Sometimes I think about how I would think and behave if I thought I was here by accident, without purpose. If I don’t have a Creator and life just happened by accident, then I don’t have a higher purpose. If it’s all an accident, then there is literally no reason for me or anything else to exist. There is nothing outside of me or nature that means anything lastingly significant.
But we humans do some strange things for the products of a cosmic accident and subsequent accidental evolution. We have a concept of morality and conscience. We have a concept of existence and self. We wear clothes. We invent things. We read and write, and have complex ways of communicating. We have a concept of philosophy. We study things in detail. We care for our sick and disabled, and have the cognitive and physical abilities to work on cures for them. While I’ve heard explanations for some of these from the stance of evolution without a creator, they still don’t make sense to me. According to evolution, only the strong can and will survive. Why would we do these other things if existence is really just survival of the fittest? Why would we develop intelligence instead of mere strength, fitness, and speed? Why would we bother caring for those who are clearly genetically inferior? What’s the point? Then again, that development of intelligence and awareness is an accident, too. So there’s no point in asking what the point is.
If I have no Creator, then not only is my existence just an accident, but so is everything around me and everything that happens to me. It’s just the accidental laws of physics, chemistry, and math – that happened to develop just right for life to exist – acting in their bounds without feeling or purpose. Life is just surviving and passing on your genes, which is also pointless and accidental. I can come up with a meaning for existence and a reason to live outside of that (and it’s interesting that I would know how to do so), but that would only be to make me feel better, so either way it doesn’t even matter.
If there is no Creator, then I find it interesting that humans even came up with an idea of something beyond us, be it a concept of a god or a creator. Why would we develop an idea that there is something outside of us if there isn’t? It’s as if we already know there’s something beyond us without having to develop it. Why do so many cultures have a god-concept? Why do so many cultures have similar ideas that we are created things? Why do humans just know we come from somewhere or something? Why does that tend to give us a sense of purpose? Why are we looking for life or the existence of something besides us out in the universe? Why do we feel that we came from elsewhere, even if you believe you just came from stardust?
It’s as if there is actually more to life than survival and passing on your genes.