The issue of purpose couldn't be more important than it is today. As much of the Western World shifts away from religion and towards atheism (particularly materialism), they are left with a gaping hole in their lives. Without moral commands or the divine direction that once guided individuals and nations, many irreligious are left searching for that which can infuse their lives with purpose. Most end up landing on some system of self-purpose because it's easy, convenient, and unobtrusive. This system of self-purposing generally means that each individual must figure out or fashion their own purpose in life. Once a purpose is identified, then life can meaningfully be lived.

While self-purposing sounds fantastic (who wouldn't want to just follow their own desires?), there's one problem for materialists. Self-purposing is incoherent on their system. It can't be done. It's absolutely unintelligible. To discover why materialism cannot provide purpose - and especially self-purpose - I'll explore deeper the concept of purpose.  

History has always fascinated me. I often try to place myself in the shoes of those who walked in the past. As a guy, that usually meant I frequented ancient battlefields or heroic situations in my mind. And as a hormonal teenager, it meant that I often placed myself in the shoes of someone like a suave Mark Antony who was able to attract beautiful women like Cleopatra. 

Those daydreams didn't last too long, however. It was easy to travel back in time and imagine historical figures like Cleopatra or Marilyn Monroe who were often depicted beautifully in movies or in pictures. But those images always chose to capture the beauty of these women in the prime of their lives. What killed my daydreams was when one day, I recognized that I was dreaming about a romantic relationship with an 80 and a 2,000 year old woman - basically a grandma and a mummy. After that realization, I kept my historical fantasies to battlefields and away from romance.