Agnostic Guide Chapter 12 - Purpose

Religious Purpose

Religions seem to think they have all of the answers for why we exist. A recently popular view of our purpose is presented by Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Life. What is our real purpose if we don’t know anything about our true creation? The following is an agnostic rebuttal for the five purposes of life as presented in Mr. Warren’s book.

1 – We were planned for God’s pleasure, so your first purpose is to offer real worship.

Mr. Warren thinks a supreme being created us for his own pleasure so we were designed primarily to worship him? This is supposed to be our first grand purpose for being? It sounds like an argument that slaves were brought into this world to work for their masters. Of course a master would claim we should bow down before them and acknowledge our place is under them. Religion needs this subservience and loyalty to keep believers in line under the guidance of a church. There’s no evidence that we’re simply slaves to the universe or whatever may have caused its creation. We shouldn’t feel our purpose is to worship any aspect of existence without tangible evidence that the universe requires or expects it.

2 – We were formed for God’s family, so your second purpose is to enjoy real fellowship.

We can derive purpose from fellowship with humanity and as a part of society. We came to be in our human families. We usually love our parents for bringing us into this world and we love the children we create. It’s not an absolute love because there can be truly evil parents and children who aren’t deserving of our love. We can derive some meaning and purpose for our lives from our families and society so there is some truth to our purpose existing in human fellowship.

3 – We were created to become like Christ, so your third purpose is to learn real discipleship.

A disciple is one who embraces and assists in spreading the teaching of another and serves as an active adherent of a movement or philosophy. I might be considered a disciple of agnosticism with my own free will and choice to do so. Obviously by writing this book I’m willing to spread what I believe to be true, which is humans don’t have the answer to the question of our existence. I only believe this is a purpose in my life because I want to share what I’ve discovered as an important truth. However, this doesn’t define my existence and shouldn’t be a general purpose for anyone. Overall, it’s just a bit of a hobby for me in reaction to the religion I grew up with and still surrounds me.

4 – We were shaped for serving God, so your fourth purpose is to practice real ministry.
5 – We were made for a mission, so your fifth purpose is to live out real evangelism.

Ministry is defined as the act of serving. Evangelism is zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel. Once again Mr. Warren is focusing on servitude to my fellow human beings and defines our purpose as the service of others. The root of these views of our purpose is the preservation and spreading of one particular religion. For me it’s rather telling that a primary push of religious ideas is the requirement to share those ideas with others. This serves to strengthen the belief regardless of its truth value and allows the beliefs to spread much like a virus.

Ask yourself if Rick Warren’s specific brand of Christianity is more important than your own well-being and happiness? If you were to follow Mr. Warren’s purpose-driven life then you have to put his beliefs about God and that specific religion above anything else you may want for your existence. If you really search your own feelings then I’m sure you’ll agree your reasons for living are better than that. Our purpose isn’t to spread false hope for an afterlife in servitude to a god who probably doesn’t exist.

Agnostic Purpose

I found a post on the internet once from a person simply called Sabregirl. The page is now gone and I don’t know who Sabregirl is or was. However, her ideas can live on just like quotes from the religious texts. It’s really as simple as that and the only thing making any written word a holy word is blind faith in the inspiration of the text. Perhaps Sabregirl was a great prophet of the universe and her inspired word is divine in origin. I don’t normally keep things I find on the internet so maybe the universe had a hand in this too. Fortunately, the miracle of saving someone else’s written words happened so I can pass this on to you. It’s a decent replacement for Rick Warren’s purpose driven-life for those of us lacking a powerful imaginary friend in the sky telling us what to do.

The Agnostic Purpose-Driven Life

by: Sabregirl

The Five Tenets of the Agnostic Purpose-Driven Life are these:

1) Personal Best: Develop your emotional, intellectual and physical self to your utmost ability.

2) Philanthropy: Leave society a better place than you found it.

3) Compassion: Do no harm to your fellow man and help when you can.

4) Environmentalism: Respect and care for the earth and its creatures.

5) Enjoyment: Have as much fun as possible as long as you don’t violate numbers 1 through 4.

You’re living your life now and have been doing so for quite some time if you’re able to read this book. You can see other people living their lives as possible examples of what to do or not do depending on your own judgments of what you see. What else is there to know about what you should do with your life? All I know is our independent human lives are very rare in the universe so each life should be valued as a rare commodity. Our primary purpose should be to not waste this precious gift.

Life

There’s a 2013 movie called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It has this fictional motto for Life magazine in the movie:

To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of Life.

It was a feel good movie advocating for making the most of our lives. One key ingredient I think it misses is laughter, but otherwise it’s good advice for freethinkers. It applies to everyone understanding this moment in time, this one physical existence, is all we truly know we have.

Anything beyond this universe is wishful thinking and fantasy. Walter Mitty often zoned out and lived in fantasies beyond his mundane existence. He didn’t feel his most alive until he went beyond his fantasies and went on true adventures rivaling the fictions he created for himself. The real moments were so much more vivid, impressive, and satisfying because they were real.

