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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Pleasure and happiness The Meaning of Life (ii) By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 799 words Publication date: June 26, 2005 Is there a Meaning to Life? Last week I pointed out that Meaning, or Purpose, can only exist if there is a consciousness to create it. Believers argue that such a consciousness – God – exists and that our Purpose is to worship it. However, reason tells us that there is no God and Life has no Meaning. The idea that life is meaningless is liberating rather than depressing. It allows each of us to create our own Meaning – a Meaning relevant to us rather than to an imaginary being, Instead of asking ourselves "what is the Meaning of Life?" we have the greater and far more rewarding question “what Meaning should we give Life?” or ’what’s the best way to live?” We all give different answers. “Making money.” “Making others happy.” “Winning an Olympic gold medal.” “Marrying and having children.” “Having sex.” “Being in Love.” “Defending my country.” Some goals are easier to achieve than others. Some are temporary and some are long-term. Some are physical and some mental. But no matter how different they seem, at root they have one thing in common. We all want to feel good. Ultimately, we all want to be happy. Happiness may come from helping others. Giving our seat on the bus or subway to a tired stranger, volunteering for a soup kitchen, visiting an elderly relative, child-minding for busy parents, giving money to a good cause, can all bring satisfaction in direct proportion to the pleasure in which the gesture is received. Altruism has its pitfalls. We cannot cure the whole world’s ills. Even with family and friends we risk failure if we do not really understand their needs or if we understand and are incapable of meeting them. Worst of all, we may be arrogant enough to believe that we know best what others what want or need. Most times such misguided altruism ends up as nothing more than inappropriate gestures and complaints from the giver that their generosity is not properly acknowledged. Occasionally, determination to improve others’ lives ends with suicide bombers and hijacked planes. Does it make sense to place other people’s happiness above our own? From birth to death there is only one thing that each of us can certain of: ourselves. No one else knows what we know; no one else can experience our life; no one else knows what really makes us happy to the core of being – and we can never be certain what brings others the same emotion. We are islands of consciousness and our own happiness should be our primary goal. Happiness cannot be guaranteed. A fortunate few are happy by nature. Others strive to reach that state. Some reach it through alcohol or other drugs, taken in moderation or excess. Some experience it intermittently and some never do. But if happiness cannot be guaranteed, the Declaration of Independence reminds us that it can and should be pursued. And it is that activity – the Pursuit of Happiness – which gives Life its true Meaning. We come closest to happiness when we know and accept ourselves – when we are not only fully aware of who we are, what we do and why do it, but when we like the person we see. We also come close to happiness when we are lucky enough to be loved unreservedly and when we love unreservedly in return. When happiness is beyond reach, pleasure is a reasonable substitute. The physical pleasures are common to all of us: rest, exertion, good food and considerate sex. The mental pleasures are more varied: creating music, being absorbed by Middle Earth, chess, a World Series game, fishing on a lake as the sun comes up, playing the stock market and so on and so on. And deep pleasure can also come from giving others pleasure – on their terms rather than our own. All pleasure which does not harm others is valid. The pursuit of pleasure – hedonism – has a long history and is often wrongly denigrated. It is not the selfish hedonist who threatens humanity, but the denier of pleasure who tries to bend others to their will. If we all seek our own happiness rather than the happiness of others, there is a greater chance that many of us will find it. And we can still be altruists; if we are truly happy we will want others to share that emotion. Our obligation then is not to tell them how to be happy, but to build a community and a nation which allows everyone to pursue happiness in their own fashion. Unfortunately, in much of modern America, Christians seek to impose their God – their idea of happiness – on the rest of the nation. One day they may understand that it is not God’s presence that gives our Lives Meaning; it is his absence.
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist.
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