The “purpose” argument, as I call it, states that without God (or whatever deity, but it’s usually the standard-issue God of the Judeo-Christian tradition), life can have no purpose or meaning. My usual exasperated response is that anyone who thinks this way isn’t trying very hard, and it boggles the mind that atheists are supposed to be the cynical ones. Jerry Coyne offers an excellent response to a recent rehash of this argument, but Ed Brayton  explains why it’s just plain crap:

So what? It’s not an argument for why this god who provides us with meaning and purpose does exist, it’s an argument for why the person making it hopes such a god exists. If it does not, should we pretend it does and create some diving meaning and purpose that does not exist? Should we all just agree to tell a big lie? Or should we do what we have always done, whether one believes in such a god or not, and find meaning and purpose in the living of our lives?
The lack of some universal meaning or purpose does not mean that our lives don’t have meaning or purpose. It just means that we have at least some opportunity to determine meaning and purpose for ourselves rather than having some non-existent divine being decide it for us. And far from being a depressing fact, that is a liberating one.

I don’t know how it works for other people, but “belief,” such as it is, is not a choice for me. It’s something that requires evidence, reason, and compassion. I exist, and I have the capacity to make the world a better place for the people that I love, which includes myself. I have the opportunity to love, laugh, see beauty, eat cupcakes, and rub dogs’ bellies. The fact that I have only a limited time to do all of these things make the experiences more meaningful and purposeful, not less, because in all of the universe, the beauty I see, experience, and create is unique.

Saying that the world would be a better place if I believed in a particular god is a dubious proposition in and of itself, but it also says nothing whatsoever about whether that god is actually real. Besides that, it takes away from time we all could be spending living.

Photo credit: By ja:User:Sanjo (Own work (Own Photo)) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons.