You just listed things that you claim are objectively moral without providing any argument or reasoning as to why.

I never said that there wasn't an obvious usefulness to have subjective morality. — SonJnana

Your opening statement was "I really don't see any reason of why one should act in any way besides because they have a preference for acting in that way". You went on to elaborate that people should just do whatever makes them feel good. It follow from this that if murder makes a person feel good, they should be able to do it.
And then there's this...

It seems to me that our moralities are nothing but subjective preferences... nothing else. — SonJnana

...so I really don't see where you made it clear that you understood the necessity and purpose of morality. It seemed to be quite the opposite.

But moving on:

we are essentially saying that we don't like the person because they aren't acting the way we want everyone to act — SonJnana

It's not about want, it's about need. These laws aren't just made up willy nilly, there is very clear purpose to the morals we have.

In a way, it becomes a might makes morality. — SonJnana

What about someone who enjoys going around conquering lands and becoming a harsh dictator. It is for that person's benefit right? Who are you to tell that person he should care about others' well-being, while he's benefiting from being a dictator? — SonJnana

You still seem to be missing the point. If a person doesn't care about the well-being of others and is actively harming people, we don't allow them in our society.
Not murdering is a condition you must agree to in order to live in and receive the benefits of our society. If you want to try to form your own society where killing each other is legal, good luck.

Because religions are entire world-views that cannot simply be picked at whilst still claiming to be religious. I cannot say I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but not because he was the son of god, and then claim to be a sort of Christian, I'm not a Christian unless I believe that Jesus is the son of god, that his words are the words of god and that following them is a requirement, it's not a pick-and-mix. You cannot take the good things of religion and ignore the bad. One way or another religion has 'caused' all these things, they must be taken as a whole or not at all. — Inter Alia

First off, the vast majority of religious people do "take the good things and ignore the bad". In 2010 there were 5.8 billion religious people in the world, 84% of the total human population. How many of them are murdering infidels? How many of them are stoning people to death for breaking Biblical laws?

Blaming religion for atrocities committed by humanity is short-sighted. Some people are just more prone to violence and hatred, whether it be due to mental illness or simply because of their biology. We don't understand much about what makes people do bad things, but it's safe to say that religion isn't responsible.

For the record, I'm not religious and this isn't a defense of religion. There are disgusting things in most religions, but it's very clear that if religion truly caused people to do bad things, there would be a lot more people doing bad things than there actually are.

I just realized this is essentially the same as the gun control issue. Blaming the tool a person uses to do bad things isn't rational. Religion doesn't kill people; people kill people.

The next step to this realization you're having is understanding why we need morality anyway. There may not be an objective right and wrong, but there is absolutely a subjective right and wrong. Living in a civilized society arguably means each individual has a better quality of life than if we were all wild men living in nature, and a civilized society requires we have certain rules, things that are right and things that are wrong. The illegality of killing your fellow citizens is probably the biggest and most obvious. I don't see why some people feel the need for morality to be objective. Morality is clearly just a necessary part of living in civilization, plain and simple.
I honestly think that people who think the way you do are the reason why religion became so widespread. Apparently there are quite a few people who feel that, without an objective morality, we should just be free to do as we please with no thought as to how it will affect anyone else. Religion takes care of that issue by telling the people that there is objective morality.
I understand how surprising it can be when you finally figure out that objective morality doesn't exist (that we know of), but I don't see how you wouldn't think it through enough to immediately understand why we need morality anyway. If you want to go live in the wilderness in order to be free from morality, by all means. I'm sure it will be a real treat.

To elaborate, humans (like all living creatures) have the instinct built into us to survive. The longer we live the more chances we have to procreate and continue our species. So nature has instilled in us a "fear" of death. I doubt we can get rid of this innate feeling completely, but it is possible to reduce it greatly through the use of reason.
This is why even those who believe in an afterlife of paradise still feel negatively about death. They can't help it. It is literally in their DNA.
I'd also point out that the vast majority of (possibly all) people who believe in an afterlife still know deep down that they may be wrong, even if they aren't consciously aware of it.

Cognitive dissonance.

