Re: purpose and meaning, it's strange that people require a designer in order to have meaning. We wouldn't require the same thing of say, abstract art. In art, the meaning the viewer finds in it is just as valuable as the meaning the artist intended, if the artist indeed had any intended meaning.
It's not a view I've ever been able to get my head really inside of. And, of course, Buddhism says that belief in a creator (an uncaused cause) is an example of the kind of "wrong view" (i.e., ignorance of the nature of things) that creates suffering. Meaning is something we create ourselves, and that seems to me to make it more, well, meaningful.
Re: purpose and meaning, it's strange that people require a designer in order to have meaning. We wouldn't require the same thing of say, abstract art. In art, the meaning the viewer finds in it is just as valuable as the meaning the artist intended, if the artist indeed had any intended meaning.
It's not a view I've ever been able to get my head really inside of. And, of course, Buddhism says that belief in a creator (an uncaused cause) is an example of the kind of "wrong view" (i.e., ignorance of the nature of things) that creates suffering. Meaning is something we create ourselves, and that seems to me to make it more, well, meaningful.