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Originally Posted by
Colonel Frank Grimes
You need to create a God to have absolute beliefs? What is the meaning of absolute (in a philosophical sense)?
A universally valid principle. As I pointed out before the so called 'Golden Rule' has existed in cultures across the globe among people who both believed and didn't believe in a Godhead.
How is the Golden Rule absolute? Following your worldview, it exists only in as much as humans choose to believe in it as part of a complex ruse to ensure survival. Will the Golden Rule keep on existing regardless of circumstances? Say, human extinction? The definition of absolute itself says that it applies without a relation to any other thing, so I should ask, is the Golden Rule innate to the universe to you? Does it apply for all life forms? And to non-living matter too?
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Human rights and freedom fall under the 'Golden Rule' of which I already showed isn't a sole product of any religion but can be found every where including among people who don't worship a Godhead.
All of which are human artifices if we go by the atheist worldview, thus they're not real, just subjective voluntary beliefs that are held out of pure utilitarianism. They're totems.
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What you did was create a strawman argument. You point at some atheists who have made particular statements and say, "Look there! They say life has no meaning!" This is like me pointing to the atrocities committed in the name of God and saying "Look there! Christians slaughter innocent people!" You take the actions and beliefs of a few to define the whole.
Strawman means I create a poor version of what you are, and then attack that weaker version in an attempt to ridicule you.
I'm not doing that. I linked an example of 2 people who are known and have a long bibliography being consistent atheists, and proceed to ask why there are so comparatively few atheists with the same degree of symmetry in their mindset. In other words, why are there so few high quality atheists like Stirner? At some level, Donatien de Sade taking the Thelemite principle of doing whatever one wants, without paying heed to external laws, is somehow intellectually admirable since he actually did put it in motion.
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The joy of being an active participant in life, maybe?
What's the significance of human joy? Just the random byproduct of matter coming together and gaining sentience as part of the infinite physical processes taking place in the universe. The happiness of a human isn't then worth any more than a sun spot, a gas cloud or the gravitational field of the Oort Cloud.
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Man's natural curiosity of the unknown and discovering the answers to all questions? Humanity is where it is today because of our intelligence and curious nature that goes with being intelligent. We want to understand the world around us.
What's the significance of this? We want to understand the world around us, that's great. Does that have any objective meaning? It's just atoms stuck together that gained sentience by evolution and now spend time moving around thinking, for a seemingly odd reason since understanding the universe has no survival value in the least.
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No society survives without trust. If everyone was looking to get the most out of people regardless of what happened to that person society would collapse Altruism also creates strong bonds in a community and so it's not surprising that people with particular personalities exist at higher numbers than other personalities if it's beneficial for a functioning society.
I thought morals came to be only in as much as cooperation was required for survival. Contracts, bargaining, working relations then. Why would morality extend beyond that to care about emotions or feelings?
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Many societies on Earth have reached the point where other life becomes sacred to them. Much of this has to do with the observation that animals have emotions and so many people see something of themselves in other intelligent beings. A tree is a living thing. A tree doesn't whine. A tree doesn't have emotions. We can cut down a tree without a care. A dog whines when its struck. A dog shows emotion. We related to a creature that shows emotion. No one cries about a fish being killed.
What is sacred? Isn't that religious? All there is, is physical matter interacting with itself creating odd phenomenons whether it's nuclear fusion in stars or organic life developing. Why would anything be sacred at all? Seems like a 100% arbitrary and voluntary belief.
Also why did we come to relate to emotional critters? What's the evolutionary pressure for this? Seems odd to develop that behaviour if we are the product of life trying to perpetuate itself, such development makes no sense according to the primary directive.
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My statement about the 'Golden Rule' does away with your argument.
The Golden Rule is a 100% method oriented premise. In other words, people try to be friendly to each other under the assumption that such a setting makes society operate in a better manner.
The Golden Rule however doesn't give a metaphysical reason as to why life matters at all from a normative point of view. What's the significance of social peace and stability? Whether we thrive or all die is inconsequential from an objective point of view. Is it moral if a meteorite crashes against a planet? Is it moral if cosmic radiation fries some incipient protein compounds in a distant planet far away? Seems like all of this is just as meaningful/less as humans thriving. You can argue that it only matters because we chose it to matter, but if so, it's a purely subjective belief and there's no real outrage in ceasing to believe in it, since both belief and lack of belief are all meaningless in the end.
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Originally Posted by
Bezprym
Usually to avoid some dumb fellas who need to hear the explanation "what does agnosticism mean". Also, I am as much sure there is no god, as that there is no dragons. But I can't prove it. If that makes me an agnostic, then I am an agnostic. There is no practical need however to distinguish the two while talking with a theist, since for those who are - for instance - Christians, we will go to hell anyway, to "suffer the lack of god". Looks like hell is not that bad at all.
Agnosticism generally seems to hint at people not having a very defined metaphysical framework of understanding. They wonder if X stuff is meaningful or not, without really making up their mind.
Atheists are materialists that stand for everything that exists being matter and the end result of random forces and particle interacting with each other, with no real objective/inherent meaning to the Universe beyond this. Everything else, according to a consistent atheist point of view, is arbitrary make belief.
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And this is just brilliant.