If you don't want to engage with the debate around the uses of the term that's fine, but don't disingenuously claim there isn't one. — Inter Alia

I never claimed there wasn't one. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, you seem to have created a strawman argument that I never made. I never said there wasn't debate about various definitions and uses of the term "atheism" within philosophy, I only asserted that there is a most-commonly-used definition. There is disagreement and debate about literally everything within philosophy, it's safe to say there is not a single philosophical concept that is universally agreed upon. That's part of why, in order for any philosophical argument to be taken seriously, the arguer must make sure their terms are clearly-defined, so everyone reading knows exactly what they mean. Many philosophical texts contain multiple pages of nothing but definitions for the terms that will be used in the arguments.

But to bring things back on track, all I have been attempting to argue is that this definition of atheism is the one that should be used because (a) it is the most commonly-used definition in philosophy, and this is a philosophical forum, and (b) it is in line with the etymology of the word. Maybe I haven't been clear enough, or maybe you've just misunderstood me. I'm starting to feel like we're speaking different languages and communicating through a bad translator.
Regardless, I think we've run our course for this topic.

In both cases, these are real people you are referring to and I do not believe they either identify themselves, nor can be objectively identified, as the definition of atheist you are claiming to use. — Inter Alia

So your qualm here is that you don't believe charleton is an atheist in the sense that I use the term (believes there are no gods), and so I shouldn't refer to him as such?

And your argument for this was that some people you read claimed that there are no atheists by this definition?

That's quite off-topic, so forgive me for not deducing that on my own. I thought we were just discussing atheism as a concept. You're talking about a specific person and people in general, and trying to argue that you somehow know the personal beliefs of these people. This is supposed to be a philosophy forum, and that isn't philosophy. You have no basis for assuming anyone's beliefs unless they themselves have made them explicit. I refer to people as atheists when they use that term to refer to themselves. That doesn't mean they are using it correctly, it is very possible they could be using it incorrectly, but unless they give me reason to believe that I'm going to entertain them by using the term they use for themselves. I have no reason to believe that charleton believes in any kind of deity, and good reason to believe he does not. Therefore, I referred to him as an atheist.

Even if we were, for the sake of argument to stick to dictionary definitions, Merriam-Webster defines atheism as

"a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods"

Note 'a God or any gods' which upholds my earlier assertion that all theists are also atheists as they all have a disbelief in at least a God, in fact all the other gods. — Inter Alia

Look, clearly you either don't understand language, or you're being dishonest in order to argue your point. Adding "a" onto the front of a term signifies opposite or "not". Atypical means not typical, or the opposite of typical. Amoral means not moral, or the opposite of moral. Just as something cannot be both typical and atypical at the same time, a person cannot be a theist and an atheist at the same time. This is basic logic. Something cannot be both true and false at the same time.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it better than I can:

“Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).

Illusionism essentially says we should act as if we have free will even if we don't. Smilansky argues this because he believes a belief in free will is necessary for a functioning society. — czahar

I remember reading about this year ago when researching various ideas on free will, and this concept really bothered me because it assumes we have the free will to believe in what we choose. By saying we should believe in free will, it is implied that it is within our power to choose to believe in it, which doesn't make sense if there is no free will.

It's difficult to conceptualize, but basically if there is no free will then we have no control over our beliefs anyway, so what Smilansky is asserting is mostly pointless.

But isn't believing what a person says, simply because that person is thought to be an authority on that subject, nothing more than having faith in that person? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is.
Everything we have been taught, from every source (people, books, the internet, etc.), requires us to have faith in the source in order to accept it as truthful or accurate
And even if we have firsthand experience of something, we are still placing faith in our physical senses and our own brains/minds that they are giving us accurate information.
Descartes may have been wrong about a lot, but one thing he got right was that the only thing I can truly be certain of is that I exist. Everything else requires varying degrees of faith.

That is where I take issue with your definition of atheist, which, as I've argued, does not describe the actual people we then go on to refer to in the sentence — Inter Alia

It doesn't describe the people you refer to. When I use the term, I use it as it is defined in our dictionaries. I already addressed all this, though. What I said in my last post covers your entire first paragraph. It's like you didn't even read what I wrote. And your second paragraph is completely irrelevant to what we've been discussing. Asserting that "these people say that this means that" is something you would do if we were actually trying to agree upon a meaning for the term, but that's not what we've been doing. If that's what you want to do, fine, but don't accuse me of this:

you've asked that we all default to your preferred definition. That simply isn't how philosophy is done. — Inter Alia

...when that is exactly what you did by using the term to refer to something other than it's dictionary definition. Which is also important, by the way: it's not "my preferred definition", it is the dictionary definition of the term.

I can't believe you're arguing against me on this. You're implying that dictionaries are meaningless, and all that matters is how an individual uses the term at any given instance. You don't seem to understand the purpose of a dictionary.

We do not have to have an agreement of the definitions before we can discuss the matter — Inter Alia

If you don't see why we need to be referring to the same thing when we use the same term in order to have a coherent conversation, then I can't help you, and we aren't going to get anywhere in this discussion.

You wont make this true by keeping on saying it.
In the same way you seem to think that the more you say god exists, god becomes more real to you.
This is exactly and perfectly an example of why belief and faith are the ruin of all reason and rationality, and that is why I'll have none of it. — charleton

I'm sorry, but it has become very clear that you aren't discussing philosophy, or contributing anything useful to the conversation. You're here to blindly push your own ideology, and it's making you very irrational. The fact that you have concluded that I believe in god based on what I've said here is very telling.

People such as yourself are honestly as impossible to reason with as staunch theists, letting your obvious agenda totally cloud your mind and making you speak irrationally and unreasonably.

The only difference is that their agenda is their religion, while your agenda is anti-religion. You're like the extreme leftist ranting against the extreme rightists. You're both just as blinded by your ideology as the group you so despise.

Words do not mean things outside of our use of them, language is not something that existed already for us to find, words mean what we use them to mean. — Inter Alia

You are misrepresenting language. Words need to mean the same thing to everyone otherwise none of us could effectively communicate (which seems to be exactly what's happening in this conversation). This is why we have set definitions for words. Of course we ourselves create the definitions, but once they are defined we need to use the words in such a way as to adhere to their definition, otherwise we aren't saying anything meaningful whatsoever. This is especially true in philosophy. Did you study philosophy in an academic setting? This is very basic stuff. All terms used in philosophical argument must be clearly defined, and must be used to represent their exact definition, otherwise we cannot have an argument/conversation. Philosophy is based on logic, and logical arguments are dependent on clearly-defined terms. Changing a word's meaning from the definition or using it in multiple different ways is akin to trying to do math when the number 7 can represent both 7 and 10, for example. It's like me saying 7 plus 5 equals 15 because when I say 7 I actually mean 10. This is counterproductive and silly, and it's what both you and charleton are doing here.

Obviously this sort of thing happens constantly in the general public, but when discussing philosophy we need to hold ourselves to higher standards, otherwise nothing would ever get accomplished.

The relevance of the meanings as they are actually used is that it changes the argument with regards to the application of belief. Atheists aren't saying "there is no god and nothing that you could ever call a god no matter how esoteric you make it", they're saying that all the gods that have been thus far devised do not exists and any future gods that might be devised in a similar vein also do not exist." — Inter Alia

I don't see why you think leaving room for possible theism in the future is relevant. The terms "theism" and "atheism" represent what people believe now. They make no claims about future possibilities. An atheist can become a theist in the future, and vice versa, obviously. But if a person currently believes that no deities exist, they are by definition an atheist.

So, if I claimed there was a god and posited that this god was not all powerful, but was responsible for the laws of physics. He was entirely consistent, never changed his mind about how the laws of physics should be, in fact let's say that something about his properties makes him incapable of anything else. My god doesn't require any worship, has no special religious tenets, never reveals himself in any way, lives in another dimension, takes a completely non-human form and exists in the same way numbers exist. It basically carries out the laws of physics consistently and without fail and has no impact on our lives whatsoever. Do you really see any atheists objecting to a belief in that deity. In fact, if we call that deity 'physics', then all atheists do believe in it. That's why the properties of the proposed deity matter, and that's what I mean by doubting any atheists exist by your strict definition. I was, of course using rhetoric to make the point. — Inter Alia

The irony here is that you yourself refer to this entity as a god, which means believing in it would make you a theist, no matter what the properties of this entity are. This is actually a good example of what Ive been saying, why we need clearly-defined terms to have a meaningful discussion. "God" is a term that doesn't have a clear definition, which means that in order to use the concept in philosophy we need to first set a definition for how we are going to use it. That way., when we use the term, we know we are both referring to the same thing.

However, as I said, regardless of what properties or definition we give to the term "god", a person who believes in this entity will always be a theist based on the definition of the term "theist".

I'll put it in the form of a logical argument:

A theist is someone who believes in at least one deity
John believes in physics
Physics is a deity
Therefore, John is a theist

This is a logically valid argument. You can question the soundness of it (whether the premises are true) but you cannot question whether the conclusion follows form the premises, because logically it does.

I hope that makes it clear.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the point you've been making, but I hope now you also understand mine. In philosophical argument, there is no room for interpretation of the meanings of terms. They must be clearly-defined, and we must all use them to mean their agreed-upon definitions. When we have clearly-defined terms, where we can look them up in a dictionary and see that they have a specific definition, that is the definition we default to. If we want to use a clearly-defined term to mean something different from it's definition, we need to agree upon that beforehand. Otherwise we will be using the same term but talking about two different things.

All religions are atheist, they have all denied the existence of every single God there's ever been (except one, the one they believe in) — Inter Alia

That is actually another common misnomer. Claiming that all religions are atheist when it comes to all other gods is a misunderstanding and misuse of the term "atheism".
Atheism is the disbelief in deities.
Theism is the belief in deities.
There are various categories of theism (pantheism, monotheism, polytheism, etc.) which help to differentiate between different types of theists, but you cannot call any kind of theist an atheist, as well. They are polar opposites. Just like something cannot be both hot and cold (those are relative terms so not the best example, but I hope you still get the point).

If Atheism is the belief that there are no gods of any description, even the completely non-human virtually indescribable forms. Then I know no atheists and I doubt any exist. — Inter Alia

Are you claiming that all atheists believe in some kind of deity, just one that is non-human and virtually indescribable? Because that is both blatantly untrue and extremely nonsensical, based on the very definition of atheism. If someone believes in a deity of any kind whatsoever, they are a theist. By definition.

neither definition are really as binomial as you've described then, in the real world. — Inter Alia

When people use terms incorrectly, it doesn't change the definition of the terms. We have clear and simple definitions for these two terms; they have inherent meanings regardless of how some people may use them.

You are just abusing language to try to make your point. It's clumsy and obvious. — charleton

The irony is that you are, in fact, the one doing this.

Atheism is not any kind of belief at all. — charleton

It is the belief that there is no god.
The fact that you aren't comprehending this shows me you don't understand philosophy as well as you try to make it seem, at least as far as epistemology is concerned.

I'll try to be more clear:
The issue of whether or not a god exists is always going to be one of belief--no matter which side you fall on--simply because the existence of god cannot be proven or disproven. God is both unknowable and unfalsifiable.
By definition, you cannot know god doesn't exist.
It's just as impossible to know god doesn't exist as it is to know god does exist.
So you either believe there is a god/gods, or believe there is/are no god/gods.

You view the concept of "belief" as something negative, which is a mistake. Belief simply means a view you hold which you do not possess firsthand knowledge of. I covered all of this in my first reply to you.

In my unprofessional opinion, you really need to get past your irrational feelings about theism. Its obviously clouding your judgement. In my experience, this is very common among atheists who have a resentment towards religion that they have yet to grow out of. And people such as you are precisely why I don't use the term "atheist" to describe myself. Much like the term "feminism", it has been overtaken by extremists who have skewed the true meaning of the word.

I'm not familiar with it, can you explain the principle?

There can be no epistemological barrier to our understanding. — tom

What about our physical limitations? We are finite creatures in a seemingly infinite universe. We perceive only a small portion of reality. Our senses limit us severely. Based on observations we have made using science, it's beyond naive to think that what we perceive is all that there is. You can argue that will have the capabilities to discover everything that there is eventually, but there isn't a strong basis to make that argument on. True, history shows us that we have discovered, and will continue to discover, more and more about reality, but it's a ridiculous leap to imply that it follows from this that we will eventually be able to discover everything there is to know about reality.

The atheist POV is reasonable because rationally speaking it's a mistake to go beyond the evidence. Our senses can't perceive x and so it is reasonable to believe x doesn't exist — TheMadFool

I completely disagree. Rationally speaking, it's extremely unreasonable to believe that something doesn't exist simply because we are not aware of its existence. Based on how many times and how vastly in scope our "knowledge" of the world has changed, it's insane for us to think that what we are aware of at this point in time is all that is real. That has literally never been true.

Right now I've convinced myself that I don't need to know the truth about anything. I'm dying to know what all the fuss is about. What so special about the truth? — Purple Pond

I'll second the others saying philosophy isn't about finding "the truth", but also say that you not finding philosophy interesting or engaging is just fine. I study philosophy because I have to. It's closer to a compulsion than to a voluntary endeavor. And it has never been about searching for truth for me--in fact my fascination with philosophy began when I started to realize that there is no truth.

As far as what philosophy actually is, I have to say that the Bertrand Russell quote posted by Inter Alia is probably the best explanation I've seen recently.

And in the second place atheists do NOT have a belief in God. Atheism says nothing about 'nothing existing'. — charleton

The original statement was worded poorly, I agree, but I have to comment on the atheism issue because I've seen this discussed and argued so many times in the past and it irritates me how many people either misunderstand or misrepresent it.

Saying that atheism isn't a belief that there is no god, but instead it is a lack of belief in god, is nonsense. You either believe there is a god, or you don't. There is no room for anything in between. You can hold the belief while being uncertain about it, you can hold the belief while accepting that you do not know whether the belief is true, but you either believe in a god, or you don't. Theism is the belief that a god exists. Atheism is the belief that a god does not exist.

Atheism is a belief. Saying that it's a lack of belief that there is a god is the same thing as saying that it's a belief that there is no god.

I will never understand why some atheists insist on being so intellectually dishonest. Holding beliefs is not a bad thing. As I explained in my first reply to you, most of the things we all think we know are beliefs.
Beliefs are 100% necessary in order for us to function.

in terms of needing an ideology you likely already have one but you don't realize it. You live your life by some kind of code. you believe what you think is right (for example gay marriage or if you think guys should have long hair) whether or not you came to these realizations by yourself. — David Solman

I suppose in a sense I do, but there are always questions that I am uncertain about. Anything to do with morality is a big one, I'm always changing my thoughts based on new information. The same goes for existential issues and many other things. I guess I just understand that almost nothing is certain, so I can never hold firm beliefs about these things, and how I view the world and morality and reality in general is constantly changing. I go back and forth from believing there is purpose in the universe, to believing there isn't. From believing there is an objective morality, to believing there isn't. From believing there is some higher power at work, to believing there isn't. From believing the physical world is all that exists, to believing there is so much we don't understand that it's idiotic to think that only what we see and experience is what exists, or that we actually have an accurate understanding of anything at all.

So I guess it's just distressing not having any firm beliefs to accept and then move on with my life. But I suppose you could say that my ideology or code is simply that nothing is certain. It's a strange way to live, but at this point I really can't do anything about it.

You bring some much-appreciated perspective. It's good to talk to and hear from others who feel the same way. Obviously with anything we can be sure there are at least a few other people somewhere who could relate, but as I'm sure all of us here know it's often very difficult to find people within our social circle who have given any real amount of thought to most philosophical issues and questions. The general public is, unfortunately, not very interested in philosophy. At least that's been my experience.

to suite your argument — JustSomeGuy

It's probably clear that I meant "suit", but it would have bugged me if I didn't correct myself.

Belief is a thing which you wish to be true or take to be true for emotional reasons or reasons of tradition, emotion and particularly because of Faith.
Knowledge is that taken to be true based on evidence and reason. All knowledge is subject to revision and is contingent on that evidence. It is demonstrably true. Knowledge is true anywhere in any culture, and not dependant on cultural preferences. — charleton

You can't just make up your own definitions for terms to suite your argument.

From Merriam-Webster:

Belief
: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing

Knowledge
: the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

I have never seen anybody claim that they don't hold any beliefs, and it honestly surprises me that someone on a philosophy forum is the one claiming it. I don't mean to be insulting, I just don't understand how somebody could be familiar with philosophy and not understand the difference between belief and knowledge, or be aware of the fact that the vast majority of "things that you think" are in fact beliefs, not knowledge.
Do you know the sun is going to rise tomorrow? Of course not, you believe it will. And that belief is based on both knowledge and beliefs. You have knowledge that the sun has risen every morning since you've been alive, and you have beliefs about the way our planet, our solar system, and the universe in general operates, BUT you have not experienced tomorrow morning, so you cannot possess knowledge that the sun will rise tomorrow. And yet you think it will. You assume it will. This is a belief you hold.
When you actually get down to it, almost everything you think you know is, in reality, a belief.
Even when it comes to science, you are most likely a layman who believes what you have been told about science, (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) placing your belief in the testimony of the person who has given you this information (which often comes through many sources before arriving to you, in which case you are placing your belief in each and every once of those sources).

To put it simply, you cannot--by definition--possess knowledge about anything you do not have firsthand experience of.

Many philosophers have argued further that knowledge is even more limited because you're putting faith/belief in your own senses to accurately portray the external world to you, but for the sake of this argument I'll grant that we can count what we have firsthand experience of as knowledge.