The Sean Penn character of Sean O’Connell really captures the truth about the beauty of life and our existence when he said, “beautiful things don’t ask for attention.” I think that aspect of the movie speaks to the human relationship with religions which don’t just beg for our attention; they practically demand it.

Let’s go back to Rick Warren’s religious view of a purpose driven life. It really sucks in comparison to this simple movie message. Rick Warren tries to distract people from their reality and refocus them on fantasies outside our universe and wishful thinking outside our actual lives. Religious fantasies can fill your life with nice distractions focused on a mirage over the horizon. I admit this can be nice if your reality isn’t very good. However, you’ll never know how good your reality can become if you pay little attention to it.

Yes, a Heaven and eternal life might be nice. However, it’s the type of thing nobody can give you a guarantee for its existence. It makes little sense that a god would pluck you out of an eternal Heaven to live one little blip of a human life in this universe before returning to your eternal existence. It makes even less sense that our purpose is to worship an egotistical god and spread a religion among the same souls who were also momentarily pushed into human existence. If we’re really eternal souls, then why bother with this human life?

If the Heaven fantasy is real then I can also imagine the same god pushing us into a million lives in a million different beings and universes beyond our comprehension. Why not keep doing it to us for the worship and entertainment value? If so, then maybe we’re more entertaining if we don’t blindly worship such a god. The real test of our soul is how gullible we are to believe religious nonsense. Maybe our human form isn’t an important one out of the multitude we could take in an eternal existence. Maybe a selfish and jealous god isn’t worthy of our worship even if such a powerful master demands it. All of this assumes such a god is believable and is incapable or unwilling to force us to worship it.

I truly believe all religions appear to be an invention of primitive imagination. Each religion is a fiction proving all others are false and ends up making the whole mess of them false. I know we have this life and the real moments we live. You may choose to keep to your zoned out fantasies like Walter Mitty did earlier in the movie, but I prefer to be the person he became at the end when he really started to live his life to the fullest.

Liberty

The country of my birth talks a lot about liberty and freedom. Simply put, liberty is our freedom to have control over our own actions and take responsibility for our actions. I say we must take responsibility for our actions because sometimes people want to push their responsibilities off on imaginary friends. Liberty is the gift we give each other when we value our own individual lives. Liberty isn’t something granted to our existence through the kindness of a god as our master. Robert Ingersoll said this of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin in one of his most popular lectures, titled Individuality:

They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.

Ingersoll provided two different ways to live with many contrasting examples for the natural or supernatural ways to live in his lecture Which Way? He spoke of people depriving others of liberty when they lack the courage to enjoy their human rights. When you put yourself under the yoke and command of religion then you see no problem with turning others into servants in order to further justify your subservience.

One way is to be an honest man, giving to others your thought, standing erect, intrepid, careless of phantoms and hells.

The other way is to cringe and crawl, to betray your nobler self and to deprive others of the liberty that you have not the courage to enjoy.

Ingersoll said liberty was his religion in his lecture About The Holy Bible.

They forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its religious persecution; they remember heaven, but they forget the dungeon of eternal pain. They forget that it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart. They forget that it is the enemy of intellectual freedom. Liberty is my religion. Liberty of hand and brain — of thought and labor, liberty is a word hated by kings — loathed by popes. It is a word that shatters thrones and altars — that leaves the crowned without subjects, and the outstretched hand of superstition without alms. Liberty is the blossom and fruit of justice — the perfume of mercy. Liberty is the seed and soil, the air and light, the dew and rain of progress, love and joy.

Trying to spread and apply religion to every person in a society is counter to the ideals of liberty for society. Religious beliefs and faith do not lead to freedom and without freedom we can’t have our own true happiness. Liberty isn’t an individual ideal because it has no meaning in isolation. We’re easily free to do whatever we want when there’s nobody else around. Liberty is about freedom in a society to have control over our own actions. In order for each person to enjoy this freedom our actions can’t impact the liberty of others. This is a very important constraint to individual freedom since without it, liberty is surely lost.

The Pursuit of Happiness

A common misconception about living without religion is the idea we’re free to do whatever we want without a god to rule over us. If there’s no evidence of gods directly controlling or guiding our actions then we’re free to do anything, right? No, we structure our societies to preserve life and liberty among the members of society since it supports the common good of society. The preservation of life and liberty of others are necessary constraints to our individual pursuits of happiness.

Let’s go back to use of the Santa Claus myth to bribe our children to be good. You can look back on your own life and see the only punishment for your transgressions came from the people around you. The mighty hand of Santa Claus was our parents and the mighty hand of a god is anyone around reacting to what you do. The police are doing the people’s work instead of a god’s work in a free society. Some societies are closer to a theocracy where they believe religious police enforce god’s work but they have the same human authority no matter how godly they claim to be.

We have limits to our pursuit of happiness enforced by fellow humans, but what is it we’re actually pursuing? Religions will tell you happiness comes from our relationship with god. He’s your imaginary friend who’s always there for you when everyone else has failed you. It’s better to find some real friends and explore real human relationships for the joys they may bring.

