People who say they do not believe in god are essentially saying nothing. Their words have no meaning. I say this because the notion of god is predicated on existence. If nothing existed, there could be no notion of god. Therefore, god IS existence. So a human who says they do not believe in god is saying: "I do not believe in the existence of anything, including myself." Obviously, this cannot be true because to say something you have to exist.

Alternatively, they could be saying that they do not believe that life or existence has any implicit or explicit purpose or meaning. In my opinion this must also be false because if life holds no meaning or purpose for an individual, they kill themselves because their existence is absurd. Why exist for no reason?

I suppose you could exist for no reason, and we do operate on some level with this understanding because we cannot hold ourselves responsible for our own existence. Self birth is not possible.

However, in our daily life, to live, we must take responsibility for our own life. This is a truth that I don't think can be refuted. Every animal or other thing that survives through action must take responsibility for their own existence, or they perish. Now, this is not true for the severely disabled, who must have a caretaker or they will surely wither away, but that is the exception, not the rule. And I don't think we are moving towards a future where nobody takes responsibility for their own existence.

So where does that leave us? Well, to my mind, our notion of god is flawed. You have to decide whether everything (including your own actions) is random, or nothing is random. Either way, the ideas of good and bad luck cease to exist. Luck is a purely subjective illusion, where the truth is that nobody can say with cetainty what is good and what is bad luck.

However, this is contradicted by our feelings, and our inclinations towards pleasure in place of pain. The majority of people are drawn towards things that make them feel good, and move away from things that make them hurt or feel bad. This indicates that there are innate aspects of our existence that drive us.

If existence has decreed that we should seek the good and the pleasurable, THAT is the motivation of human life (a part of existence as a whole), and that implies meaning. If a person is suffering too much for them to bear, they die - either through conscious or subconcious action. If existence were totally and wholly random, meaningless, we would seek pain and pleasure with impunity. But we don't.

Now, Schopenhauer would say that our suffering gives us meaning, and he is right in the sense that pleasure and pain existence on a continuum that, though difficult to pin down the extremes of, surely exists. We recognize the pleasure through the comparison with pain and suffering.

What does this have to do with anything, here and now? Well, I think that our habits of attributing good and bad labels to events, people, and ideas are flawed to the core. It presumes some knowledge of the absolute. The world is finite in the physical realm but you can vaguely say that the spiritual realm is infinite. Love resides in the spiritual realm, and love is infinite. Existence is infinite, a concept which we cannot hold in our minds.

Love is the only possible meaning of existence, and the universe is unfolding in the direction of expanding love. It is a heavy burden to think that we as individuals can have an impact on the rest of existence, and as Adyashanti says (I'm paraphrasing) "if we knew the impact we had on the world it would crush us". This, I'm guessing, is why people prefer to believe that their actions are meaningless and that they cannot alter themselves. For altering yourself, changing, is the only way to effect meaningful change in the world around you.

In the end, I don't think it IS easier, IF you can glimpse the freedom that comes with the acceptance of your "self" being representative of the bigger "self" - all of existence. In this I mean that feeling as though one is a legitimate part of existence, that one belongs and fits, is so freeing because the pressure is lifted. The pressure that one percieves comes from messages that surround you, messages from people and institutions, who impose THEIR beliefs and ideals on you, and expect you to conform. When a person fundamentally accepts their right to exist and that they belong within existence, FULL STOP, their perspective changes and the pressure to conform in any way is removed. This is freedom.

The beauty of this is that when you recognize the freedom and you live according to it, the world around you changes. This is the immense power we all hold within ourselves, but which goes unrecognized by many people. This is why they need external belief systems - of which they "must" accept every tenet and humanly created rule - to TELL them how to live.

Everyone "knows" how to live, until they are corrupted by other people who tell them what is "RIGHT". Unfortunately, this set of rules and beliefs inevitably creates what it seeks to prevent - suffering and pain. Due to the ability of ANYone to say - "here's the truth, this is what "god" wants, if you do this, you will get what you want, etc."

When you let go of all your pressures, you realize that what YOU WANT is exactly what you are uniquely suited to do, because you are a part of an existence that is moving in the direction of love. You end up doing what you love, every day.