I agree that he says the same thing over and over in different ways, but there are people (such as myself) who benefit from hearing the same concept put into different terms sometimes. It serves as a reminder or a refresher, in a sense. Making me reflect on something I already am aware of, but have lost sight of, and helping me see it from a different angle.
But I do agree that he is more of an "introductory" philosopher. He touches on questions related to life, the universe, religion, god, etc. but doesn't get real in-depth with them most of the time. That's also something I like about him, though, and something I find I benefit from every once in a while. Although I do love how complex and technical philosophy can get, sometimes it helps to look at things from a simpler, more basic perspective. I think a lot of people can benefit from it, especially if you have a tendency to really overthink everything and get stuck on the details, because that can make you lose sight of the big picture. Alan Watts is basically all big-picture. I need that sometimes.

Gravity and time aren't certain in the sense that reality itself isn't certain. We do not and cannot possibly know if any of this is real. Descartes was right in his assertion that the only thing I can be truly certain of is that I exist. Literally everything else requires varying degrees of faith or assumption. The same goes for death, even. Those of us who don't believe in an afterlife may live our lives as though death is a certainty, but it's not. We think we understand the world, we think we can trust our own observations, our own knowledge, our own experience, but the truth is that we can't. I know I'm an extreme skeptic, but that's just the way I've come to view things and I can't really help it.

aporiap fittingly mentioned Socrates. "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." This, to me, goes hand in hand with Descartes' "cogito ergo sum", and to be honest these two principles are the closest thing to ideology I have. Maybe that's my real issue. I know there are philosophers who argued that it is necessary to take some things on faith, like your examples of gravity and time, things that we know we can rely on 99%, things that are as close to "truth" or "fact" as we can possibly get. Maybe I should go back and review some of that stuff. It's coming up on a decade since I graduated, so aside from what I've chosen to read on my own since then, I've forgotten a lot of the specifics. I don't know if I can bring myself to accept things as certain when I know they aren't really, though. I don't think I can lie to myself like that.

To be clear, I'm not constantly worrying that gravity will fail and I'll float up into space, or that time will speed up or slow down. The things that concern me are the big questions, like I mentioned in my first post.

I guess to bring things back to the original topic:

Any good ideology has to account for life being unsatisfactory a fair share of the time, but at the same time "letting the good times roll". — Bitter Crank

Stoicism seems to fit this description well, based on what I know as someone who just started learning about it.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Knowledge and learning may cause you this 'grief' and the perpetual fear that enables those moments of existential crises and even depression or anxiety, but you get through it eventually as you start to articulate your own language and acknowledge your own ideas. You get stronger and stronger as you get more and more objective, but this is about being steady in this process towards autonomy and that is not to say isolation from people or society but as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, that balance between the two where you socialise, learn and interact but go home to reflective practice, to the quiet of reading and the solitude of learning.

Just don't give up. — TimeLine

I really appreciate your advice and encouragement. This renews my hope and my enthusiasm for life and philosophy, for the time being. I think you're exactly right, I need to continue working on discovering and fleshing out my own ideas instead of relying on others to inform my thoughts. Obviously consulting the thoughts and ideas of others is a wonderful tool when seeking to understand our own, but I need to remember that it is just a tool, and nobody else can give me the answers.

Thanks to you guys for making my first experience here a good one. I think I'm going to enjoy this place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBpaUICxEhk

I often question the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and I find that Alan Watts makes some very beautiful and compelling arguments as to why I shouldn't worry about it.

I'm not really into the cheesy music and imagery people use when making videos of his speeches, but the things he has to say are so worth sitting through some cheesiness. Also, if you prefer to hear his full talks and ONLY his talks (without any music) you can find those as well, but this video is shorter and to the point.

To elaborate a bit more on what he says, life doesn't need meaning to be worth living. Life doesn't need meaning for any reason at all. Music has no meaning, the purpose of music is simply to listen to it. Dancing has no meaning, the purpose of dancing is simply to dance. When you watch a film, you aren't watching it for any reason other than the enjoyment of watching it. You aren't gaining anything from it, you just do it for it's own sake.

Think of life in the same way. It's very possible that there is, in fact, a meaning that we simply are not aware of. But you can make peace with the possibility that there is no meaning by realizing that it doesn't need meaning to be lived and enjoyed. Do it for the sake of itself. The point of life is to live, plain and simple.