[ExI] Meaning in life (Was: Who has a vote that counts?)

[SR Ballard]

I don’t think that linking a decline in religiousity to a decline in meaning of life is a negative statement about people who are not religious. 

Religion provides an emotional answer to the questions — “why am I here?” “how am I special?” “what am I supposed to do with my life?” — Without religion, the answers to these questions are non-emotional, but rather factual. 

A while back (months?) on the list I saw a few emails about how “we create our own meaning of life” and that’s exactly my point.

If group A has it spoon fed to them they have 100% meaning of life. If group B has to figure it out, then the population can approach but never achieve 100%. 

Similarly if group A attends or can attend regular religious meetings, 100% of them have a vast social network. If group B has to make any form of effort to create a social network, then the population can approach but never achieve 100% access to that size of social network. 

This doesn’t imply anything negative about religious feelings, or lack thereof. Any religious person or person who is not religious can have a meaning of life, a vast social network, and achieve what they will. 

But what I am saying is that social connections and goals make people happy, and one group has prefab connections and goals, and the other had to make conscious effort to achieve the same. 

If effort is required, automatically less people will do something, because of opportunity cost. 

SR Ballard