If you are Atheist?

1) It doesn't.

2) It doesn't. Life is extremely improbable and we've only seen evidence of it popping up once.

There is no purpose. Even if there was a god, what would the purpose be? In the end everyone dies. What is the purpose of a stream running downhill? We have the same purpose. The laws of nature created us. That's it.

1. What difference does anyone make? What difference did Henry Ford make? How about Lincoln? Bush? Hellen Keller? Joe from Shipping and Receiving? etc.

2. Why does nature do anything at all? Why is there a nature?

It tends toward life because that's what it does. So far, all we've found in this universe is one planet with life, and one with evidence that it was there before. Not much else. Does nature really tend toward life?- of what we know, no... it just happened.

I guess what I'm getting at is one big hangup- why are we so special that we expect ourselves to be so important? We have free will because it developed. We advanced as a race through communication, observation, and cooperation within the race. All of this was of our own accord.

We still have all the same ailments as all the other animals. We still have sexual tendencies, we all kill and die, we all breathe, eat reproduce, sh1t, sweat, produce incomplete contributions (birth defects, mental issues, etc.). We are no more important to nature than anything else. When Katrina hit, do you think it moved aside for the more important people? If we were not just a part of nature, we would be treated differently by it. We are not.

So, as humans- we aren't that important. We just assume this to be the case because we think we have so much more than all the other species... but we only think that because we are capable of thinking that, and it has become popular thought through the course of time.

~~~VM ,,,,1) The difference is that we no longer function on the same Plane of Existence. The dead are re-connected to The Ethereal(spiritual) Plane, are given a Life Review then jump back on The Karmic Wheel ready to Re-Incarnate when the time is ripe. If the person is a Loved One then they are surely missed. 2) Picture the Tai-Chi Symbol, that we know of as The Yin-Yang Symbol, what it represents is the Natural Flow of The Duality of The Universe, thereby exacting a perfect Equilibrium or Balance. The Chinese call it The Tao. Life and Death are two sides of the same coin. 3) The "Purpose" of Life is that in order for the Developement of The Soul to reach it's greatest potential one must have Human Experiences on the Earthly Plane. Thus we are Spiritual Beings, temporarily attending Earth School until we graduate to The Higher Planes where the Enlightened Beings hang out.

You are actually asking two different questions:

1. What is the purpose of life?

2. What is the meaning of life?

By way of example -- if I hold up an empty water balloon and ask you what it's purpose is, the most basic answer is 'water transportation via aerial mode.' That's all the purpose is -- it is a reason for existing. If it is sitting on a shelf in a store, it has that purpose, if it's in my hand filled and ready to go, it has that purpose.

Meaning, however, is something that is ascribed to an object. I fill such a balloon with water so that I can tag my mother during the next family reunion summer-fun party. That is now its meaning -- joy and playfulness. It did not have that meaning on the store shelf. There, at the store, its meaning was profit -- the owner of the store hoped someone would buy it and thus the owner would make profit off it.

So to go back to your questions -- what is the purpose of life? It has none. To have a purpose means that an intelligent being must have created it. Purpose is an intended direction, a best-suited direction, and life has no creator nor an intended direction. Life is inherantly purposeless.

What is the meaning of life? Because we are self-aware, even in acknowledging the purposelessness of life, we can ascribe a meaning to it. For many people, this meaning is little more than that they hope to live day by day. Some people make religion their meaning, others knowledge, others intentionally make hate or cruelty their meaning -- no one said all meaning has to be good. It just gives us a reason to wake up in the morning and defy our purposelessness.

These questions are strangely worded but I will attempt to answer what I believe you're asking.

1) Life is important no matter what happens after we die. Just because I might never see my great-great-great grandchildren does not mean I do not want them to live in a peaceful world. It seems, that belief in an after-life would make this life less precious.

2) Purpose is a tricky concept. We are taught early on that everything must have a reason for being. But in reality, that's not entirely true. What is the purpose of the Nile River? To provide water and fish to people? That may be a benefit of the Nile, but not it's purpose. The Nile formed because of participatation and I am here on earth because my parents had intercourse, but I can only hope others will benefit from me.

1) Ask me anytime between the age of 18-20 and it wouldn't have. I was severlely clinically depressed after having gone through nothing but 18 years of drug infested violence among other hard struggles. I felt my body eating itself away,. I've felt things no human should ever have to feel. I was often suicidal. Now reaching a sense of normalcy, I know one thing I'm living for.

I always felt vastly different from my parents, actually my whole family, because my grandfather on my dads side was not a good man either. I am living to prove deep down inside of myself that I share nothing but name with my parents. I will become the best father I can be until the day I die. I don't think I could end my existence now without accomplishing this. I would, and will never put my children through what I had to go through.

2)Evolution leans towards life because life beats death, those with the best attributes to pass on will continue in the gene pool causing a gradual chance in populations over time. That is why all species share many common parts, but only some of them are turned on in each species.

As a Buddhist (atheist), our purpose in life is to make good use of this precious human birth and exposure to the Dharma to cultivate altruism and wisdom along the path to enlightenment.

1. I don't like to see any form of suffering and everyone matters to me.

2. All sentient beings (as well as everything else in the universe) arise due to causes and conditions, are impermanent (which means the moment they are born they are dying) and changing.

_()_

I think the thing Atheists are doing is the same thing the Christians are doing. Trying to get the word out about their beliefs. As for the purpose.....i'm not an atheist so I don't know about what everyones purpose is. I'm still searching for mine.

It makes an enormous difference to me whether someone lives or dies: moreso than were I religious, in fact, because I believe people must be valued here and now, and not in some fantasyland after death.

I would rather stop to offer help to a homeless person now, then simply drive by while thinking they might get a reward in death.

The difference is what difference you make in the world.

The purpose is to learn.

The meaning is what you take away.

Nature simply happens to include life in the case of Earth.