Our Reason for Existence
Why are we here?
In a world view of the Abrahamic religions, we exist because God wanted us to exist. From the atheist perspective, there is no such divine creator. Then how do atheists explain why we exist at all?The question about human existence is philosophically very sophisticated. However, it has an almost disappointingly simple answer: Humans exist because they were born. We were born because our parents procreated. Our parents exist because they were born, and they were born because our grand-parents procreated, and so on. Our parents and grand-parents procreated in part because they have a built-in desire to procreate and have children. Quite intuitively, the gene that favors procreation is more likely to be reproduced than the gene that does not, meaning that through the process of evolution all living beings today have this gene.
This process continues into the past until we go so far back in time that your ancestors were no longer humans but resembled Homo Ergaster. The ancestors of these resembled more primitive forms of humanoids, before resembling Ardipithecus, and so on. When we go further and further back in time, we come to life forms that consisted of only a few cells, and finally to life forms that consisted just of a single cell. These cells came into existence by chemical processes that we detail in the Chapter on the Universe. Starting from these cells, the reason for existence has always been the same, all the way down to you and me: reproduction.
I didn’t ask to be made: no one consulted me or considered my feelings in the matter.
Why were we selected to exist?
Even if we buy the scientific consensus that we exist because we evolved from simple cells, this still leaves us with the question of how this became possible in the first place. The current scientific world view holds that we are living 13 billion years after the genesis of the universe. We live on one of the billions of planets in that universe. This planet came into existence roughly 4 billion years ago, and we are at the current point of some evolutionary process that has been going since that time. Thus, we are primarily the product of a huge number of random factors that fortuitously combined to lead to our existence.Why did life evolve on this planet and not somewhere else? Why was it our species that ultimately survived the process of evolution (and not the dinosaurs)? Why was it our species that developed reading, writing, and thinking (and not the apes)? And why is it you and me who made it into the 21st century (and not just some other people)?
The answer to all these questions is found in the Anthropic Principle. It says:
To be clear, it’s not that someone chose you to survive and decided to eradicate all others. It is rather that a large number of species were eradicated, and only those who survived could start asking such questions.
Let us illustrate this with an example. Suppose that a ship sinks in icy waters. All passengers are pulled down with the ship. Hundreds of passengers escape the ship and begin swimming to the surface. Because of currents in the water they are all dispersed and will reach the surface at different points. Unfortunately, the surface of the sea is completely covered with thick ice. There is only one hole in the ice, large enough to allow a single person to get out. Out of the hundreds of passengers, one person is lucky enough to hit that spot and survives. All other passengers perish. Now imagine that single person asking “Why is it me who survived?” The answer is plain: “There is no specific reason why it was you. It could have been any other person. But since you are asking, it was you.”
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
The Meaning of Life
What is the purpose of life?
Let us now dive into the question of questions: “What is the meaning of life?”. The usual interpretation of this question is “What is our purpose of existence?”.The “purpose” of a thing is the reason for which it was made2. For example, the purpose of a chair is to serve as an object that we can sit on, because this is what it was made for. The purpose of life would then be the intention that the creator of life pursued with his creation. In the Abrahamic religions, the purpose of life is the intention that God pursues with us. But there is no such creator in the atheist world view. Thus, the notion of “purpose of life” in the sense of “the intention of the creator” is undefined in the atheist world. For atheists, there is no creator-given or god-given purpose of life.
Quite fortunately, we can get a purpose from somewhere else. For example, we can use the chair also to step on it. In this way, we have given it a purpose even though we did not create it. Thus, the purpose of a thing can also be the intention that someone pursues with it, even if that someone did not create the object.
Now how does this transfer to the “purpose of life”? If we want to find the purpose of our life, we have to find someone who pursues some intention with us. Who could pursue an intention with you?
It turns out that plenty of people are happy to pursue an intention with you. There are, for example, lots of cult leaders who are interested in pursuing their purposes with you3. On a slightly less objectionable level, politicians, advocacy groups, and commercial marketing agents are all happy to pursue their intentions with you. Chances are, however, that you do not want to fulfill the intentions of someone else.
If you want to have a purpose but refuse to receive it from someone else, then you have to provide that purpose by yourself.
Thus, the first step for an atheist to find a purpose of life is to accept the responsibility that it is up to ourselves to define it. We discuss some popular choices next.
It matters not how strait the gate
how charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
What purpose should I choose?
