Life's Purpose in a Soulless Universe
Summary: If life is purely material and ends at death, the article argues that existence becomes a small, unknowable part of a vast, lifeless universe—making purpose, morality, and altruism hard to justify beyond self-interest. It claims atheism can intensify meaninglessness and trigger an existential crisis by removing “romance” and higher purpose, unless science reveals a unifying truth that gives life enduring value.
If this life is all that you have, and you are just a mass of flesh and bones with a wavering and restless consciousness, your life becomes just a little piece in an incomprehensible, vast jigsaw puzzle, whose beginning and end you cannot fathom.
As a small part of that incomprehensible vastness, it becomes reduced to a mere process in Nature’s mysterious mechanism in the greater mystery of existence itself.
You will never understand why life exists and for what ends. The whole universe, as far as we can reach, is without any sign of life. Of all the planets we searched and indexed, life exists in its complexity and diversity only on Earth.
Then what is the mystery behind one tiny planet alone, brimming with life in a sea of lifeless insentient phenomena?
Without soul, without the possibility of eternity, each living being that manifests here will be just one of Nature's innumerable specimens for observation, experimentation, and learning.
Nature may learn from our experiences and interactions, but what reason can there be for humans to apply their intelligence, plan for their success, improve their character and conduct, think beyond themselves or their interests, live for others, or aim for a greater cause or ideal?
In the scenario of a purely natural, mechanical, and soulless existence of life, you, as an intelligent and rational being, are fully justified to think for yourself, live for yourself, and remain purely selfish and self-centered about your life, values, and priorities.
In the absence of a higher purpose guiding our lives and actions, there exists no reason for anyone to think about right and wrong except in the context of what is helpful or useful to one's existence. No one should blame you if you use your skills, talents, resources, opportunities, and relationships for your own survival and well-being and not worry about others who do not in some meaningful way contribute to your existence.
If we set aside humanity and humanitarian causes, this is the ideal that atheism points to. It implies the futility of life and creates a form of existential crisis in everyone’s life.
Although in certain aspects it is necessary and useful to be grounded in reality, atheism takes away romance from life. It makes existence meaningless and purposeless.
If all people in the world become atheists, we must wonder what else will motivate them to be their best selves, be kind to each other, or think of ideals such as universal brotherhood or social responsibility, other than purely intellectual and idealistic considerations.
It is this scenario that will unfold when humanity suffers from a universal crisis of faith unless science discovers greater truths about the universe and our existence, and a greater purpose that unites us all, in which each being’s life becomes worth living and worth enduring.