by Ayodele Abbis

Created on: August 22, 2009

Contemplating the purpose of life

Secular humanism is the religion of modern man, and the basis of modern thinking. It is the world-view of the average modern man. The underbelly of this belief is the scientific assertion that everything cognitive and palpable is a product of chance. Humanism rejects religion, God, and postulates a moral value based on convenience and societal consensus. Everything starts and ends with man. In this kind of universe, hedonism is free practice: I can do whatever I want and no one has any right to tell me what to do.

It really then raise the question, if we were all made by chance, and everything there is and has ever been has just been a mighty invention of chance, what chances do we have as humans that there is any purpose to our existence at all? If we are a combination of particles of matter, how come we are so carefully arranged, and our body system so well designed that it self regulates? It the basis of life was scientific, how come we have no scientific explanation for overwhelming feelings of love, desire, and even beauty? What is the scientific explanation of the phenomenon of growing old? Even more bothering is the question of why we feel we have to have a purpose in life; I mean, if we are totally a chance creation, and nothing more than a random jostling of atoms, what then explains the feelings of wanting to know if we have a purpose?

Let us consider another world-view aside from the modernist's , the religious world-view. This posits that there is a supreme being who is responsible for everything as it began. Man is not the centre of the universe but rather just a piece of the whole pie, but the most significant piece. This world-view says man was made for a purpose, and that the master artificer behind creation purposely made man the most unique of all creation. Needless to say, in this world-view, it is not difficult to understand why man has the desire to understand his purpose in life, and why he feels he has to have a purpose- it is simply because he was made for a reason, and being true to his design, these desires and curiosities are just natural displays of what the creator worked in. most religious people hold this world-view, and they pursue their lives knowing that there is a known purpose for them to fulfill.

Another world-view to consider is that of the nihilist, who believe that there is nothing real and that existence is useless and senseless. It is immediately obvious

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