What's the meaning of life to an atheist?
- Thread starter Klaus
- Start date
What do you mean by absolute truth? Without a god, is an apple not an apple? Will E not always equal mc²? You must also be defining meaning and morality differently than I (and the dictionary) do if they require a god of any sort.
Facts are facts, and will remain so whether we like them, agree with them, or are aware even of them.
ETA PS, Beyond Good and Evil was a much more mature and coherent work than The Gay Science, just FYI.
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Kustamogen
Banned
Carl Sagan was da man....and that simple quote sums up my views exactly
Lonelykitsune
Well-known member
I dunno,guess athiests just think its nature.And nature does not care,thats what caused so problems.Im agnostic myself because if there is a God how do you know which one it is?Like it could be God or its could just as easily be Odin or Zeus or something els
Lea
Banned
Well said, Worrywort!
Kustamogen
Banned
lol I love hearing ppl explain how theres a god.....its usually pretty amusing
worrywort
Well-known member
I dunno, I just heard someone say that and it sounded cool!
jks!nah, I guess when it comes to absolute truth, the point is that if there is no God and if the universe is ultimately impersonal and random, then why should we even trust our brains? Why should we trust that the process of evolution has generated for us trustworthy truth recognition facilities? The highest ethic of the creature that is evolution is not truth, it is survival. The only respect it has for truth is in so much as it benefits the survival of its species. So why should we trust a creature like that?
But I dunno much about that tbh. It's far easier to see difficulties in the atheistic worldview by examining moral truths. If there is no God then there can not be an absolute transendent moral law or standard by which all human beings are obligated to live by. Therefore the concept of morality must be relative from person to person, culture to culture but that's where the problems start. What happens when two people or cultures differ in their moral opinions? It becomes impossible for one party to say to the other that they are "wrong" without appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which they expect the other party to submit to also. Therefore an atheist can never condemn another person's actions without violating the logic of their own worldview. An atheist could say that they do not like the holocaust, that it does not make them feel good, that it was unbeneficial to society, but they could not call the holocaust "evil" or "wrong" without assuming the existence of an absolute moral law by which ALL humans are accountable to.
....at least this is my current understanding of the argument!
I dunno, I just heard someone say that and it sounded cool!
nah, I guess when it comes to absolute truth, the point is that if there is no God and if the universe is ultimately impersonal and random, then why should we even trust our brains? Why should we trust that the process of evolution has generated for us trustworthy truth recognition facilities? The highest ethic of the creature that is evolution is not truth, it is survival. The only respect it has for truth is in so much as it benefits the survival of its species. So why should we trust a creature like that?
But I dunno much about that tbh. It's far easier to see difficulties in the atheistic worldview by examining moral truths. If there is no God then there can not be an absolute transendent moral law or standard by which all human beings are obligated to live by. Therefore the concept of morality must be relative from person to person, culture to culture but that's where the problems start. What happens when two people or cultures differ in their moral opinions? It becomes impossible for one party to say to the other that they are "wrong" without appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which they expect the other party to submit to also. Therefore an atheist can never condemn another person's actions without violating the logic of their own worldview. An atheist could say that they do not like the holocaust, that it does not make them feel good, that it was unbeneficial to society, but they could not call the holocaust "evil" or "wrong" without assuming the existence of an absolute moral law by which ALL humans are accountable to.
....at least this is my current understanding of the argument!
Yeah, that's the whole point.
All countries that were governed by atheist people, without exceptions, ended doing genocides because someone inside the government some day stated it's morally correct to "kill the jews", "kill the bourgeoisie", "kill the gays", "kill the political dissidents", "kill the mentally unstable" (us?) and etc.
And the christian morality, that made human kind see things like pedophily or incest as wrong since 2000 years ago was suddenly "obsolete".
The problem with atheism is that you can write at your book what is morally wrong and right to you and your country. As Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and others did.
And since there is no "absolute divine truth" and man makes mistakes, bad things will sure happen.
In China is morally correct to kill your children if you want. Nobody cares.