What purpose should we give to our life? This choice is, in the atheist view, completely up to us. Quite plainly, your purpose of life is whatever you choose it to be4. This is not a particularly deep insight. It just follows from the definition of the word “purpose”: your body is a thing, and the purpose of a thing is whatever intention someone pursues with it — on this occasion you yourself.To choose such a purpose, we can look for inspiration in some hard-wired intentions that most of us share: We all have (to varying degrees) the desire to survive. We also typically have (to varying degrees) the desire to help others in need. We probably also have the desire to be happy. These are good starting points. Beyond this, we can give our own purpose to our lives. We are completely free in this choice.
Here are some popular options:
- try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations 5.
- find the love of your life; once you found him or her, you will stop worrying about the meaning of life 6.
- bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. It doesn’t matter if it’s a table or a film or gardening — everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, “I did that”. 7
- do something good for other people. As George Westinghouse, the inventor of the the railway air brake, said: If someday they say of me that, with my work, I have contributed something to the welfare and happiness of other people, I shall be satisfied.
- know more today about the world than you knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. 8
- achieve secular immortality, i.e., leave a lasting legacy by which you are remembered, e.g., by contributions to the future of your family, business, service/charities, education, healthcare, government, art, or sports9.
- live your dreams 10
- stand for something and make some difference in having lived at all 10
- seek happiness and flourish 10
- seek wisdom and knowledge 10
- leave the world a better place than you found it 10
- make other people happy 10
- seek peace 10
- seek pleasure and avoid pain 10
- be moved by the tears and pain of others and try to help them out of love and compassion 10
- eat, drink, and be merry 10
- develop your talents and use them for the service of humanity11
- live, love, and learn — i.e., take care of yourself, be kind to others, and try to know a little more each day.
Now it’s your turn: either choose one of the above as your purpose of life or come up with a new one. If you don’t give your life a purpose, then someone else might.
When we look for things in life like love, meaning, and motivation, we tend to think that they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. It is not until late in life that we discover that we have to create our own love, manufacture our own meaning, and generate our own motivation.
How can I live a moral live?
As we have discussed before, following basic ethic rules is in the interest of everybody, including yourself. Such a set of ethic rules is called a moral framework. Where do we get our moral framework from? There is no magic here: We typically inherit our moral framework from our parents, and then enrich it by what we learn and think on our own. If you would like to choose your own moral framework, you are warmly encouraged to have a look at the one we discuss in the Chapter on Morality. It is a liberal moral framework that will get you a long way. However, in general, the search for a moral framework is a continuous process with no definite answers — even for religious people. We discuss moral frameworks in detail in the Chapter on Morality.Once we have a moral framework, it tells us what we should do. In a Humanist moral framework, for example, what you should do is first and foremost avoid causing harm to others. From the perspective of Humanism, the world would be a much better place if people just followed this rule.
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?
How can I have a happy life?
Atheists have every interest in making their life a happy and a long one, as they believe they have only a single life. Now how can you make your life a happy one? It is a fair guess that you would first have to put in place the material preconditions:- Material preconditions
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- Live in a reasonably safe environment, and get a roof over your head.
- Find some source of income (preferably a legal one). Find a job that you enjoy, make sure you have the necessary qualifications for it, take your work seriously, and try to be good at it.
- Reduce risk in your life: Follow the law. Follow security and safety advice. Visit the doctor and do what they say. Build up a financial buffer and subscribe to health and accident insurance.
- A healthy body
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- follow a healthy diet: Eat vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy proteins. Make sure you get vitamins, and minerals. Drink enough water. Keep a healthy weight (body mass index between 18.5 and 25).12
- engage in regular exercise of the body: Move more and sit less. Some activity is better than none.12
- avoid unhealthy behaviors: avoid smoking, and reduce or avoid alcohol.12
- Healthy social connections
- A healthy mind
Mens sana in corpore sano.
[You should aim for] a healthy mind in a healthy body.
How can I cope with problems?
Religious people can resort to a wide variety of strategies to cope with difficult life events, stress, or problems they encounter: they can pray, take refuge into the religious community, engage in rituals, and cultivate the hope in a better future (in this life or the next). How can you cope with difficult events as an atheist?Coping strategies have been studied intensively in psychological research16. Most professional advisors agree that there are a number of preconditions to successful coping:
- Preconditions
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- Avoid negative coping strategies such as alcohol, caffeine, and drug consumption, impulsive spending, over-eating, self-harm, smoking, chewing your fingernails, yelling, and becoming aggressive or violent17181920.
