Philosophers Think Too Much

I recently read a really good book called "The God That is There." It didn't really change any of my views on religion, but I learned quite a lot from it. One of the big things I learned was that philosophers think too much. They've been looking for the meaning of life since the beginning of humanity. Of course, they started out thinking that the meaning of life came from on high. Whether that be one God or many. That wasn't good enough for them so they rejected religion and started looking for some sort of hidden meaning that the universe inherently has. Artists picked up on this in the last century or so. That is why so much of modern art is abstract and random in appearance. They are hoping some sort of meaning will appear out of the chaos. Some have even committed suicide because they couldn't find the meaning they were looking for. They couldn't deal with the possibility that there was no meaning to life at all.

I think that one of the reasons that people have such a hard time with the meaning of life is that they don't realize that each person gets to pick the meaning for their own life. In fact, they are not even restricted to just one meaning. Some might say that religion is the meaning to their lives, for example. If pressed though most of the same people would say that family is a big part of their life. The meaning of your life is inherent in how you choose to spend it.

Religious people would say that their version of God is really the one and only source of purpose in the Universe. However, this neglects the fact that people are free to choose whether they will follow God or not. There is no need to talk of sin and redemption if you have no choice but to obey God. If you believe in God, you have to believe that free will exists. Free will implies choice. People who reject religion may be in error or they may not, but the choice is still theirs.