Purpose of life

dc wager

Whether or not you believe in God, you should live your life with love, kindness, compassion, mercy and tolerance while trying to make the world a better place. If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will have made a positive impact on those around you. If there is a benevolent God reviewing your life, you will be judged on your actions and not just on your ability to blindly believe in creeds- when there is a significant lack of evidence on how to define God or if he/she even exists.

Published by: Infidel on 6th Mar 2010 | View all blogs by Infidel

I'm reading The Atheist Way: Living Well Without God and enjoying it. I really like Eric's argument on how to have meaning for my life.

I make it.

That's a big deal for a former christian. Since I spent most of my adult life trying to find/follow the "will of god", it was both frightening and exhilarating to read that it is simply up to me. Whatever I want to do. Whatever satisfies me.

Huh?

I can do whatever I want? Whatever I enjoy? Yep.

It took me several weeks to get my head around this. Slowly it began to dawn on me what Eric was saying. I'm still not sure I can explain it, but fear has given way to excitement.

Instead of thinking, "I've always wanted to..." I can think, "I think I'll do..."

Now the hard part is focusing. I have wide and varied interests, so narrowing "the purpose of my life" down to something managable will be a task. This is important to me because I'm 50 years old and 5 years away from retirement eligibility. So I'll be 55 and retired, now what? That's why I'm thinking about this. Since men in my family live till their late 70s or into their 80s, I have plenty of time to do something else. I want to go back to college and (finally) get a degree, but in what?

Sometimes I think I'm too old for this!

What to do? What to do?

Comments

9 Comments

by Snuggly Buffalo 4 months ago

If I were close to retirement and wanted to get a degree for kicks (instead of getting one to get a job in a particular field) I'd probably study physics. So much interesting stuff is happening in physics right now. It would probably be my second choice for a degree behind computer science (the degree I actually have).
by perpetualstudent 4 months ago

Has anyone read Greg Epstein's book, "Good without God"? How does it compare with this one?
by Infidel 4 months ago

Physics interests me too. My problem is that almost all the sciences interest me!
by Infidel 4 months ago

Perpetual,

Love the moniker! That's a great way to go through life...assuming one is willing to have their ideas and beliefs challenged!

I haven't yet, but I have looked at it a few times a the book store. I'll let you know if I get it.
by perpetualstudent 4 months ago

I just finished it. He had some interesting thoughts that might be helpful for those who are atheist but still like and appreciate some aspects of religion.
by LeoPardus 4 months ago

Aha. Kid in a candy shop syndrome. I got that too. Once went through a college course catalogue and checked all the courses I would really be interested to take. Ended up with over 300 credit hours. So figure about 10 years to get all that done. Then what?
Happily my job involves learning all the time.
by Infidel 4 months ago

Definite kid in the candy store! I love to learn. I don't understand those who don't. I want to know how stuff works, how we figured out xxx! All of it! I can easily be a professional student. I'm interested in everything from astro-physics to zoology (well, maybe not zoology, but I'd give it a go!)
by Ubi Dubium 4 months ago

Recently, I discovered that my public library has a huge collection of college lectures on CD. I can listen in the car while I'm commuting! I've just finished a course on Egyptian history. and I'm working my way through some music history, also biology, linguistics, and some analysis of Shakespeare. I've also listened to a couple of courses from Bart Ehrman that were really great. I tried listening to the radio the other day, and I was totally bored. If your library does not have these, perhaps you can get them on inter-library loan.
by LeoPardus 4 months ago

Oooo. Good point Ubi. I highly recommend the "Great Courses" series. Even though many of them are DVDs, I've found that the visual component is often not that important, so you can just play the lectures in your car. If a visual is important, I will look at it either at a stop light, or later on, when I've come to the end of my drive.
Got through some very interesting lectures on relativity and neurology.