Are you able to explain me, why I don't kill people and myself after killing them?
Don't know, maybe you prefer to get your cock stroked on a Saturday night rather than die. It doesn't matter really, whether you want to live your life till old age and have a family, or die childless, or blow your brains out 1 minute from now, it's all ultimately inconsequential since you're just matter. Does it matter if some water drops falls on a rock today or tomorrow? Probably not.
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Originally Posted by
Dunai
I'm a none-believer in any spiritual beings, but labeling myself as a mere atheist would be too limiting for what I really stand for. There are so many things I know for a great certainty that don't exist, but I wouldn't label myself also axyz. On the other hand while I fully realize that I am the result of lucky random events, while I do exist and am able to rationalize, I do try to cherish this great possibility as much as possible. By cherishing existence, I also do try to help preserve other lucky lifeforms, since any animal has coded into themselves the need to self-preservation and reproduction. But we humans developed another goal, the one to help other lifeforms, and not to destroy them (even though many still do it). Our reasoning gave us this awareness we call morality, thus it comes natural to most of us to act according to it and not fall into some comfortable fatalism: "everything is meaningless anyways, why even bother?". I do want to bother, since I personally have a sense of duty to preserve this lucky chain of events that created us and fellow lifeforms towards posterity.
Why do you? You came to be out of randomness sure, but why do you have to bother preserving it and perpetuating it. If you do so because you feel like it, sure, whatever choice is the same. But you seem to hint at having a duty, meaning something that ought to be done regardless of your choices and will. Why do you? Where does this duty come from? Does a blue star have the duty to do anything?
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Originally Posted by
Taiguaitiaoghyrmmumin
No one knows if the Universe certainly started with the big bang but that there was likely a big bang. There could have been something before it. Another theory believes that the Universe goes into a cycle of shrinking and expanding. Shrinking till its so condensed and big bangs again. Then after expanding condenses again. but no one knows for sure. We just know that scientificly there is no evidence for God. Logically there can't be no god either because it has too many logical fallacies.
Of course there's not, how could there be? You understand how science works right? It uses physical evidence to build models that explain how reality works. And I'm not making up that definition on my own, but quoting hardcore atheists like thunderf00t or that sort of guy. God is a metaphysical concept to explain why the universe came to be, the purpose. Categorical differences.
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Problem with religious people is they don't know how to update to the times of newer information when things get discovered. What religious people do is conform other ideas to fit their purpose. Even when Science doesn't back up the notion of god existing they go off tangent, sometimes even try to use psuedo science or manipulate something off context, or just some typical religious jargin.
I've not mentioned a single religious thing here.
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Because they truly care about others existence while they are alive. Even if you die one day you are still alive. The Fact that you will die and there is likely no after life means your life is more unique and special to you. Atheists care about others genuinely while religious people usually tend to care for others more out of fear of going to hell or punishment by their religious codes.
I guess, but it is ultimately voluntary if you want to care for others or not. Since there's no higher imperative that dictates one should care for others. You choose to be altruistic, sure, whatever you feel like. Someone else can choose not to be care and mass murder people to make cups with their skulls, also no difference since his choice is inconsequential.
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No actually religious people are more egosists. They are usually extremely intolerant toward other beliefs. I just reject there is god. Its all over history. Mudering Infedils, non believers of their faith ect. Christians muslims and all other different religions have done it before. Also Religion overall slows down scientific progress because when scientific revelations or discoveries go against what a religion institution says being political the church will stop it and even kill, condem or imprison scientists.
Scientism is no different. The Aether as a concept of physics was scratched unceremoniously in the early part of the XX Century even though there was no reason for it, something that Nikola Tesla pointed out adamantly at the time. For decades, considering multiverse theory was seen as heresy by the mainstream academia that instead said only string theory should be considered seriously as a way to understand the origin of the universe. Once string theory proved to be a dead end, suddenly the neglected theory of quantum gravity, whose proponent had been sidelined and not given any further university posts, was pushed forward and came to be the basic core of M Theory, seen as respectable today.
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Life is meaningless, you give your life purpose when you feel satisfaction in something you want to do. The only other purpose is your biological purpose to survive. As much as you wish life was much more complicated as to why you are alive its not that complicated. You are born from chance but the processes in detail are very complicated. We have ethics because of various reasons, humans have emotions which is very important. If we had no emotions we would have no ethics because we would not care for anything. Ethics also provide sense of whats needed for order in society. problem with religious people is they want to feel special because they have a figure thats powerful and loves them. Also that they want to have a purpose but don't understand that they create their own destiny.
This is Jean-Paul Sartre's take on it, existentialism. The curious idea that while there is no inherent meaning to anything, not even ourselves, we can somehow however spring forth meaning with our choices. Seems quite the leap since it says that from non-meaning, meaning can appear with just a mental switch.
Albert Camus spent his career criticising this inconsistency in existentialism, instead pushing forward a more coherent atheist worldview in Absurdism, where the total lack of meaning is accepted, and is said to be inescapable (true since something cannot come out of nothing), but pretending as if shit matters is important to him, not because it really matters, but just because aesthetically and from an individual (meaning subjective, not objective) point of view, starting enterprises in life is better than be crushed by the weight of meaninglessness.
