Of course, don’t need to box yourself in, but which one of these categories do you think best represent the scaffolding of your perception of meaning and existence. Do you feel your life and plans reflect that belief?
Athiest box. And I’d say my life is pretty congruent with my belief system, which is slightly different than what is depicted in that existentialist box system
Nihilism. We are nothing more than animals, and “meaning” is a delusional way to distance us from that reality. Albeit I am unsure of how to align my life with this view. I’ll go eat a cookie.
I’m Christian. What really moved me in high school was Pascal’s wager. I’m quite logical and at the time felt that given the choices, I might as well act like God will judge me, but significantly changed my view in 2010 (to a deeper belief).
Regardless of what we believe in, I think we can all agree to show love to one another and treat each other as we would like to be treated. If the world did only this universally, we would have peace and only argue about the way to love each other, in a respectful argumentative manner.
Furthermore, to paraphrase Pope Francis, it is better for an atheist to be kind and show love to one another than a Catholic who devoutly attends mass and is unkind and does not show love to his neighbor.
In my opinion, we will reach the goodness of whatever the next life offers if we show love rather than be unkind in this life. This is often harder than it seems. We must be kind to our neighbor even when they are unkind to us. When someone inadvertently pierces our heart, we must love. When someone betrays us and we see them again, we must approach them open armed with a loving spirit.
When someone makes a mistake, we must help them rather than laugh at them. When people are all taking shots at a weaker person, we must defend them. Religion or not, taking the truth of life upon your shoulders is what we are called to do as human beings. If we do this, we have nothing to fear no matter what category you call yourself.
Finally, as a Christian, it is important to establish the relationship of the church to non Christian religions. There is an Encyclical written in 1965 which summarizes this to a good extent and is a good read, entitled ‘Nostra Aetate’.
Link in English:
To shed some light on some of the key parts of the book of ‘Mans search for meaning’, Viktor Frankl sees love and his wife in the hardest times during the German labor camps.
When we are on the brink of death we see those we love the most, and for those who are parents are reported to see their children. This is what we fight for, this is who we are… inherently loving beings.
I guess nobody told the folks running the labor camps.
2nd season of TD was an epic let down in comparison to the first
Here is a tip for how to align your life with this view. Be the guy on the right.
In fact, P, there is your new avatar 
Given the categories offered, I’d fall into Christian Existentialism.
Surely one observation cannot constitute the descriptive nature of reality. It seems to me that this single observation may be useful in determining the range of the distribution, but cannot be used as strongly as you are using it.
Of course not, maybe you/ACE can take a vacation in one of these labor camps and tell us how great it is.
KMD, which box are you? You can’t post this and not disclose…
Atheist Existentialism.
Alright, if you guys did not already think I was odd… you probably will now. This is my view on meaning. So, you have the universe which is matter (energy). There is inanimate and animate matter, the only distinction, IMO, is that the animate variety has a proactive program for continuation of itself. I find it satisfying to participate in practices that contain symbolism which reflect the heritage of being animate. Endurance sports are one of them… trading is turning out to be another. The first celebrates the will and trading reflects symbiosis (market needs a variety of participant types to work) and natural selection (price discovery). I’m not sure if I am drawn to these practices because I find symbolism in them or I simply tend to find meaning in my practices.
What species of endurance sports?
I want to do endurance riding: 50-, 100-, 150-mile horseback rides. My goal is to ride in (and finish) the Tevis Cup.
Got into triathlon about 14 years ago. Raced at the low end of pro for a while and completed a few full ironmans. Not currently racing (plan to in the future), but I still partake in the ritual of celebrating will in my weekly track workouts for time.
Keep us posted on the endurance rides. Sounds epic! Seems like you told of an event like that which you entered or witnessed… and it was pretty insane from what I remember. Being an athlete is one the most beautiful things you can experience.
I haven’t thought about the source of meaning in years. But in general, with all the flaws of social science research, I think there are some clear findings both in the nature of humanity and things that increase wellbeing. While philosophy has merits, I am ultimately concerned with what impacts us mere sentient beings and not what is logically correct. So I spend my time engaging in many of the behaviors that have been found to benefit my existence. These things often marginally impact others positively as well. A former professor of Harvard used to claim he felt that the exponential function was the meaning of life. Small positive changes can have large impacts, but the human mind does not easily grasp nonlinear relationships. Not sure if I agree with him, but that’s interesting to ponder.
For example, just look at all the small impacts bchad had on some people via this impersonal medium. And I doubt those things didn’t seep into a few real life interactions. A lifetime of these occurrences, with all their nose and chaos, is just to hard to parse, though.