Comments on: My purpose is clearer now without religion http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/ Resources for skeptical, de-converting, or former Christians...... Wed, 22 May 2013 17:20:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: ubi dubium http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-53953 Tue, 22 May 2012 13:23:30 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-53953 David,

You create your own purpose, but you don’t have to figure out what that will be all at once. If you don’t find anything yet that you are passionate enough about to really take on, just learn all you can about questions that interest you right now. Maybe something will click for you, maybe not. But if, as the deconversion wager says, you live your life with love, kindness, compassion, mercy and tolerance while trying to make the world a better place, that can be enough for a start.

]]> By: David http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-53951 Tue, 22 May 2012 11:20:20 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-53951 @ACN i’ve never been a believer, and now im going through a crisis, once i started using my brain more, the more i became aware of things, and yes, it is scary. Im still looking for a purpose, but i can’t think of anything, it seems illogical that there even should be a purpose, i fear that matter and time will never satisfy consious entities, atleast not until there is some massive breakthrough that brings humans closer together with freewill

]]> By: Quester http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45217 Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:19:07 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45217 Good points, all of you. One of my problems is that I have big thoughts, and little follow through. I’m lazy. But I do find it helpful to have a general goal in mind so that what I do actually do is pointed in that direction.

]]> By: Ubi Dubium http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45205 Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:42:04 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45205 I think it’s always going to be a work in progress, and should be. Big overall statements of purpose are easy, things like “leaving the world a better place than I found it”. How I do that leads to more intermediate goals, like conservation, encouraging people to question their religion and raising my children to be conscienscious freethinkers. The real challenge sometimes is how to translate big statements of purpose and meaning down into day-to-day stuff.

For instance, a recent goal of mine was to take the question of “why is religion so pervasive in human culture” and come up with an answer for myself that could be boiled down to a few simple statements, much the way we can quickly describe Darwin’s Theory as “heritability, variability, diffferential survival”. With a bunch of reading, especially of Michael Shermer and Valerie Tarico, I think I have done that. Now I have to figure out what’s best to do with that summary, how to use it to help others sort out their thinking. I’ll probably turn it into a blog post eventually.

]]> By: withheld http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45190 Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:20:49 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45190 I don’t know that I have much of an overall grand purpose that I can point to. How I live hasn’t really changed that much from when I was a believer. I am still a husband and a father, which takes most of my time and brings most of my joy.
I think even acknowledging that I am flying blind is better than obsessing about what some inscrutable deity’s plan for my life might be.

]]> By: ACN http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45173 Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:22:07 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45173 Hard. Intimidating. Scary.

But it feels refreshing, I get to know that my choices are my own no matter what happens, and if I don’t like how things are working out I can even change my mind without worrying about opposing the divine plan of some deity.

]]> By: Quester http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45168 Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:07:00 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45168 Withheld, Ubi, other deconverts:

How has creating/choosing one or more purposes to pursue with your lives been working out? I’m still working on choosing one, personally.

]]> By: Ubi Dubium http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45166 Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:45:26 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45166 This is really typical of the circular language twisting I see from xians that they use to “prove” their point. They call the universe a “creation” and then say that because it’s a “creation” there must be a “creator”. Same thing here. He says it’s a “calling” not a purpose, and then says that therefore there is a “caller”. Calling something by a word that assumes intent does nothing to establish that an intent is present. Mr. Dyer, such linguistic trickery will not work here.

]]> By: withheld http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45149 Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:41:24 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45149 That is why The de-Convert uses the word purpose instead of calling. We don’t believe there is a caller, so there can be no calling. My life has no purpose in and of itself, so it is up to me to create a “life purpose”. That is kind of the point of this post.

]]> By: Dr Paul Dyer http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45134 Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:08:52 +0000 http://de-conversion.com/2007/12/09/my-purpose-is-clearer-now-without-religion/#comment-45134 I must also mention, that if we have a Calling, then there is One who calls. IMHO it makes no sense whatsoever to consider purpose with out asking what God’s role is in our lives.

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