society who have a specific religion or faith. Atheism, which is not a new idea, has been evolving in our society, and is the reason for problems leading to debate and court cases, and for

Life, it might be argued, is the distinguishing feature of all organisms and may most usefully be thought of as involving various kinds of complex systems of organization providing individual organisms with the ability to make use of those energy sources available to them for both self maintenance and reproduction. Underlying this deceptively persuasive definition, however, lie those persistent traditional problems inherent in the search for an essential, distinctive substance characteristic of all forms of life. Additionally, as evolution theory makes clear, there is the problem of borderline instances, organisms of which it is not easy to say whether or not they may be defined as being alive. One such case

This comes from a misunderstanding of the statement "I do not know." A more accurate way to state it is, "I am not absolutely certain, and it would be dishonest to state otherwise." People often mistake "I do not know" with "I have no idea", which are entirely separate concepts. Simply because absolute certainty is impossible does not mean one cannot have an incredibly likely conclusion from the evidence. Most atheists would admit to being agnostic, and most agnostics would identify with atheism. A person with 99% confidence in something would not be certain, but they are nearly certain because the overwhelming evidence has led them to one conclusion. This should not be equated to a person that claims to have no preference between religion and nonreligion and simply holds no opinion whatsoever on the subject or claims to not favor one as more likely than the other. When religious people hear someone say they don't know if god exists, they falsely assume someone is in the category or ambivalence, which heavily contrasts how religious people claim to know, with absolute perfect certainty that their god(s), their religion, their holy texts, and their specific interpretations of it are perfectly correct. Nonreligious people are more honest about what they are not certain about even when they have a strong perspective built on reason and evidence, as opposed to a religion built purely on

Recently, I've noticed that some of my friends have become concerned about me because I'm an atheist. This is odd, because I've never made any secret of that fact, although I don't go around preaching it to anyone who will listen. Ever since I realized that I no longer agreed with any of the religious viewpoints which I was brought up with, I have explained my opinions, as clearly as I can, to those who were interested, curious, or who challenged by beliefs.

The number of atheist and agnostic has been expanding there have long been predictions that religion would fade from relevance as the world modernizes, but all the recent surveys are finding that it’s happening startlingly fast. An atheist is a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings along with an agnostic, an agnostic person is a person who holds that the existence of an ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human

In the text  Living to Some Purpose, the author talks about the myth of Sisyphus. He also talks about the French existentialist writer Albert Camu and his views about the myth of Sisyphus, that Camu wrote in his book. He explains how it relates to the meaning of life. There are two ways of looking at the story of Sisyphus; one of them being that all life has no meaning. The only meaning in life is your own satisfaction. Essentially it makes no difference what you do in life, if you feel satisfied, and joyful you’ll be living a fulfilled life. For example; Sisyphus who endlessly pushes the same rock, up the same hill can feel just as satisfied as a man who travels around the world curing diseases because this gives both people the same amount

Religion – each person follows one, but it is not necessarily always the same one. Myself, I am a pantheist which means I believe in the science behind everything. However, my friend, Breanna, is agnostic. This means that she “basically believes there is no scientific proof of a higher power.” Since her religion is not the same as the main religion people normally follow around here, she is scorned by many people. She has problems maintaining friendships and relationships whenever people find out she is agnostic and her family members refuse to accept it whenever they find out.

What is the meaning of life? Well known Greek philosphers such as Socrates and Plato believed that our purpose in this life was to gain knowledge in preparation for the next life. Other Philosophers such as Epicurus believed that pleasure is the main goal in life. After giving these ideas lots of thought, I have come to my own conclusion that the true meaning of life is far more complex than either of these; far too complex for any human to fully comprehend. In fact these two different philosophies are only part of the grand picture. If it were that easy for men to figure out our lives wouldn't be so messed up now. The meaning of life revolves around many different things. I

Many would ask the question of “Am I any less of a person if I don’t believe in God”? In the eyes of a religious person, my opinion is that you are, but for others if I am treating them with respect, there is no reason that they should question my views against religion. It’s the same exact thing as looking at someone differently if they do believe in God. So why does religion argue that a person’s morality is lacking if they are a non-believer? Many participate in religion because of its claim of good intent and humanity. Opening the doors to atheism would under mind such ideas and set them back upon simple matters of belief in a God. Some humans that are atheist are described at trouble makers. This is prejudice. Everyone is entitled to their

I think the first clue that I would never be religious was when I started falling asleep during Sunday school. I remember being seven and not understanding how you could pray to some invisible dude in the sky. I was baptized Methodist, but my family stopped attending our church after a change in reverends when I was 8. After that, my flimsy connection to Methodism disappeared entirely. Our family had been pretty lax about religion, saying a brief grace at dinner the only religious act we performed outside of attending church. I’ve always viewed religion as having a belief in God or gods which have influence in the goings on of Earth and everything in it. If I had to label my relation with religion nowadays, agnostic would be the most accurate term. I can’t bring myself to deny the existence of deities, as there is so much about the universe that we know nothing about. That’s how I deal with the fact that some people are religious- we can’t prove that there are deities, but we also can’t prove that they don’t exist. It wouldn’t be fair to invalidate someone else’s beliefs to justify mine when even my own could be proven wrong. I can be correct and so can someone of another view because our beliefs are just our perceptions of the world- they don’t actually govern how the world really works, at least those things outside of human control. If I think that the universe formed from the Big Bang and my friend thinks that God created the universe, we’re both right because we have no

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.

Some atheists were born into a secular family, and a life without a divine figure is all that they have ever known. Some were once very pious and active within a religious or philosophical organization, but learned more about what they were upholding and seen fault. Some feel that science solely and unequivocally explains the universe and, as a result, living organisms: finding it entirely unreasonable to believe that a never before seen figure created everything the human eye can see (Sexton). But nonetheless, despite the precise reason for lacking a belief in divine beings, all atheists unanimously agree that they lack belief in divine beings because they view them to be

Life as we know it could vanish within seconds. The next day is not promised to anyone that walks on this earth. As we live our everyday lives peacefully, we tend not to think what our mission or purpose in life is. Instead, we think what we must do for that to be a “successful” person. Despite this way of thinking, just think for a second. What makes life meaningful? What is life anyway? These questions dive right into the heart of the philosophical, psychological, and the biological aspects of life and what the true meaning of life is. This is a very arguable topic due to every person’s different perspective on life and what it means to them. In summary, I personally think that life is simply what you make of it and each person’s accomplishments has its own merit

First up is the Atheist approach to religion. When most people hear the word atheist,