- Take care of your body and your physical well-being: eat enough, eat healthy food, drink enough water, sleep enough, get some exercise172118222023
- Maintain and seek connection with friends and family, as social connections are an important tool throughout all steps of coping19242118201723. Don’t isolate yourself or jeopardize your connections.
- Identify the problem
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- Seek in yourself what makes you unhappy. Identify thoughts, events, and people that cause you unease. Write down what you observe, fear, and wish for.1922
- Reach out to friends and family, describe how you feel, have their advice. You can also have imaginary dialogues in your head with a friend, family member, or idealized advisor. Discussing with the other person (even if imaginary22) can help you identify the problem.182022
- Be honest about your discoveries. Don’t ignore or sugarcoat the problem.1719
- Reduce the problem
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- Break down the problem into smaller components, find ways to address each of them, and take the necessary actions — even if each step seems small23172024181719. Find ideas online. Be ready to consider alternatives that you did not previously think about or that you previously excluded.
- Seek help from friends and family182017. Again, even imaginary dialogues can help (“What would my friend X do in this situation?”)22.
- If everything else fails, seek professional help from self-help groups, counseling services, or a therapist.192118222023
- Accept what remains of the problem
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- Accept that there are issues that you cannot resolve2320. Keep things in perspective, and do not let the negative events in life prevent you from appreciating the positive ones. Accept that change is part of life.20 If you are to blame, pardon yourself. Give yourself patience and treat yourself like you would a friend. Celebrate whatever small successes you had in reducing the problem23.
- Learn from the problem, make sure it does not happen again, and take comfort in the measures you took. Help others avoid the same problem by sharing your experience or by joining volunteer groups.182320
- Get over the problem by doing nice things: engage in a hobby, do sports, listen to music, do gardening, play with pets or children, reach out to friends and family, cuddle a loved one, make space for yourself in your life, or join a civic group or local organization to connect with others.202319172118
Get at least eight hours of beauty sleep. Nine if you're ugly.
Life and Death
Where do humans go after death?
in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow/Russia
Most atheists believe that humans “go” nowhere after death. They just cease to exist.
That may seem hard to understand. Here is an analogy: Let us suppose that we take Lego bricks and build a small airplane. It’s a model plane, but we can agree that it exists. Now we disassemble the plane, and use the same bricks to build a car. Where did the model airplane go?
The answer is that the model airplane is simply gone. It ceased to exist. It is saved nowhere. From an atheist perspective, the same happens to humans after death. The body decomposes and it disappears. .
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
Where does the spirit go after death?
Atheists believe that the human body goes nowhere after death. But where does the human soul go after death? For that matter, where do the personality, consciousness, thoughts, and memories go?
If that is difficult to understand, consider a burning candle. Its flame gives warmth and light, and it has been frequently taken as an analogy to human life. Now suppose that the candle burns to the end and the flame goes out. Where did it go? Well, it went nowhere. The flame is not a physical thing that goes somewhere. Rather, it is a physical process. When the candle wick burns to its end, this process stops. From the perspective of a positive atheist, the same thing happens to the human consciousness. It is a process that stops when the human dies. It’s just gone. Consciousness is turned off forever – a state that is sometimes called eternal oblivion.
Now where do the soul and the spirit go? For most atheists, there is no “soul” and no “spirit”. The human brain is a big chemical reaction. There is no “soul” mixed in with the chemicals — just like there is no soul in a bacterium, a mosquito, a mouse, a dog or a chimp. Indeed, people commonly have no trouble understanding this idea with respect to animals. For example, some people develop a deep relationship with their dog. They know its wishes, traits, and the personality, and when the dog dies, it is as if a good friend died. Yet few people think that the dog has a soul that “goes” somewhere. People understand that there is nothing more to the dog than the physical body. Most atheists believe that this is the same with humans. From the atheist perspective, the “soul” is just an invention that religions have proposed to help people deal with their own mortality25 — but it does not exist.
This may be a troubling view. We all like the idea of going to paradisal afterlife much better than the idea of non-existence. However, this does not make the idea of such a paradise true. While the insight that human life is finite may seem depressing, it has an interesting side effect: It makes our life on Earth much more precious. This is because, from an atheist perspective, our life on Earth is the only life we have.
My worst nightmare is not my own death.
It is that of the people I love dearly.
Where do atheists find hope?
