What is the biggest lie?

No it isn’t, not being able to falsify a claim lends that claim no credence at all, to claim otherwise is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. As has been explained, disbelief or lack of belief need not involve holding a contrary belief. Thus I can and do disbelieve the claim there is some overarching meaning to human life, as what evidence there is does not support it, and no one can demonstrate any objective evidence for the claim.

Do you believe in invisible mermaids?

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I made no claim to any overarching meaning to life .
The proposition is “ What is the biggest lie “ ?
My reply is “ that life has no meaning “

By describing it as a lie you are making a claim. It seems you want to hide behind semantics though, rather than admit you can’t demonstrate any objective evidence that life has any overarching meaning.

As I said, the evidence though not conclusive, is that humans evolved like all living things, and evolved just 200k years ago. If human life has a meaning, other than the meaning we arbitrarily attach to our own lives, then that fact seems at odds with the claim.

FWIW, we already know you’re a theist, it’s in your profile, thus these semantics smack of sophistry to me. It is a common tactic very much in vogue in religious apologetics, to make these attempts to reverse the epistemological burden of proof that their beliefs carry.

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If I believed a 27 headed dragon lives in New York City, and you didn’t; how could you demonstrate that you were correct? There is no obvious way for you to do that, because if you are right, then there is no dragon to demonstrate.

If I’m correct; then there are a myriad of simple ways for me to at least attempt to demonstrate it (photographs or video of the dragon, the dragons street address, etc). The burden of proof would be on me.

Because true statements are often impossible to prove/demonstrate. Presumably the statement “there are no 27 headed dragons living in New York City” is true, but is impossible to demonstrate.

Same goes for the meaning of life. I don’t think it exists, so if I’m correct, there will never been anything to demonstrate. You suggest that it was false (you said it was the biggest lie). Presumably all you would need to do to demonstrate you are correct, is just tell us what this meaning is. Unless of course you don’t know it, which would make me wonder why you said it was a lie…

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Well we do know that meaning and the search for meaning exist in everybody’s life and that means something rather than nothing

Then why don’t you cut out the foreplay and just tell us what it is.

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And being self-conscious about one’s body odor can also be something rather than nothing. It is all about how much weight a person put into this train of thought. For some, weighty, for others, like the wings of a butterfly, here today, fluttering off into the distance if you glance away.

Life is what you make of it.

No. No. No and NO!

People find, if they want, a purpose to their lives. NOT everyone does and the purpose changes. “Meaning” is what you subjectively measure in your life and how you feel about it based on the measures you personally place within your existence.

Perhaps the “meaning” of life is to just fucking live it while you’re alive. :woman_shrugging:t2: big whoop…

Life itself has no built in “meaning”.

To clarify meaning : “important or worthwhile quality; purpose.”

The simple fact is that you cannot escape living your life without meaning or the search for meaning . You can ask what is the meaning of life but in reality it is life asking you what is the meaning of your life .

Determining the meaning of life is no mean feat, if you know what I mean. Without trying to be mean, I mean that if I say what I mean and mean what I say, then the meaning of what my life means to me may not mean what your life means to you. However, if you meant to mean the meaning of life is not meant to be meaningful, then it just means that we may not know the meaning of what others mean to say, meaning it’s possibly meant that the meaning for one person may be meant to not be meaningful to another person who lacks the same means of having a greater meaning. Sure, some consider their life meaningless, while others use any means necessary to ensure their meaning is well known and meant to be highly meaningful, even to those who don’t know what they mean. And in some cases it means those meaningful folks who mean to have meaning to others are simply arrogant pricks. Know what I mean?

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No WE don’t, you have yet to demonstrate any objective evidence that life has “meaning” beyond what we arbitrarily attach to it. The search meaning is like the search for mermaids, until they find one, or at least demonstrate sufficient objective evidence they are possible, I will remain dubious about mermaids. No one has claimed life means nothing, that is just a straw man you are using to again try and avoid the epistemological burden of proof your belief holds when you bring it here to an atheist debate forum.

You seem to have responded to my post, but entirely ignored my post?

By describing it as a lie you are making a claim. It seems you want to hide behind semantics though, rather than admit you can’t demonstrate any objective evidence that life has any overarching meaning.

I sense you’re never going to give a candid answer here, but the question remains.

As I said, the evidence though not conclusive, is that humans evolved like all living things, and evolved just 200k years ago. If human life has a meaning, other than the meaning we arbitrarily attach to our own lives, then that fact seems at odds with the claim.

You didn’t address that at all, any particular reason?

I think the fact is you are again hiding behind semantics here, no one is denying we try to give our lives meaning, only disbelieving your claim that life has a theistic meaning. This tap dancing is not going to fly, since your profile claims you are a theist.

I never claimed that life has a Theistic meaning !
I said that the biggest lie is that “ life has no meaning “. Don’t try to put words in my mouth .

It sounds like an anecdotal argument to me. I think the meaning of life is different & subjective for everyone. I honestly don’t think it matters one bit. Some of us just don’t rank it high on our list of things to seek out. Some day I’m going to die and everyone out there in the world isn’t going to ever have known that I existed or really care that I existed. So…there’s no point. Live your life and do what you want.

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So what do you recommend for those of us; who until this moment were skeptical about claims involving the meaning of life? Just take your word on the matter? That sounds like a recipe for disaster, imo.

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Why take my word or anybody else’s ? Every human is unique and as such is their experience and search for meaning . The fact that you don’t believe there is any meaning in life is your personal experience and that’s all .
If life is meaningless then how could we know it is meaningless ?

Didn’t you just tell us that is impossible?!? :scream::

Are you saying we or I should?

Unique in what way?

The “meaning of life” question is derived from religious and philosophical thinking. So with this question.

Your first idea is to ask Atheists about it?

Well. I think the meaning I’ve taken from life is from every day experience. We go to work, pay bills, fuck, eat, sleep, defecate, shower, clean house, watch television, go on vacation, retire, and drop dead some day. As I am not religious nor do I believe in the existence of skyfathers, gods, or deities. I honestly think sitting around wasting my time with hypothetical ideas like the “meaning of life” isn’t on my list of priorities.

I don’t think a life is meaningless if you had fun and died happy. I think you got your money’s worth.

I don’t know if you’ve thought about this already. But I think that’s just something religious people worry about. Christians think about it. Muslims think about it. Hindu’s think about it.

I started this thread by asking a question that I knew would get some responses, but not as many as have participated, pretty cool. Now the question seems to have changed to “the biggest lie is that life has no meaning”.
In my humble opinion, there is no meaning to life other than what you put into it. We’re born, we live for a few short years, then we all die, that’s it.
Your meaning in life is your own and no one elses, and neither you nor I can prove it one way or another to anyone else.
In the “grand scheme” of existence, we’re all virtually insignificate, we mean less than nothing. When our species goes extinct, and it will, we won’t even register on the time scale of this universe’s existence.
Live your life as you see fit, but don’t ever try to tell me that some cosmic force that you call god is the reason we all exist, I ain’t buying it.

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I think it’s up there with self gratification. From the time you’re little in your average household. You have “those” parents that preach at you to do good in school and go to college so you can get rich quick.

Well, that’s what everyone wants.

So here’s your meaning of life: Everyone doesn’t care about you or me. They only care when it benefits them. They don’t actually care about the existence of others. People care about their money, their job, their toys, their bullshit religion, and their silly politics.