You can find pictures of babies laying dead at the sidewalks of the main cities at google. And for them is absolutely normal to do that...
They can say this is how evolution is, that it's the survival of the fittest, but for me this is uncivilized and involutive.
It's the man going back to the caves...
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davidburke
Well-known member
everyone seems to civil but it is nearly impossible to say anything against religion without a religious person taking it as an personal insult which is never intended at all it is just the beliefs we are commenting on
Chod77
1
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The universe is only 'random' (that's a pretty loaded word actually) to a certain degree, since it is governed by predictable laws. However, our human brains certainly can't always be trusted. Ever read any studies done on the reliability of memory? Ever talk to a cop about to what extent people can be trusted as witnesses, even when they think they're being honest? Maintaining rational thought and coming to entirely logical conclusions is a challenge to everyone who tries to do so on a regular basis, and most people don't even give it a first thought. Not really an issue to do with gods though.
Every human is capable of lies and betrayal, but that goes for both the religious ones and the rest as well. As biological creatures we are somewhat random in nature, all of us. And strictly speaking its the genes themselves that basically look out for number one, not individuals looking after the species or even individuals looking out for themselves--but that's another story.
I hold that all morality comes from people, and that the religious books are written by people which give other people their morality. Of course you disagree, so look at it this way--if you study, as I have, all the major religious texts, you will see a basic morality common to all of them. Do unto others, etc, by and large. You will also see morality evolving as we as a species evolve socially. If you read the old testament and compare it to the new, do you not see this? Eye for an eye is a lot different than the (alleged, of course) teachings of Jesus. If God is the absolute morality, then how could absolute morality change over time anyway? Absolute is supposed to be...absolute, that's it, the word, no?
It's hard to answer that without knowing more about a specific situation. Life is complicated and easy answers aren't always the best ones.
Um, no. While every atheist will not have the exact same set of morals or beliefs, guess what? Not every Christian does, either. No, really. Or every Muslim, etc. Every single major religious text is large and vague enough to be interpreted in many ways, which is exactly what people do--have you not noticed that there are different denominations and sects for all religions? How many atheists have you actually talked to about what they think is right and wrong?
Genocides have been committed by far more religious regimes than atheistic ones--check your history books. This is for the simple reason than regimes have a tendency to commit genocide now and then, and most regimes have not been atheistic ones.
The bible is pretty inconsistent about incest if you actually read it, and doesn't even mention pedophilia.
Karl Marx was a beautiful person but an unrealistic idealist. Once he saw what people were doing with his ideas, he said (paraphrasing) “If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist”.
Adolf Hitler very much believed in God, both publicly and privately. For political purposes, he was a friend to many churches and what he really wanted to do was create his own church preaching an 'Aryan' version of Christianity.
While under communistic regimes, religion was suppressed. Did this make the population atheistic? Crap no. If the government told you to stop believing in God, would you? Most of the population was and is religious, just like the rest of the world. Killing female children, sadly, is a cultural thing and not relevant to religion or atheism.
Lea
Banned
The discussion atheism vs religion is stupid like always. Atheists trying to prove how religious people are immoral and vice versa. As if it wasn't clear, so why to lead lenghty discussions about it? What are morals according to all of you? Is it just some random invented stuff by someone, put into a book? And someone else inventing some other stuff? Why shouldn't it be clear that we have the rules of what is right written "in our hearts"? Do you need books to know that it's not right to kill, lie or steal? Now if you got one that would tell you it's right, would you believe it and do it? Why do you need books to tell you what your heart should trust? And if love (or higher ideals) is just some random play of hormones, your life must be really miserable, why don't you go and shoot yourself or somebody else?
Back to the topic,here is something interesting to see if you have the time,even if you disagree its interesting to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFOaadaWfxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQ-_OKkygY
YouTube - Why are We Here? (3/3) - Richard Dawkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFOaadaWfxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQ-_OKkygY
YouTube - Why are We Here? (3/3) - Richard Dawkins
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