What gives life meaning to an atheist? and what difference, if any, is there between us and animals?

"Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society." -- Albert Einstein, from his essay Why Socialism http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php

life is short and your question is long life is not about me, and not for me to figure out. life is to live

What gives atheiests lifes meaning? Just the fact that we're living is enough, just to have fun, and live while we can. Without that every second worry of making sure we're "following the rules and regulations" of some.. magical man in the sky.

I'm an atheist, and I have always been my entire life, but what keeps me going is the thought of helping the world and making sure our species will survive far into the future. What separates us from animals is our ability to reason, choose, and ponder our existence, instead of just being concerned with mating and survival.

you are 100% right, im an atheist and think exactly like that, we all die, so this life really is meaningless, theres nothing to provoke me to do something good, while there is nothing to provoke me to do something bad/evil because then i may have to deal with troublesome consequences. I dont care if i live, i dont care if i die, i dont care about myself, or anyone else because this whole system we live in will end and it wont matter if you cared it wont matter how much moneny you make - you still die it wont matter if you gave to charity - you still die it wont matter if you tried to help friends - you still die It wont matter if you do/dont do drugs - you still die death is nothing. i cant believe religion because there is no evidence, there is no supporting of it. Does that mean i hate people thatbelieve in religon? no,believe what you want, if i believed in some kind of diety i probably would have a more enjoyable life, due to it having reason. as of now it does not, everything we do is pointless, and wont change a thing. does this mean that i dont feel things like fun? nope, i have fun, i know its pointless, but i do. we could all die, and i would care less, now does this mean that i WANT people to die? no, just the opposite, you stated how we have no reason to care, well if we dont care, that means we dont hate either. i have never hated anyone, and never wil, live your life, be fine with it, do drugsa, get wasted, go to school, get rich, whatever, i dont care. Im not going to hurt people because there is no meaning to it, why take the time to do something that wont effect me at all? except for maybe landing me in jail? pain is just that, chemical reactions and nerve endings reacting to a certain type of sensory. this means its not enjoyable to inflict, its simple, boring, and quite honestly overrated. does this mean i cant feel physical pain? no, i can, and it bothers me. If you think about it, you nailed "true" atheists on the head. there is no reason for us to try at anything we do, no reason to attempt to succeed because there is nothing higher we look too. some atheists claim htat they believe in no god, but you can tell that they try to do things correctly so they dont end up going to a fictionally horrible place like hell. I on the other hand blend in. i dont on purpose go out of my way to do something within societies bounds of "evil", or of their bounds of "righteous" because i feel as tho doing either will be more work and not rewarding enough to bother with. im only 15 right now, so i dont know if i will end up changing how i feel, i doubt it, but im glad i finally found someone who can at least begin to interpret how i feel about society and how i dont care. you nailed me right in, and described it exactly right. Except i dont care about myself, because i will be here only a short time as all of you will only be here a short time. am i going to go commit suicide? no, thats retarded because im not in any emotional distress, because i dont care about things. Am i going to bother to make sure im going to live a long, healthy, life? nope, not at all. if its fun and not too challenging, im doing it. now you may think if its too challenging, i wont do it because i cant, but thats not it, i wont do it because of the time consumption, because there is no reason behind it. i have all A's and B's freshman year of highschool, dont do homework, just do good on tests, so im relatively sure i can accomplish a lot if i were to actually try. but until further notice, there is no reason to try. after highschool, normal job, shitty apartment, oonly the necessities, so i can go through life as just another meaningless robot who repeats the same boring actions while no one seems to notice the cycle we go through everyday. thank you for your time if you read this, if not im glad i wrote it anyway, can finally see what ive been trying to tell people written out.

You can choose to cause as much as pain as possible to others, and some have chosen this path. But there are consequences to every action. The reaction is to kill this person or put them in prison. Since man is just a product of their environment, then to change the man we simply need to change their environment, indefinitely if necessary. So the outcome of living your life to cause pain to others will result in you yourself feeling pain or dying. Instead if you decide to enjoy the world and have fun, others will join you and together you can enjoy. This, I think, is a much better way of going about it. Who cares that we don't have an external purpose, its better off this way... because we have the freedom to do as we wish. We aren't bound to a single objective but instead each person has the ability to follow their dreams, their passions, their goals. For some, they require someone telling them what to do, and these people will find their purpose serving another. But for those who decide to forge their own path will find that life is much more rewarding. The truth is we are not better than animals, we are animals ourselves. We are different from the other animals because we have a larger brain and we create for ourselves an identity. We are significant because of our complexity. The information required to construct a human being and other complex animals is huge and delicate. This is why we value it, because it is so beautiful in its complexity, precision and scalability. It would be a shame for such a marvelous work of art to be defaced. Rocks or random chemicals are not as valued because they do not contain the same amount of information. Emotions are physical in their nature, but this does not mean that they are any less real to feel. I can tell you that the drugs I'm giving you only alter some chemicals, but does this not affect your state of mind, your emotions, etc? You can overcome them, and this is what many practice the art of self-discipline, to not let them get in your way. But nonetheless emotions serve a purpose, not to enjoy life necessarily... but to remember. Emotions are the brains way of separating out significant events from insignificant events. They are weights which convey the importance of the memory. Without emotions, all memories would just be one bland factual encounter, we wouldn't remember our first kiss anymore than the piece of gum stuck under your desk. Ultimately this would take a toll on our survival, getting hit by a bus would be the same as tying your shoes in your mind. It is all survival, and the social system we exist in reflects this. Behaviors which make it hard to co-exist peacefully become 'illegal'. While you always have the option to kill someone, you must consider the consequences. Because if everyone could get away with killing our mutual survival would be at risk. So for the sake of all our survival we must treat each other as civilly as possible. Its also important to note that despite our differences, we are still one family. The homosapien family. By helping others, you help yourself. And we are all driven by self-fulfilling motives. Even those which seem selfless grant the person at least some sort of emotional comfort or positive feedback. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