There are people who live mainly with the hope to have a better life after death. Atheist cannot have such a hope. So where do they get hope?Atheists believe that they have only a single life — their current one. This gives their life on Earth an extraordinary importance: they have only a single chance to live it. There is no way to live a better life later in heaven or in the next cycle of re-incarnation. There is no way to make up for missed pleasures, to say what one did not dare say, or to bring to justice a villain who got away. For atheists this means: live your life thoughtfully and enjoy its pleasures now while fighting injustice where you see it – don’t pin your hopes on eternal happiness and judgement.
Marshall Brain perhaps said it best when he quipped 26: “The truth is this simple: when you die, you die. Some people have a tremendous amount of trouble wrapping their arms around this fact of life. If you live to be 82 years old, what you have is approximately 30,000 days of existence. You are not going to then commute to ‘heaven’ to live for eternity – 30,000 days is all that you’ve got. That’s it. Now that you understand that your death is final, you may look at your life in a different light.”
They always say that time changes things. But you actually have to change them yourself.
Demystification
In this chapter, we have learned some very plain facts:- You exist because your parents reproduced
- The purpose of your life is the intention that you pursue with it. If you don’t pursue an intention with your life, someone else might.
- Life is a process, and at death this process ends irreversibly.
Now these are very prosaic insights. All the philosophical depth that is commonly associated with these questions has been cut away, and what remains are just very obvious conclusions. We have thus demystified the question of the meaning of life — much like we have demystified the notions of Free Will and Ethics before.
Charlie: We live only once, Snoopy!
Snoopy: Wrong! We only die once. We live every day!
How do atheists see their life?
It is impossible to make a universally applicable statement about how atheists see their life. However, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the founder of American Atheists, compiled a definition of atheism for the Supreme Court of the United States that will probably appeal to many atheists and offers some insight into this question 27:An Atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue and enjoy it.
An Atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.
He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man.
He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter.
He believes that we are our brother’s keepers; and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.
Questions
Science cannot answer
Some people say that science will never be adequate to address the question of the meaning of life. It is also impossible to use science to address the other great existential questions: those of life, of death, of love, of loneliness, of loss, of honor, of cosmic justice, and of metaphysical hope.That may be true. However, atheists do not maintain that the alternative to “religion” as a source of meaning is “science”. No one ever suggested that we look into ichthyology or nephrology for enlightenment on how to live 1. Rather, an atheist alternative to religion is Humanism — together with the entire fabric of knowledge and creativity that humans have produced. With it we can offer answers to some of the bigger questions we have encountered in this chapter.
Science does not give you meaning. But science gives you truth. And truth is a prerequisite for any meaning. For what is meaning if it is based on belief only?
Why don’t Atheists just kill themselves?
Atheism does not see any god-given meaning in our lives. The question arises why they don’t just kill ourselves.As Barry Puzzle remarks, this question is usually asked by people whose religion insists that this world is a world of sin and suffering and when they die they will be delivered to an eternal paradise 28. People who think that the current life is a pitiful existence in the expectation of a much better life elsewhere would indeed have good reason to speed up the transition from one to the other. If killing yourself is not an option, refusing food, extreme sports, and drunk driving or driving without a seat belt are all on the table. However, most people don’t do that.
The reason that most people (theists and atheists alike) usually don’t kill themselves is that we all have a strong urge to stay alive. This is because the gene that urges us to strive for survival had better evolutionary success than genes that induce suicide. Therefore, we all have a hard-wired desire to stay alive.
Tellingly, atheists have even more reasons to stay alive: they believe that their life is the only life they have, and that there is nothing thereafter. This makes their lives even more precious.
I am an atheist.
That doesn’t mean I have nothing to live for.
It means I have nothing to die for.
Why do we act at all?
We have argued before that the human brain consists just of neurons. Thus, the human brain cannot take decisions other than those that are dictated by the laws of nature (a position known as hard determinism). Now does that not mean that there is no use doing anything at all, because anyway everything is determined by chemical processes?This reasoning is closely linked to the idea of fate (the idea that all events are predetermined), and in particular fatalism (the idea that human agency cannot change the course of life). The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, the ancient Roman statesman Cicero, and the early Christian scholar Origen have developed this idea into the Argument of Idleness, which says there is no need to do anything because everything is predetermined anyway:
In the example of the doctor, the laws of nature determine indeed whether the patient will recover or not. However, since these are the laws of nature, they will determine also that the patient recovers only if she takes the necessary medicine. She will receive this medicine only from the doctor, and the doctor will give it to her only if she consults him. So if we assume that the course of events features the recovery of the patient, then this course of events must also feature her consulting the doctor. Thus, her brain must have given the impulses that entailed the visit to the doctor — which is what we commonly call a decision. In this way, it was still her decision that entailed her recovery. She took this decision not out of her free will, in a completely undetermined way, but because her life experiences, education, and own reasoning led her to believe that this action serves her goals best.
