[AnimalMuppet]

If there is no God, if all there is is the physical universe, then we are here only by chance. The universe doesn't care about us, because there's nobody there to care. All there is is matter and the laws of physics.

Therefore, all we can be is matter that obeys the laws of physics. That's all we can be - nothing more.

In particular, it is impossible that we have any kind of free will or real choice. Matter that obeys the laws of physics doesn't choose anything - it just obeys the laws of physics.

Love (in the real sense, that of choosing to do what's best for the other person) is impossible, because choosing is impossible.

And you can keep going down the list. Everything that we think of as making us human is dead, and we are just machines made of atoms biochemicals, and neurons. We're slaves to the laws of physics.

If that's the case, then what kind of meaning is possible? Even meaning that we make for ourselves, we're making as robots.

There lies the horror of modern humanity. We have all these human aspirations, including the longing for meaning, but we don't believe that what we long for is at all possible. The impersonal universe, creating us by chance, has made us with desires but with no way to fulfill them. What a horror we are trapped in!

You have asked that we not bring God in. But at this point, you kind of have to, because the existence of God would totally change this picture. If there is a God, and if God is a He rather than an It, then personality can a real thing, rather than just a "ghost in the machine". And if He made humans, then human personality can also be real rather than just a facade that emerges from complex mechanistic behavior.

So that's the alternative: Either you were created as a cruel joke by an impersonal, mechanistic universe, or as a true personality by a God who is a person. Now to my point: I assert that your desire for meaning is not just a cruel joke. It is evidence - evidence that you are more than the materialist view says that you can be.

Commence hellbanning in 5, 4, 3...

[idoh]

I like your comment, but I think it creates a false dichotomy between a deterministic universe or one with a higher power. What about a middle option, where there is no higher power but the universe isn't deterministic?

If the laws of physics include randomness / some amount of vagueness, then maybe it changes things from a philosophical perspective.

[AnimalMuppet]

If there is no higher power, if the physical universe is all there is, and if our current understanding of the physical universe is correct, there is some randomness - quantum uncertainty. But that's not the same as my free will or ability to choose, because my choice does not determine the results of the quantum uncertainty.

That leaves me essentially as a deterministic machine with some noise at the lowest levels. It doesn't leave me as what was classically considered human...

[ASpring]

People believe what they WANT to believe.

I've heard this statement quite a few times and it still remains somehow both redundant and thought provoking. If a person wants to have religion answer existential questions for themselves I think it's wrong to demonize that.