Religions may tell you having an opposite gender spouse for a sexual relationship with the sole purpose of procreation is the key to happiness. It’s also the key to spreading that religious mind virus to support a church with more followers and money. Human relationships and loving people including having children and loving them are all various means of having happiness in our lives but there are so many different ways to relate with people and love.

Your own happiness may not follow the common paths and may not include any of the common elements. What is happiness? Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. But what then is a good life? This also depends on each person.

Psychologist Martin Seligman asserts happiness isn’t solely derived from external, momentary pleasures, and summarizes Positive Psychology's findings in this regard as humans seem happiest when they have:

• Pleasure (tasty food, warm baths, etc.)
• Engagement (or flow, the absorption of an enjoyed yet challenging activity)
• Relationships (social ties have turned out to be extremely reliable indicator of happiness)
• Meaning (a perceived quest or belonging to something bigger)
• Accomplishments (having realized tangible goals)

If you’re in the pursuit of happiness and aren’t sure where you can get some of the good life then this is a pretty good list of areas to search. Not everyone will feel happiness in every way someone else does. It’s a good idea to look beyond the simple pleasures to these other parts of our human existence. I wouldn’t want to pass my time here with only one of these areas as my only option. I see my own happiness derived from aspects of pleasure, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments.

Every human I interact with adds flavor to my life. We’d just be alone without other people. Solitude might be a perfect existence for some people but most of us need human contact. That happiness list benefits a lot from human interaction. There have been people I don’t like and I’ll avoid them, but most people end up being the spice of my life I want to experience at least for a moment. I even like receiving criticism from others because their negativity points out potentially bad things in my life I might need to change. Criticisms also remind me of the good things not being criticized. A bad human interaction can still be used to gain insight for achieving happiness.

Children

Having children is a part of the human condition. It’s one of the most amazing experiences our bodies can give us. We’re physically driven by our bodies to reproduce. We’re also intelligent beings so the choice to not have offspring is fine too since we’re not just slaves to our physical desires.

Both of my children were deliberately chosen to happen and we took precautions to make sure we didn’t have any more kids. We’re fortunate there isn’t a supreme being watching the bedroom and forcing us to make babies. Some religions try to get in our bedroom on behalf of their myths and tell me what we can and can’t do to prevent having more babies we don’t want. It’s truly nobody’s business but ours.

As a freethinker I see value in the humanist ideals. As an agnostic without belief in the supernatural I see the true value and importance of focusing on our human lives. We’re so much more important than trying to answer the unanswerable. The rationale reason to have children is simply because we can do it if we want to do it. There isn’t a command or mandate from my creator to procreate.

The idea people must have more children to create more god worshipers just saddens me. I had children so they could share in life and the simple joy of our existence. I have to admit I also wanted to see them, know them, and share some of my life with these little independent people created by me and their mother. A part of our immortality is in our genetics we pass on to our children. It’s also in our relationships as others know us before we die and remember us after our bodies return to stardust in our immortal reunion with the universe.

Our lives are like jumping into the pool of life. We can live on in the genetics and memories of others like splashes and ripples in the water. If our children can leave a big splash in that pool then you might think having lots of kids is like doing a cannonball in the pool. However, it’s more like an Olympic diver breaking through the water with minimal impact if their main connection to our lives is genetic. The splashes and ripples really come from our own deliberate attempts to make waves in the pool of life. Our children will have their own impact on our world so we haven’t made any waves just by having offspring.

If we really want to live on in our children then we have to be in their lives to carry on in their memories. Genetics are a part of who they are but children aren’t exact copies of their parents no matter how similar some may seem to be. It’s through our relationships with our children we can find meaning and happiness. I don’t see how prioritizing a religion over that relationship can make it better but that’s exactly what religions teach.

My parent’s religion provides several passages about putting god before family:

If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison--your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. Matthew 10:37

And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life. Matthew 19:29

Having children does come with ups and downs. My children are definitely human and they have sometimes disappointed me. There are also times I’m sure I’ve disappointed them in return. I hope I haven’t disappointed them by not teaching them a lot about freethought and the world’s religions.

We mostly went through their upbringing with an open and questioning household lacking any focus on the religions of our society. It’s just not something we really talked about. My son has said he’s atheist. My daughter as lived at times as a “go along to get along” socially Christian. They choose what works for their needs somewhat based on their social circles and the religiousness of their friends.

Children give us much joy and heartache. Procreating has been a definite part of my happiness as a man. Being able to provide for my children and help them grow into independent (and hopefully completely independent) human beings is fulfilling. We choose our own meaning for our lives and this is one I have embraced.

Having children isn’t the only reason for my life but it’s one of the better things I’ve done. Even if they ever decided they hated me and dropped completely out of my life then I’m still glad to have known them while I did. I have the same attitude for my wife, the rest of my family, and all of the friends I have ever known. All of them have made me happy and contributed to my life’s meaning but none of them are my one and only purpose in life for the entirety of my existence. However, I do think experiencing and enjoying all of these relationships are as good of a purpose for living as any other.