[Xujhan]

Originally Posted by Michael.

If God is an objective being and He is sovereign then everything revolves around this being and not us.

Therefore, if God is non-existence what is the purpose of life? It is left to an individual to determine these things. Why? Because there is no objective purpose to life and is therefore relative for each one to decide these things. In other words, without objectivity there is only relativity defined by a singular individual. Even with intentions of looking out for society, you are defining what "looking out for society" means in your own head and is therefore relative to only you because there is no objective value in purpose.

Let's put it this way: When you take out God, there is nothing but yourself to obey.

I'll challenge you on this, if only because it's actually something a little new in a topic that's been beaten to death.

Even if there is a god, the idea that "there is only yourself to obey" still holds, assuming we have free will. Whether you accept god as a source of absolute morality is as much a personal choice as accepting altruism or any number of other moral systems, or none even, as absolute. Alternatively, accepting god as a legal authority in the same way one accepts a government is also a choice. There is no truly objective purpose to life in any belief system.

Looking at it the other way; if you presuppose that god is somehow an objective authority, there's nothing preventing other things from being equally objective. One could argue - entirely within the bounds of atheism - that the morality of altruism is as much a universal constant as gravity, and that the moral purpose of life is to generate as much good for other beings as possible. Either way you look at it, "objective authority" isn't distinguished between theistic and atheistic systems.