Arguments for Morality and Purpose

Arguments for Morality and Purpose

Whenever having any discussion with another, whether it be politics, theology, philosophy, what have you, it is dire that we go into the conversation seeking the truth. We may believe we have the truth, but it is more important to find the truth rather than just be right. In a sense, we must have an open mind. So I urge you to open your mind as to what I am about to say and just seek the truth through it all. I believe this to be true, and simply wish to share the truth with you today. Now, having said that, let's begin.

Many people nowadays claim that people are over religious or take religion too seriously, and I would claim the exact opposite. Your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) tell you who you are, where you came from, what your purpose is (if any), how you should live your life, and where you're going. Before we can find any sense of direction in our lives we must first critically scrutinize our religious or areligious beliefs and the answers they give us as mentioned above. Once we have done that, we should then use what we've learned through this research to base how we should live our lives and what we should do with our lives. More and more people are beginning to subscribe to the atheistic viewpoint on life and I wish to explain this view fully and consicely while retaining brevity.

If we believe that there is no God, then we believe that life is merely accidental, that it is all by chance with no deliberate intent or purpose behind it. The building blocks for life coincidentally formed in the proper environment and went on from there. There is no real reason that life began to exist. That is to say, there is no purpose to life. Purpose is defined as "1. reason for existence:the reason for which something exists or for which it has been done or made
2. desired effect:the goal or intended outcome of something
3. determination:the desire or the resolve necessary to accomplish a goal
Synonyms: intention, intent, aim, object, objective, goal, target, end" by the very definition of the word "purpose" we can see that it must not apply to life for there is no reason or intention for its existence, and there certainly is no goal for it either. The definition of "meaning" is "1. something meant or intended : aim. 2. significant quality ; especially : implication of a hidden or special significance" Similarly to "purpose", we find that there is no meaning to life either if it was not meant or intended to be and there is no significant quality if it all happened by chance or accident. Many would still then argue that there can be a purpose if we give purpose to our own lives. To that I would then argue that we have no authority to grant a purpose because we are in and of ourselves meaningless and accidental. I would also point out that eventually humanity will be wiped out, wether the sun dies out, the galaxy grows too far apart for there to be warmth, or the universe implodes upon itself. If then the end result is innevitable and always the same no matter how we live our lives, there then can not be a purpose for there is no intended goal to be reached. The only logical reasoning is that life has not a meaning nor a purpose.

Leo Tolstoy put it this way in his "A Confession", "The question brought me to the edge of the abyss. What will come of what I do today and tomorrow? What will come of my entire life? Or expressed differently, why should I live? Why should I wish for anything or do anything? Or to put it another way, is there any meaning in life that will not be destroyed by my inevitably approaching death?
My deeds, whatever they may be, will be forgotten sooner or later, and I myself will be no more. Why then do anything? I therefore could not attach a rational meaning to a single act in my entire life. The only thing that amazed me is how I had failed to realize this from the very beginning. How could anyone fail to see this? That’s what is amazing. It’s possible to live as long as life intoxicates us, but once we’re sober, we cannot help seeing it’s all a delusion. There’s nothing funny or witty about it at all. It’s only cruel and stupid." I have yet to see how this logic can be disputed at all. So by this logic we can't even therefore say that we should just enjoy life in the moment because "it's only cruel and stupid"!

Now even though we can see that logically life has no purpose and is void of meaning, we still have such a hard time accepting it. The question then becomes: "why is that?" Why do we have such a yearning for meaning or purpose to our lives? I believe it is because we do have a purpose to our lives, but purpose can only come from a god or gods. If there is a divine being, then we were created intentionally and therefore with a purpose and now we can see that our lives then have meaning to them. So, if we don't accept God, we don't accept a purpose or meaning. If we don't accept a purpose or meaning, we don't accept any value or worth for life. If we don't accept any value or worth for life, we can then do whatever we wish (steal, murder, etc.)

If then we can do whatever we wish, then morality is either irrelevant or nonexistent, yet most of us subscribe to the idea of objective morality, and most of the people who subscribe to the idea of subjective morality really believe in objective morality as well. That is to say that a consensus would agree that we know what's right and wrong universally, and it is not subject to change with each individual. You wouldn't be fine with me taking your money from you because it is morally wrong to do so. Objective morality is non dependent upon our upbringing or our culture. For example, as William Lane Craig put it, the Holocaust would be morally wrong even if the Nazis won and succesfully killed or brainwashed anyone who disagreed with them on it, I would say that is a safe assumption. But how then can there be this moral obligation if there is no one to give us it? (That is not to say we must believe in God to acquire morality, but that we are designed with morality and have it wether we choose to accept Him or not) There couldn't possibly be morality without God because there couldn't be any worth or value in life and we couldn't be held to a higher standard or value if there is nothing above us to create it. Without God, morality is either due to our social conditions or evolution and is therefore relative or subjective. It is improper then for us to force our morality upon others with things such as laws.

Therefore, it concludes that without God, there can be no purpose or meaning to life as well as no such thing as morality. By denying God, we must deny morals and a purpose or meaning to our lives. I'm here to tell you your life does have meaning, purpose, and a moral obligation or duty and that is because there is a God.