So if you do not feel well, please do consult a doctor, as this will impact your chances of recovery considerably. That, too, is the law of nature.
Do you want to feel that your life has meaning? Feel the touch of your sweetheart’s hand. Compare that to the “deep meaning” in any verse of the Bible. Your life will feel meaningful when you give it to someone else, or something else, but someone or something real. You don’t get to have the real meaning by giving lip service to pretty words. It’s much more expensive than that.
Isn’t life without God absurd?
“The Absurd” refers to the conflict between (1) the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and (2) the human inability to find any. Is our life thus absurd?
The universe will not give you a meaning.
You give the universe a meaning.
But what happens to the unjust?
In the atheist view of the world, there is no afterlife. This means also that there is no heaven – and no hell. In particular, this means that villains will not get punished in the afterlife: they live their life and then they die just like everyone else. Isn’t that a horrible injustice?If villains get away without being punished, that is indeed a horrible injustice. For this reason, atheists believe that it is up to human to punish villains in this life. It is our job to bring justice to this world. It does not help to believe that evil people will be punished in the hereafter. For an atheist, this is just wishful thinking. It is even dangerous wishful thinking, because if we believe that these people will be punished in the hereafter, we can justify not pursuing justice for their victims in this life.
Therefore, most atheists (and certainly Humanists) insist that bad behavior must be punished in the here and now.
Atheism doesn’t say that humans can bring peace to the planet.
It says that nobody else can.
Aren’t atheists victims of randomness?
It is one of the fascinating (and sometimes frightening) facts of life that so many things are outside our control: accidents, illnesses, deaths, but also winning the lottery, or just being lucky — all these things happen without us having a hand in the matter. Atheists are helpless in face of this randomness. They cannot see any higher power that would explain this randomness, let alone a power to which they could pray to help them find their way.In contrast, many believers hold that it is their god who makes some if not all of these things happen. In other words the supreme coordinator makes things happen as per his decisions. Thus, there is a reason why things happen. However, the creator is sovereign in his decisions: He may choose to do things that appear random or even harmful to humans. Thus, the very same problem appears again: Things happen that cannot be understood by humans. In such instances it makes little difference whether humans accept the randomness of nature or the sometimes incomprehensible decisions of a supreme being. In the end, we are all victims of the very same randomness — atheists and believers alike.
As Nassim Taleb has argued, randomness is just lack of knowledge about what will happen 29. It does not help control the randomness in any way if believers imagine a supreme being on top of it. On the contrary, the hypothesis “God gives our life a sense” is unfalsifiable, and thus meaningless.
There is no such thing as fate, providence, karma, spells, curses, augury, divine retribution, or answered prayers — though the discrepancy between the laws of probability and the workings of cognition may explain why people believe there are.
Religious meanings to life
But thanks for the reminder!
in the airport of Shanghai/China
- People exist to live a moral life
- Most religions consider it the purpose or at least the duty of human beings to behave morally. This view is nothing specific to religions: Even though their motivations may differ, virtually all world views (including Humanism) want humans to behave morally. There are actually evolutionary reasons for this. Thus, morality is not the purpose of our existence, but one of the factors that facilitated it in the first place.
- People exist to worship and love God
- Some religions (the Abrahamic ones in particular) assert that God created humans to praise him. Atheists then wonder why a god who is almighty, omniscient, and wise anyway would be so desperate for human devotion. But perhaps the most persuasive argument against this position is found in the religion itself. The Abrahamic religions teach that God hampered our task deliberately by subjecting us to earthly pains and by making us inclined to doubt. Thus, he prescribes us a purpose that he himself then thwarts deliberately — a problem that we discuss in the Chapter on the Abrahamic God.
- People exist to reach heaven
- Again, this view appears predominantly in the Abrahamic religions. It says that Heaven should be our ultimate goal and that our life on Earth is our qualification for entrance. In this view, life on Earth is unpleasant and cumbersome compared to Heaven. As a Christian Web page puts it 30, God, in his infinite goodness, has arranged a way for us to return to Paradise; all it requires is a short stay in this hard world of temptation and pain. This Meaning of Life inspires a view of life as an unpleasant, temporary and unimportant step — which atheists find deplorable, given the joys that life offers to those who love it on its own merits. Besides, if the goal is to reach Heaven, why does God not put us there right away?