Why does everything have to have a meaning or higher purpose? Anyone or anything can have A purpose. To put blame or faith in a " Higher power" is nothing more that humans giving a explaination to the unexplainable. I understand WHY people have faith and religion. BUT humans took a good idea and made a religion out of it. I beleive that we make our own choices and determine our own purpose in life. As it goes for animals and humans, I am a huge humanitarian and a huge animal activist. I know in my heart there is good in the world and bad things happen to good people. And I know in my heart that living breathing animals have pain and exaughlt fear and remorse. They have familys and love. (Which I believe to be our only higher purpose in life if we want to continue to live. ) The suffering of others is not in vain. I think that the golden rule ( Do onto other as you would want done onto yourself ) applies here thoroughly. Being atheist does not make youa self absorbed world hater. Quite the the contrary, really. I know personally, I am atheist because I don't focus and waste my enegry worrying "Why?" I am a person of here and now and facts and science. Do I believe there will ever be a Deity? No. It's a very fairy tailish and illogical to me to have something that is not there. Now don't get me wrong, I do think there is some substance to religion and "holy books" be it in morals and life lessons that we can take reason from. I don't think I should have to follow a belief system because my mommy and daddy tell me to or anyone else for that matter. Seriously though, Youd on't want answers about how the church is evil and immoral? If thats what a person feels why discredit their beliefs in order to make your point? I think the church does do a service for those in need ( but only under the bias that they share the same god or will pray to that god . WHICH IS WRONG!!! ) but the government should not fund these groups because it is the constitution to seperate church from state, but somehow, with people of religion in power those founding laws seem to seep through the cracks if you catch my drift. And if you are asking about chemical reactions causing love and hatred and so on. You are asking the wrong group of unbelievers. Atheism if you want to kow in laymens terms mean we do not give a damn about religion. But that doesn't mean we cannot care about other things. Death can be significant, It means the end of enjoying your life. There is no proof there is anything after this. There is nothing to look forward to or extend after it is said and done. Why would that be so hard to grasp? But I'll play the devil's advocate.. (no pun intended) If I were to say that my philosophy did revolve around a structureless order of events.. I would honestly have to say that the same can be said about the faiths that look down on agnostics and atheists or any other religion but their own. As humans we crave structure and order, it is in our nature as it is in any creatures nature to do the same. Thats about all I can say to this series of questions. I wish there was more to tell you.

Animals most often act and behave from instinct, without thought in regard to said actions and without apparent awareness of the consequences of the same. Humans, it is to be hoped, act and behave with greater awareness and in regards to the interconnectedness, interdependence upon all else that exist (although if one were to see what is now taking place at the climate conference, where each nation is trying to seek advantage and material gain at the expense of all others and everyone saying that environmental issues are not as important as socioeconomic issues without realizing that when we can't breathe the air, drink the water or grow crops it will be of little importance as to who has the most gold...). All that exist is a part of the whole of existence. As can be observed on this planet, anything that one does effects all others to a greater or lesser degree however it still has an effect with the same having a potential to be of benefit or to harm. We can observe the same in the universe when we see the orbital path of one celestial body effecting that of another, the gravitational effects that can pull a planet apart, or see a star go nova and eat up a local solar system. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. Then it makes perfect sense to take care of all others as in so doing we are actually taking care of ourselves. namaste

WOW good question (and sorry i didn't read it all) i do believe we are here strictly be accident or fluke, and when we die it ends for us, you don't remember anything before you were born so why would you remember anything after you die, saying that i am not a total non believerand have some faith, i don't think you can live with the attitude of not caring, trusting, be good to people just because its pointless, you are stuck here til you die were all in it together, so make yourself happy, but not by making other people hate you....