If there is no God, we don’t make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent?
Fellow Atheists, how do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I feel unfulfilled or empty? Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?
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You posted the same thing yesterday. It's no more valid today, and you're still not an atheist.
Oh, and as I pointed out yesterday, you're confusing natural human curiosity (which most of us have), with an indoctrinated, irrational belief in things "transcendent." That's rather silly. People never taught about anything "spiritual" don't "long" for it. Neither do people who've bothered to look at evidence and reality and realize there's nothing "spiritual" to long for.
I'll be honest, I do not know. I can only speculate. But what I do know is that we have these very large brains which give us the ability to think in such abstract ways and allows us to ponder things like meaning and purpose. As society has developed and we've focused less on survival, we've had more and more time to sit around and ponder existence. To ponder what the point is of all of this. And I think a desire for meaning and purpose is simply human nature, just as it is human nature to desire a sense of belonging with other people.
My life has meaning and purpose because I strive for happiness and making others happy. I also try to reach my goals. I don't feel unfulfilled or empty and I'm not hungering for anything spiritual. What are you talking about?
We don't all long for the transcendent. It would be nice if any of that crap was true, but it isn't. We are probably not the only sentient species in the Universe. We are probably never going to encounter any others. We will never going to be able to travel as fast as light or even close to such a speed. It would take us decades, maybe centuries, to reach the next nearest star-Alpha Centauri.
The great lesson in life is that life is what you make of it.
I don't feel unfulfilled and empty, just a little hungry.
The purpose of life is to give life a purpose, not to have some thousands years old book give it to you.
Curiosity.
We're emotional beings, so we tend to subscribe to comforting myths, in particular the conveniently unfalsifiable ones.
Simple really.
Questioning is there a meaning or a purpose does not mean there actually is any.
And there isn't.
I sometimes get a craving for chocolate.. does that mean that god is a snickers bar?