- Life is a big test for the afterlife
- In this view, life is a sequence of temptations and we as humans are told to resist them. If we succeed, we go to Heaven. To atheists, it is unclear why God would want to test his own creatures given that he is omniscient and knows the outcome anyway.
- People exist to reach Nirvana
- The Indian religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism) hold that we exist to go through a cycle of rebirths until we are finally pure enough to reach Nirvana. Nirvana is a state of eternal peace of mind. This philosophy seemingly gives our life a meaning, but it does not explain why we are born at all.
- People exist to be fruitful, and multiply, to fill the earth, and subdue it
- This is the view of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam [Bible: Genesis 1:28]. But as noted before, species that do not multiply die out. Hence all species that have survived until today have an inclination to multiply, including humans. It is therefore incorrect to prescribe being fruitful as a purpose for our lives: it is not the purpose but the cause of our existence.
- People exist to “play” the game of life
- This notion is e.g. found in Hinduism, where it is known as the principle of “lila” (literally, “play”). It explains the universe as a cosmic puppet theater, in which people are assigned roles by the gods. Unfortunately, these roles are beyond human control in Hindu philosophy. Thus, this world view tells us that our lives have meaning, but is incomplete in that it does not tell us which meaning.
What if our religion was each other
If our practice was our life
If prayer, our words
What if the temple was the Earth
If forests were our church
If holy water — the rivers, lakes, and ocean
What if meditation was our relationships
If the teacher was life
If wisdom was self-knowledge
If love was the center of our being.
References
- Steven Pinker: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, 2018
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Collins Dictionary: “purpose”, 2024
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/purpose - Ira A. Lipman: How to be Safe, 2012
- Humanists International: “What is Humanism”, 2024
- Monty Python: The Meaning of Life, 1983
- Yuval Noah Harari: 21 lessons for the 21st century, 2018
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Medium.com: “Ricky Gervais on Chasing Your Dream, Doing the Work and Living a Creative Life”, 2019-08-04
https://medium.com/swlh/ricky-gervais-on-chasing-your-dream-doing-the-work-and-living-a-creative-life-946684bd634d -
Neil deGrasse Tyson: “I am Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ask Me Anything...”, 2011
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/qccer/i_am_neil_degrasse_tyson_ask_me_anything/c3wgffy/ - Kenneth E. Vail III, Melissa Soenke, and Brett Waggoner: “Terror Management Theory and Religious Belief”, in Handbook of Terror Management Theory, 2019
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-
American Humanist: “Definition of Humanism”, 2024
https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/ -
Harvard School of Public Health: “Healthy Longevity”, 2022
https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-longevity/ - John Medina: Brain Rules, 2014
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The Harvard Gazette: “Harvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier”, 2017-04-11
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/ - Charles S. Carver, Michael F. Scheier, Jagdish Kumari Weintraub: “Assessing Coping Strategies: A Theoretically Based Approach”, in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989
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Cleveland Clinic: “Stress: Coping With Life’s Stressors”, 2024
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/6392-stress-coping-with-lifes-stressors -
Alberta Government and Alberta Health Services: “Common Coping Responses for Stress”, 2024
https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=ta5463 -
PositivePsychology.com: “Coping”, 2024
https://positivepsychology.com/coping/ -
American Psychological Association: “Building your resilience”, 2020
https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/building-your-resilience -
Sutter Health: “10 Simple Ways to Cope with Stress”, 2024
https://www.sutterhealth.org/health/mind-body/10-simple-ways-to-cope-with-stress -
University of Oregon: “Coping strategies”, 2024
https://counseling.uoregon.edu/copingstrategies -
Washington University: “Developing healthy coping skills for resilience”, 2020
https://hr.wustl.edu/developing-healthy-coping-skills-for-resilience/ -
Johns Hopkins University: “Develop a Battery of Coping Skills”, 2024
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/about/community-health/johns-hopkins-bayview/services/called-to-care/develop-battery-coping-skills -
GodIsImaginary.com: “Proof #27 - Think about life after death”, 2017
http://godisimaginary.com/i27.htm -
WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com: “Chapter 27 - When you die, you die”, 2017
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god27.htm -
Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s opening statement in the case “Abington School District v. Schempp”, 1963
https://www.atheists.org/about/history/ - Barry Puzzle: Atheist Cartoons, 2021
- Nassim Taleb: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, 2007
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American Life Helping Institute: “What is the meaning of life?”, 2019
http://www.meaning-of-life.info/themeaningoflife.html