Quote Originally Posted by Reefer Rogue
Hey Science, what's the meaning of life?

What? You'll get back to me in 200 years?
According to the scientific worldview, there is no intrinsic meaning to life. Our species was an accident of the cosmos. It didn't want to have us; we just happened. This is the logical conclusion of the theory of natural selection. We weren't planned out from the beginning with some kind of "meaning" in mind. We are the product of so many random events and mutations that if you went back and ran evolution all over again you certainly wouldn't get anything like us. Science, more than anything else, teaches us that we are not special in the grand scheme of things. We are not at the center of the universe, and the universe was not made especially for us.

No, meaning and purpose are human concepts, just like beauty and utility. What is the purpose of life? What is the beauty of life? What is the utility of life? The answers to those questions depend on the perspective of the particular human whose worldview you are applying the questions to. Things don't have intrinsic meaning, beauty or utility. They can only have the meaning, beauty or utility that we humans assign to them in our own perceptions of the world in our heads.

Some people think the lack of an intrinsic meaning to life makes life meaningless. Quite the contrary. My life would be most meaningless, to me, if it had some higher purpose that I could not choose, and I were forever a slave to this grand purpose that was imposed upon the universe long before I was born. No, I am nothing but a physical being, and the only purpose I have in my life is the purpose that I define for myself. That is the ultimate freedom; to decide the purpose of your own life. And it is the freedom that atheism gives us - religions will only teach you how to obey their imagined purpose for your life. Atheism gives you the realization that you are the one in control of your fate, and it is you who gives meaning to your actions, who guides your actions in accordance with the beliefs and purposes that you have assigned to your existence.

As Karl Marx explained: "Die Kritik der Religion endet mit der Lehre, dass der Mensch das höchste Wesen für den Menschen sei, also mit dem kategorischen Imperativ, alle Verhältnisse umzuwerfen, in denen der Mensch ein erniedrigtes, ein geknechtetes, ein verlassenes, ein verächtliches Wesen ist." ("The critique of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest being for man, hence with the categorical imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being.")

I can understand how it can be hard for religious people to come to this understanding. It is rather like telling a child they were an accident. Only in this case, our heavenly Father doesn't even exist: he's a fairy tale. We are an accident of the cosmos. And on the surface, that seems like sad news. It is only when you think through all the logical consequences of that notion of our origins that you realize this is not only a humbling and maturing concept for our species, but a liberating one.