The "meaning of life."
Many religious folks, (and in my experience) especially Christians make the point that, to the atheist, there is no Meaning Of Life.
It irks me that whenever this view is expressed by theists, there is a chorus of "Nuh-uh, there is too a meaning of life for me!" from the atheists. It is clear to me that there are two distinct concepts of meaning of life in use here.
The theist is almost always referring to a "Meaning Of Life" which to them means some externally imposed and preconceived purpose for which he or she is expressly designed to fulfill, a kind of mission if you will. The point is the "purpose" for them to be here is externally decided by their deity. Their deity perceives a need and sees to it that they are born to fill that need. Or something generally along those lines.
For the atheist, that kind of Meaning Of Life definitely does not exist.
The atheist can come up with his own meaning of life, and those people around him can derive/provide some meaning from/for his life, but the theist concept of Meaning Of Life doesn't work.
The counter argument against the "no Meaning Of Life" complaint is not to say that "there is too a Meaning of Life", because there isn't.
To those that voice this complaint, what I want to say is this: Exactly how is the lack of a Meaning Of Life a "big problem" for atheism? So there's no Meaning Of Life. So what? To whom are you complaining? This is not an argument against atheism, it is just whining. Boo hoo. Don't be such a crybaby.
The theist's complaint that without God, life would be meaningless is not even an argument which needs to be countered with some atheistic version of a meaning of life, a meaning derived from non-theistic sources. Suppose for the sake of argument that the atheist's life was necessarily devoid of meaning in every sense.
How is this an argument for the truth of theism? It may be an argument for the desirability of theism, justification for wishing that theism were true, if one finds a meaningless life to be undesirable. However, it is not an argument for the truth of theism itself.
The theist complaining that "life without God would be meaningless" is a bit like a person who looks at his bank statement, and upon seeing the balance is $200.00, says, "I don't believe this, if this were true, that would mean I'm not a millionaire. And I know I'm a millionaire. I can't live without being a millionaire." and throws the bank statement away.
The theists moaning on about "the meaning of life," are not making any kind of an argument. They are merely complaining that they don't like the implications of the atheist's arguments. It is the fallacy called "argument from consequences.".
Leaving the above discussion for the moment, what about an "atheistic," "meaning of life." When you take apart the words, the phrase "meaning of life" is pretty vague and meaningless itself. What does it meand for something -- anything -- to have meaning? For something to have meaning, it must have meaning to some thinking being. Meaning only exists in context -- any context -- as interpreted by some thinking being. So your life has some "meaning," as long as there are people alive who think about you, or about things, writings, thoughts, descendents which you have influenced. Some anonymous human ancestor born 10000 years ago whose carcass has long since rotted away, and whose artifacts are lost to history can reasonably be said to, at this time, have no meaning. That doesn't mean his life never had any meaning to anyone, but it does mean that his life can't have meaning to anyone today, or in the future, if there is no evidence of his existence remaining to be found and interpreted. Is that really so bad? I would say it's not so bad. But even if it were terrible, this in no way affects the truth of the situation. Deciding that it is terrible amounts to merely complaining.
So you're not a millionaire, and life has no ultimate aver-arching
meaning. Get over it.