The Point

I saw the following written on a colleague's board today:

Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil.  It has no point.

So I got thinking about this quote, the analogy it is drawing, and what it means.  Of course, the analogy is just meant to be cute and the real purpose is to say that God is the point of living.  I find that rather sad, that someone would need the support of an unseen and unproven entity to justify or find meaning in life.  That all of the tangible, measurable, and identifiable beauty around this individual is not sufficient to make life worth living.  So what is it about God that all of a sudden gives life meaning?

The following is not by any means an exhaustive list, especially since I have not reviewed it with anyone with a sharp pencil like life, but it's a start.  God gives meaning to life because:

1. He (see note below) created us and therefore alone has the right to define our purpose.  This would be similar to say an architect deciding how a particular building he created would be used.
2. It is God's mercy and love alone that has provided us with all that we have, and without him, we would have nothing.  This is perhaps like a young child loving, honoring, and respecting his parents because they love him and provide him with everything.
3. Our ultimate purpose is to celebrate the glory of God.  In fact this is why God created us.  He was sitting around one day, bored, and said, "I need some people to sing my praises", so He created Man.  This is kind of like circular logic - God gives us meaning because we were created as something for God to give meaning to.
4. When we die, we will go to see God, and He will judge us by how much we believed in the idea that He alone gave life meaning.  This is somewhat cynical since it assumes the person believing this is doing for an ulterior motive.  Of course, the truly devout hopefully have really internalized it since an omnipotent God would know that they are just putting on a show.  They dont really mean it, but want to make sure they can convince God of it when they meet him in Heaven.
5. I cannot explain all that happens around me, so surely there must be a God that controls it and therefore provides meaning to not only my life but all of this Universe.

I am sure that other reasons exist, but believing in any of this does a great injustice to everything else that exists around us.  I do not claim to know the meaning of life, but do know that I find plenty of meaning in it without having a place for God.  I choose to believe that I am where I am with what I have due to a combination of my parents love and support, my friends and family, all of society, and ultimately my own abilities and efforts.  To say that God alone has given me all of this is shortchanging not only myself but everyone around me.  Imagine how you would feel if you just wrote Romeo and Juliet and audiences went around saying that this guy named Shakespeare wrote it.  

Allow me also to address #5 above directly.  Such a rationale is driven by ignorance and fear, not reason and evidence.  I do not think that humans will ever develop the science that explains everything, but just because we do not know does not prove the existence of a God.  It's a bit like saying that I do not know what is inside that locked house, but I can hear some nice music coming out of it, so surely Mozart must be in there playing the piano.  Mozart could be in there, but that is highly unlikely.  If we must believe it should be because we have a strong reason to, not because we cannot think of anything better.

Sticking with the original analogy, perhaps Life without God is indeed like an unsharpened pencil for it still can write and does NOT have a "weapon" at the end of it that is all too often used to poke others in the eye.  But, life without God has a point.  Its point is to care for ourselves, those around us, and the planet that sustains us.  It is to do this while remembering to admire the beauty and harmony in the universe that surrounds us.  By doing so we can very well make life incredibly meaningful, both for ourselves and others.  Hopefully we can live a life that would also make it meaningful to others whom we have never met.  Regardless of the magnitude of our individual impacts, a perceived entity in the sky is not needed to provide a fulfilling and purposeful life.  To suggest a pointless existence without God is frankly insulting to all of human endeavor, compassion, and accomplishment.

Note on Gender - I have no idea of the gender of God but since common lore refers to God as a male, I will continue that here.  Of course I could just as easily use She or It.  

Yet Another Note on Gender - I have, for purely convenience, used a male human as a subject in my examples.  Apologies to feminists everywhere, but if you wish you could replace him or he (lowercase ones only) with her or she and make no other change.