I received a desk calendar for xmas and today’s quote is...

‘What’s the meaning of it all? Seems to me nobody’s got a clue. Quote Jim Harrison on that: Nobody’s got a clue’. Jim Harrison.

One of the things I enjoy the most about life after Mormonism is the fact I don’t have a clue. After 30 years of knowing ‘with every fibre of my being’ that the church was ‘true’ and could provide me with all the answers, it feels liberating to know I know nothing about the meaning of life.

The idea that "Nobody's got a clue" scares the hell out of a lot of people. They need to be to told what the meaning of their miserable life is because the alternative would be that they would have to figure it out for themselves and that is just too terrifying to consider.

Yep.
They're also desperately afraid there is no "meaning." At least not any imposed or inherent one. Scares the crap out of a lot of people, who insist there MUST be such meaning :)

When my wife and I discuss my lack of belief, she will invariably ask me what I think happens after we die if I'm so sure that it isn't what mormons believe. I tell her that I simply don't know, and I'm OK with that...I've got enough to deal with while I'm alive that I don't need to worry about what might or might not happen after I die.

Besides, I don't need to have a clue to recognize that mormons are just as clueless. The difference is that I've not deluded myself into believing something just for the illusion of certainty.

I remember back in the day asking a psychistrist what the meaning of life was he didn't have a clue.

I've always imagined this is how religions got started: cluelessness, or rather, the fear of being clueless.

It's not that the people who started any particular religion were bothered by being clueless, but they that looked around and recognized that many in their tribe or community were.

Much like in a kingdom of the blind where the one-eyed man is king, in a community of the anxious, the one who best pretends to have the answers is prophet.

Socrates: "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing." One of my favorite quotes! (Of course, I have no idea if it's true or not...)

I haven't got a clue, but I do have a collection of hints. (I keep my hints collection in an old cigar box.)

Here are some of the hints I've collected over the years: jazz; cats; laughter; orgasms; chocolate milk shakes; really bad puns; that time I saw the Milky Way on a cold clear night in rural Wisconsin; my wife falling asleep on my shoulder on the bus; Joe Montana to Dwight Clark in the corner of the end zone; extra pepperoni; a clean old soft faded cotton t-shirt; that moment in "2001: A Space Odyssey" when the ape-man picks up the bone, turns it over, and suddenly everything changes; standing at an outdoor sink in a farmhouse in the Amazon when suddenly a moth the size of my hand flies over and decides to land on my shoulder; sitting in my grandmother's kitchen licking cookie dough off the big spoon; Kepler's laws of planetary motion...

There's more down there, too--a whole other layer, at least. Don't ask me to put everything together--that would require having a clue, which as I admitted I don't have. I really need to organize this stuff--this cigar box is a mess...

Your hints sound pretty damn close to having a clue to me getbusylivin!

I love you, Getbusylivin!

I've always had a curious, open mind (except when it comes to Mormonism), and I actually welcome ambiguity.

The purpose of existence, as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out to us,
is to catalogue the nine billion names of God

http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html

Or, if you'd rather listen as it's being read to you,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhWdc0xS00s

"Philosophy knows that some questions cannot be answered.
Religion thinks some answers cannot be questioned."

If there meaning it's finding it in each other. Its how we are wired as social animals. We get caught up in a lot of bs then when its time to die people regret not spending more times with friends and family, and being their authentic self. I figure people are fairly honest on their death beds, ego driven and cultural illusions dissolve.

Well said get busy...the little things...interesting that with all we know or think we know...no one knows exactly how or why the pyramids and a host of other things that have transpired here over the millenia...the bermuda triangle..global warming..and of course our favorite...the nephites etc...insecurity seems to cause some to need to be right or know everything...their opinion is so important...a wise man doesnt feel the need to know or be right...the ego has been quieted to where its just ok to not know...and really with so many important issues...do ya think it really matters Eddy?...count yourself lucky get busy...your wife still makes love to you...tender mercy...no wonder you still think life is grand...its great to matter to at least one other person in this journey...now thats important...im just not sure why

Yup, and that includes the profits of jo smith jr./his profit cronies who have consistently embarrassed themselves for approximately 186 years now! The record is abundantly clear! These ecclesiastical clowns of false religion have proven to be nothing more than pathological liars from the very beginning of the GOD CON to the present! There should be no doubt in anyone's mind! As Always, tnurg (GRUNT)

This line of thought makes me reminisce about a TBM convert relative who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt ALWAYS of the truthfulness of ole Joey and Mormonism.

She took every opportunity to bear her testimony, was actually very kind, thoughtful, and helpful, and seemed to truly love the gospel.

As she aged and lost those closest to her to death, her attitude about the church never wavered until one afternoon I was with her when she expressed her doubt about the "church afterlife". I could not believe my ears.

At this point, she changed the subject, making it clear she did not wish to talk about what she had shared. So, I did as she seemed to wish and asked no questions, but.....

.... I was left with the nagging question wondering if this was her belief all along or had the events of the last years of her life brought her to this new position?

It just seems so incredibly obvious from the instinctual reactions most of us have towards life threatening danger that the purpose of life is to stay alive as long as possible. The next question must be "what is the purpose of death"? Aside from fertilization of the soil for the benefit of those creatures still living, I haven't a clue. I'll have to wait until I die.