Life is meaningless without God.

Thank you very much for taking part in this debate. Good luck to you, as well. Meaning - This can be interpreted in this context to be the value or significance found in life. To say life is meaningless without God is to say life has no importance, value or significance without God in any way. In other words, if God did not exist, life would not have any value - all of life would be unimportant, insignificant, and devoid of ANY value (Note: This does not mean inherently, necessarily). This is your side of the debate, basically. To clarify, "life" does not mean existence. I mean the actual process of and living of life, not the existence of life. I am not saying that there is meaning in existence without God; I am saying that life is "the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual" and meaning can be found in that without God. That is the closest definition. Here is the link to the definition: http://www.merriam-webster.com... Again, I shall reiterate that life is, in fact, not meaningless without God. Meaning can still be derived without God. There are plenty of people in this world who do not subscribe to any religion or believe in a God, yet they find their lives to be meaningful. If they claim to have found a meaning for their life, a value or significance in it, who are we to say they have not? "We seem to think that the life of someone like Mother Theresa is 'meaningful', but in order to claim something like that we need to be able to identify a significant goal that her actions would work towards." - To have something be meaningful does not mean there must be a goal of any sort inherent in the object/action/etc. A person can find meaning in an abstract painting where no meaning was inherent in it. Was there a goal in the painting? No. Someone just decided to throw paint on a canvas. Someone else saw something deep and provocative in that thrown paint on that canvas. They assigned a meaning to it for themselves. This is analogous to how humans find meaning in life. Life is a random occurrence. We have been thrown into this world without our consent, without a purpose. Therefore, humans must assign a meaning in the purposeless and absurdity of life. In this situation, with no God, meaning is found. "What God really represents is an objective standard with which to measure our lives and actions." - To this, I would say that why is God necessary for an objective standard? Why can there not just be universal maxims from no higher power than humanity? Those create objective standards without God. Why not let humanity come together and decide universal maxims and create an objective standard? There does not seem to be a true need for any sort of deity to send down rules and values. "We are all just perspectives in a perpetuating pool of subjective existence." - Lovely line, I must say. The main crux of my argument, then, is that individuals find meaning in their lives for themselves, and there is no objective standard by which to judge the meaningfulness of a life. In fact, someone who does what Mother Theresa does may have just as much meaning as someone who mows lawns for a living and does nothing else, really. Is that the comfortable choice? Indeed, it is not. But just because people compare the lives of people (Mother Theresa's meaningfulness vs. a hobo's meaningfulness) does not make it the correct perspective. There is no objective standard to judge meaning. Each person finds meaning in their own life, and this can be done without God. And even if there were to be an objective standard, it need not come from any sort of deity. It could just be a Kantian sort of set of maxims that are universal, but do not come from God. Objective standards do not necessitate supernaturalism. Thank you, and I anxiously await my worthy opponent's response.