Can There Be Purpose Without Gods, Devils, Demons, and Angels?
Yes, yes, yes, and yes
People who believe in a god often can’t imagine how someone like myself who is a total unbeliever in gods, devils, demons, and angels is able to find purpose in life.
Without their strong beliefs, I guess they’d feel lost and alone in the universe. I can understand the desire to feel seen. It’s this desire that drove humankind, at least in part, to imagine that humans were superior to all other life forms. We weren’t just a strange, unpredictable stroke of luck that lived and then died, but someone somewhere wanted us here. We have a purpose. We may spend our lives trying to figure out what our purpose is, yet we’re determined to believe that our very existence was part of a god’s plans.
I get that.
So how do I find a purpose in my accidental existence? Well, surprisingly, even without a belief in any gods, I feel pretty accepting of my short life on earth. I don’t need a god to give my life meaning nor do I need to believe that I’ll live forever. In fact, I don’t even need a tribe to give my life meaning. Most of my life, I haven’t really sought to belong to a group of any kind, religious or secular.
I pretty much fly solo.
Whereas the vast majority seem to not only need a god to validate their existence, they really need a tribe as well. You’d think a personal relationship with a god would be such a powerful experience that they’d need little else. I know if I ever met a god, it would change my life forever and drastically. Yet, often these gods seem to be secondary characters in a believer’s daily life. Their fleshly needs having far more influence over their choices and decisions than their personal relationships with gods, demons, devils, and angels. So, they crave a tribe and will do almost anything to belong.
Don’t get me wrong, I can flirt around the edges of lots of different groups, but I’ve never needed total membership. Like I said, I pretty much fly solo.
Soloists like myself are not a dime a dozen but I’ve met a few. They live on the fringe of society, sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively. I’ve always recognized them when I’ve met one. We appear to not need anybody. Our days are filled with activities born from a cerebral context.
I once asked a friend if they felt more like a mind with a body or body with a mind.
They looked at me like I was crazy. I realized that they had no idea what I meant. I’ve always felt more like a mind that drags a body wherever I go. I’m not always fully aware of my body. I almost dwell in a parallel universe of the mind. I’m sorry, but unless you’ve experienced this, I really can’t describe it any better than that.
Suffice it to say, I don’t understand a believer’s attachment to gods any more than they understand my detachment from gods and tribes.
I’m pretty grateful overall that I’m a soloist. I don’t think I got to choose it, but it suits me. Probably my brain is wired that way, so of course, that’s why I’m suited so well for flying solo.
Some days, I fly over the cosmos metaphorically speaking and feel with some intensity the vastness of the universe. It’s a kind of inspiration that is bigger than me and humbling. I love those moments. Momentarily, I ‘m glad that I was born into this strange world that no one really understands. It briefly lifts me above the mundanities of life and fills me with wonder.
I don’t need a purpose to my existence beyond those moments. I am and everything else just is. And that’s enough for me.
As I go about my daily life, I assign meaning to what I am doing, however. Art, writing, music, cooking, gardening, eating, traveling, and walking in nature all become pastimes that give me emotional highs and lows. I allow the feeling to linger because when I feel things I know that I’m alive. Long ago, creativity became my most exhilarating experience. When I’m in the creative mode, I can forget all the trivial pursuits that consume the majority of human attention.
I also don’t fear death.
I have no reason to pretend that I know what or if anything exists after I’m gone. So, I pretty much concentrate on here and now as much as possible. But I will say that I’ve allowed myself to think about my own death and find it endlessly fascinating. Some people, even those who believe in a god and an afterlife seem reluctant to think about their own deaths.
If I was convinced that there was a better life awaiting me, one where I’d be able to come face to face with gods, I would be pretty excited to make the leap.
I’ve been fascinated with death and dying for a long time. I love cemeteries. I’ve traveled all over the world and seen some of the most beautiful cemeteries. I’ve seen cemeteries that are like small towns with street lights and mausoleums that have windows allowing you to peek inside where family treasures have been stored. I’ve seen cemeteries in Prague with macabre statues. I’ve visited Japanese cemeteries that are packed tightly like their cities, no space wasted. I’ve hung out in country cemeteries all over America. I lived next to a country cemetery in Maine for several decades. They were the quietest neighbors with graves that dated back to the 1800s. I loved springtime in our little country neighborhood where wild violets created a carpet.
Death is part of life.
If you choose to have a child, you’ve signed their death certificate as well as their birth certificate. That’s the deal. We should all be much more comfortable with death than we are, in my opinion. I’ve met lots of believers who seem much more afraid of dying that I am.
I’ve never understood that.
However, even though I don’t believe there’s a god waiting for me at the pearly gates, I do anticipate my own death with a great deal of curiosity and even some anticipation. Especially now that I’m older. I love to travel and so I think that if there is something beyond this life, it’ll be the most exciting trip I’ll ever take.
If there’s nothing, then I have no need to worry at all.
I’ve also often thought that if there’s life on other planets, I wouldn’t mind meeting these creatures. I have no reason to believe that there is since so far no one has shown up, but I’d be willing to serve as a liaison between humans and martians.
They say we’re mostly forgotten within two generations.
I like that. I don’t want to be remembered. They’d never get my story right because no one knows me better than me. We may have friends and loved ones to pass the time with but in the end no one can really know me. I can barely know myself. So, due to the fact that my legacy would be distorted and filled with wrong interpretations, I’m glad to be completely forgotten.
If we only pass this way once, so be it.
I don’t know where I was before this life. Maybe somewhere maybe nowhere. I don’t expect a second and third chance to get this right, however. And, if I’m not even allowed to know that I had a previous life, whether I have a next life or not doesn’t really matter all that much.
So you see, I have a kind of purpose that suits me just fine.
I try not to overthink it because as near as I can tell when we do there’s a tendency to make up things in order to answer unanswerable questions. We don’t like to sit with the discomfort of not knowing. We begin to fill in the gaps with a back story and then convince ourselves that we know more than we really do. I don’t mind saying those three little words, I don’t know. Because I don’t know.
All I know for sure is that this morning I woke up to another day.
That can be good news or bad news. Today, it feels a little daunting. I’ve been dealing with one of those pesky problems that life likes to throw our way. You know, the kind of problem that I can’t seem to get out of my mind until I’ve sat with it for a while. I even lost a few hours of sleep last night.
Oh, no need to send condolences.
I’m no different than you. As near as I can tell life is a series of problems that require our attention in order to survive. In between the problems we sometimes get a few feel good moments. If we don’t take advantage of those moments, we’re doomed to be troubled all of the time. I promise you when my next feel good moments arrive, I’ll take full advantage of them. I’ve learned how to do that.
I’m trying to give this life my best effort.
Teresa Roberts is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
