To Peter Bowden.

Thank you for considering the topic enough to look into it further yourself. However if I can make a suggestion, I would suggest to look for God on your own to see if you can find Him. This goes beyond researching what others have said or what they have believed and concluded, and goes in the direction of looking for God in your own search.

Many people have found God in many different ways, from purely philosophical pondering a like the people you've gathered ideas from. To direct a observations of the world around us leading to a conclusion that God must exist. To even people having one or more events in their life where God intervened in their life in some way or another.

If you want to consider this topic further, I can suggest a few starting points for searching for God, and seeing if you can find Him. If not, that's your call too.

Has anyone ever noticed that none of the usual Christian mumblings about the nature of Reality ever talk about or refer to Consciousness, or Light which is the Energy of Consciousness. Which is quite strange because these two are THE fundamental aspects of our Existence-Being.

Some more references on the nature of Reality as Indivisible Conscious Light.
http://global.adidam.org/books/ancient-teachings The Ancient (non-dual) Reality Teachings.

This book was also published with the title Reality Itself Is All The God There Is. Among other things the above book provides an Illuminated Understanding of Nagarjuna's Mahayanavimsaka

This references provides an earlier expanded Understanding of Nagarjuna's Mahayanavimsaka. http://www.beezone.com/nagarjuna/mahayanavimsakaadida.html

The West of course does not have a non-dual philosophical or Spiritual Tradition, nor does it have a Living Spiritual Tradition (although many back-to-the-past "catholic" traditionalists like to pretend so)

This site provides multiple more-than-references on the paradoxical nature of Quantum Reality. http://spiralledlight.wordpress.co

Not Now. Soon – yes, of course people can make up their own meaning for life just as they can make up their own morality.

But just as with made up morality, made up meaning lacks any substance or authority.

If one person can make up meaning for their life then so can every other person and those meanings may be quite different.

What is to be done when those different meanings come into conflict? One person may see meaning in helping and loving their neighbour whereas another person may see meaning in just getting as much for themselves as they can and too bad for everybody else.

Whose meaning is “right”? Neither one is, because they are both just made up.

My point is that in a godless universe there is no ultimate meaning for our existence. We just happened unintentionally into existence for no purpose. Making up personal meaning does not change that.

To JP

Perhaps it would be a good idea to identify how to judge a purpose. What would you judge it against, or identify a purpose that works, one that doesn't, or even which ones work better then others. One way to compare different people's idea of purpose is looking at those purposes in action, and which ones are self motivating or more often give a person a drive to fulfill it. If there's other ways to gauge purpose I'm open for suggestions. However, I think most everything can be judged on it's merits. Self identified purposes as well.

From my observation, and it could be missing something; but from what I've seen of people, those who seem to have the most purpose to fulfill, and the most motivation to fulfill them are those who get their purpose from the people around them.

-To provide and care for your family.
-To seek justice for those that have been harmed
-Or to strive in any meaningful relationship, and live for your spouse, for your brothers and sisters, or for your close friends.

These type of purposes, seem to have the greatest drive to push forward and move past frustrations and set backs. And these all share a common quality. A love for those they are taking purpose for. It's with that in mind that I think the greatest purpose people can find is to love their neighbor's and gain purpose from that.

The only purpose that seems equal in measure is to find God. But for those who do not find Him, there is still the purposes and responsibilities to each other that act as stronger and better motivating forces then purposes without other people in mind.

I think we can identify what purposes work better then other purposes by looking at the people who strive with that purpose in mind. Then compare one population of people with that purpose to another population that lack that purpose or have a different one.

To Daffy Duck.

Maybe you're just not listening when Christians open up with their views of the nature of the world around them. Everyone that I've heard that believe God is real and are Christian as well, have that woven into the fabric of their view of the world around them.

Great energy, or great consciencousnes, are very little compared to God.

Let me explain. With the perspectives that we are just a collective conscienceness, robs any recognition that there is a greater force out there then just ourselves. With the perspectives of a great energy or a great force, those rob us from the realization that there's an interaction at work between us and God, and that He does care enough to be near us, and be aware of us.

On the other hand with the acknowledgement that God is the creator and sustainer of the world, you have a completely different dynamic. People live with the understanding that God made the world, and made everything from the laws of physics to psychology of the mind. With that as part of their understanding you have things like, "If God is with us, who can be against us." And to seek God (and find Him) as part of their life purpose. These seem to shout loudly how Christians see the reality of the world.

Why can't we call God by his real name-Evolution ! It was only people who realised that humans need to be led in order to function as a group, who invented Religion as a highly effective control mechanism which is badly needed considering the flaws of human nature !