why we ultimately need God

People who search for "the meaning of life" are trying to articulate analogous questions about the world. They want to know what would enable us to understand the diverse and frequently bizarre phenomena that constitute reality. But also they wonder whether things can be as they are because of some benign intention of a quasi-human sort that pervades the universe. Theories about a deity who has created everything are often secondary to this concern. Ideas about God's essence—whether he is infinitely wise or good or powerful—pertain to mainly technical problems in theology. To argue about the Supreme Being's attributes is to engage in an exercise that probably has minor importance for most people. William James was quite right when he claimed that the "cash value" of such deliberations resides in our primordial need to reassure ourselves about an ultimate good will in the cosmos, a basic friendliness toward us and what we value, a final haven or support for our ideals and aspirations.

James thought that the "need of an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast. Whether this is true of everyone, and whether or not the need is satisfiable, it helps explain our search for meaning in both senses of the term and regardless of specific religious belief. We know what it is to pursue ideals that express human values and elicit relevant emotional responses. The crucial quest for most people is whether anything of the sort is justified by objective conditions in the universe. We may be willing to remain ignorant about the chances of our own immortality, and even about the ultimate fate of whatever we consider to be good. We mainly want to be assured that a controlling power exists in terms of which all things could be explained—if only we had intellects capable of understanding its nature—and that it is purposeful in some manner we might recognize as having consum­mate value.

- Irving Singer

We don't really want explanations of how the Universe was created. We don't even want an explanation of why we are here. What we really want is the assurance that somewhere out there is a moral being that has things in order and we're not going to get fucked ultimately. Fear of the unknown.

meaning of life

The important question is not what is the meaning of life? The important question is what makes a life meaningful or not. How do humans create "meaning"? Why is it that meaning is so important? Who said so?

We must therefore rephrase the usual questions. Instead of seeking the meaning of life as if it were something preexisting, we must study the natural history of mental acts and bodily responses that enable organisms such as ours to fabricate meaning for themselves. We speak of "finding" a life that is meaningful, but the meaning is something we create. Whether or not we believe there is a prior system of intentions built into reality, we need to ask questions of a different sort: How do we actually create meaning? What is the phenomenology of a meaningful life? What will give a meaning to my life? Is life worthwhile? Is it worth living? What makes a life significant? Does anything really matter? Can one learn how to live? If so, how does one do it?

Do we really know what we are requesting when we ask for a meaning of life? Possibly the greatest difficulty consists not in finding a solution but in elucidating the meaning of our questions. When Gertrude Stein was dying, her friend Alice B. Toklas is reported to have said, "Gertrude, Gertrude, what is the answer?" Miss Stein replied: "Alice, Alice, what is the question?"

As another illustration, consider a passage in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The computer named Deep Thought announces that he has finally determined the meaning of life and that, by his calculation, the answer to the great question is forty-two. The humanoids who have been eagerly awaiting his findings, generation after generation for seven and a half million years, are thunderstruck. They had expected a different kind of answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything." But Deep Thought explains that their problem arises from their confusion about the question. "So once you do know what the question is," he says, "you'll know what the answer means."

Before we can try to look for solutions, we must first determine which are the intelligible problems. Even if we say, as one troubled youth did, "To be or not to be: that is the question," we need to understand the nature of all such questioning.

- Irving Singer

biology determines meaning

Men and women have the goals and purposes that are meaningful to them because a biological structure in their needs and satisfactions underlies, either directly or indirectly, their creation of meaning.

- Irving Singer

existentialism defintions

Existence precedes essence: Sartre's phrase to describe the existential situation humans find themselves in. It refers to the fact that when you're born, you have no meaning, no purpose, no definition. Human beings exist first, and only later define themselves.

The death of God: The death of the notion that belief in God alone, or belief in any religious or philosophical system, is sufficient to provide human beings with the meaning, purpose, and definition they crave. It's the recognition that, because no external system can provide you with the answers, you must take responsibility for providing them yourself.

Subjectivity: Your first-person perspective on the world, including the needs, desires, and emotions that must accompany that perspective. The existentialists take this as a valid and important starting point for genuinely human endeavors. This can be contrasted with the scientific mindset, which always starts with objectivity -- seeing people in impersonal, objective terms without emotion or appreciation for their individual point of view.

- Chris Panza

you can't be a samurai warrior

By the 19th century, when the first existentialists were writing, the narrative of the church had largely broken down. Much of the public piety of that age was a surface piety enforced by social convention. Churchgoers, by and large, were stuck in the same malaise and just as alienated as those who had left the church. Why? Because Christians are like samurai.

One of Greg's professors once told him in seminar, "You can't be a samurai warrior." Poor Greg was devastated. But the professor was right. Some choices aren't available to you. You could do what Forest Whitaker does in the excellent movie Ghost Dog: You could pick up a sword, you could pledge yourself to another person, and you could try to follow a code of honor. But being a samurai is something more. Being a samurai means being part of something larger than yourself; it means being something with a certain cultural significance. Being a samurai is part of the meaning-narrative of an entire society.

Can people be Christians today? Certainly, but they can never be Christians in the way people were Christians for hundreds of years during which the church dominated European political, intellectual, and cultural institutions. Christianity, as an absolute system providing a homogenous meaning narrative for an entire society, is dead. Being a Christian in a world in which the sun revolves around the earth, echoing in a concrete, physical way God's love and attention, is gone. Being a Christian in a world in which the teachings of the church are reflected, in every physical fact, in every element of societal structure, is gone. Even if you believe in God and believe in the divinity of Jesus, that type of Christian is as dead as the samurai.

For the Christian existentialists, to some extent this is a good thing. The price of the church's absolute reassurance was the abdication of your individual, personal responsibility for and passionate engagement in your own faith. This, for the existentialist, is tantamount to giving up your humanity (dare we say your soul?) - a devil's bargain, to be sure.

- Chris Panza