Goal/No meaning

Connections List
 * Perception Arguments
 * Atheist Inconsistencies
 * Against Atheism
 * 1 Thessalonians 4
 * Meaning of life
 * Men like grass, worm
 * God shaped hole
 * First mover, causality
 * Cosmological
 * Atheism
 * Goal purpose

Scope
 * Life without God is meaningless
 * Objections and rebuttals to finding meaning in life outside of God

Topics
 * Mech
 * List of substitutes for God and rebuttals to those substitutes

Mech
 * Without God life is
 * Meaningless (fulfillment, accomplishment)
 * Purposeless (taking action)
 * Valueless (morals)
 * The fact of heat death with defeat most substitutes for meaning.*
 * String of 'why?' used to determine arbitrary goals.
 * Beware of goals/choices that are truly seeking more root level things. I think we are all hedonists.

List of substitutes
 * Goals/value. Without God there is no reason to do anything. Nothing has value. There is no mind, no heuristic process, to assign it value. All goals are arbitrary. With God you may argue the same thing, but at least then we were created for a purpose and there is an ultimate directed being in the universe, an end, etc. Ecclesiastes. Goals with finite limits are vain because they are arbitrary.
 * Progress is futile, as nothing can measure progress and zoom out makes it all insignificant. Also the fact of heat death destroys all progress. This might be Neil Tysons intent when he says he wants his body to feed the plants when he dies.
 * Life/longevity. Everyone dies. 1 Thess 4:13 "...those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope." It is possible that you could simply seek to maximize longevity. But you cannot live forever. And, I expect, you only want to live longer in order to experience pleasure more.
 * Legacy (like the greeks). Given enough time (e.g. say world bust cycles) we will forget. Ecclesiastes 1:11 "No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be rememberd by those who follow them."
 * Reckless hedonism. Can be quantified, therefore unfulfilling. Also most people find a world of reckless hedonists to be unacceptable. Kai Neilsen (atheist) says no god >>n unacceptable hedonism.
 * Hedonism of higher pleasures. Politically correct. Family. Has same underlying issues as reckless hedonism, just veiled.