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10 The Meaning of LifeOne of the reasons given by Christians for their belief is that it gives meaning to life. I would contend that there is as much meaning in the following song from the Monty Python Film “The Meaning of Life”: Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, And things seem hard or tough, And people are stupid, obnoxious, or daft, And you feel that you've had quite enough, Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, A sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour, Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick, But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide. We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go 'round every two hundred million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth. Of course the Christian would contend that he has a relationship with God and that this is much more meaningful than just wonderment at a purely mechanical universe. Also that God has a plan that will be fulfilled in heaven. In fact for the individual even if there is a God the individual does not have access to the plan so there can really be no concrete comfort from this. In fact a hidden plan implies that you are a puppet or a pawn with no say in your future or role. So where is the idea of freewill in all of this. As Paul raises the point in his discussion of Pharaoh’s fate in Romans 9 you cannot question this and you are destined for a certain role so “why does he still find fault?” he asks in relation to the predetermined destruction of Pharaoh. The answer, which is no answer, is that you cannot question God. The conclusion then is that God is a particularly sadistic despot to create someone for a particular purpose that in this case involved opposing God and then punishing them for fulfilling that purpose. Meaning is, in this context, synonymous with purpose but what purpose is that? The view from Revelation of heaven reduces the individual to part of a sea of individuals all chanting the praise of God. This is not the meaning that modern Christianity sees in the importance of the individual. Meaning even for the Christian is actually derived from the here and now and the sense of purpose provided by seeing conversions or doing a job in the church, relating to one’s church group or feeling that you have some secret knowledge which only the select (hence its attraction) have the insight to obtain. This is just the same meaning that the atheist/secular humanist/agnostic imposes on their lives. Interestingly it is in Ecclesiastes we find the existential statement “All is meaningless and a chasing after wind.”. In fact if it were not for a rigid belief that what is in the Bible must be the word of god and be reconcilable to the view of a consistent theology Ecclesiastes would long ago have been seen as a treatise about how there is nothing but the world around us. Only in the conclusion is there a reference to a judgement and this is an epilogue added by another. The writer of Ecclesiastes sees God as remote and uninterested and life is here and now and then we are dead and gone. Here meaning is seen as leading a good life that will benefit those who come after you. |