Post-Theist "Atheology"

[chimp3]

I recently read Michel Onfray's book :"The Atheist Manifesto". It is a great book and one idea really sticks with me. Onfray asserts that much of secular thought is simply christian without reference to God. He calls for a fresh look at the human condition devoid of all past ties to the theist world view. Morality, philosophy , pleasure divested of the baggage of the tyrant gods.

So , I ask you to pretend we are freshly new without knowledge of monotheism , the Golden Rule , life after death, woman as a lesser creature. What sort of fun , pleasurable , joyful life can we conceive of? What matters to you?

Gastronomy, wine and social gatherings based on these two.

Sex for pleasure with full awareness of the risks attached.

Politics for individual liberty with a concern for the common good.

Social mores such as marriage open to creativity as long as no one gets hurt.

[Excited Penguin]

Were you advocating for open marriage on the last line, or am I reading that wrong?

[chimp3]

Were you advocating for open marriage on the last line, or am I reading that wrong?

Advocating for marriage to be what ever the married people say it is. Monogamous, polyamorous, between a woman and two men , etc.

[Excited Penguin]

Were you advocating for open marriage on the last line, or am I reading that wrong?

Advocating for marriage to be what ever the married people say it is. Monogamous, polyamorous, between a woman and two men , etc.

How could you!???!


Nah, jk.

I agree with everything you've said in the OP. I think we should all focus on making society the best it can be.

[purplepurpose]

When crysis hits or treasury is empty and people cant even afford food, its then when usually many peace time standards are abounded and men turn in to savages who steal and rape.

This new imaginary society might dive in to the wise man made religion to endure crisis.

But when there is peace time and abundance, its easy to live and claim to be caring freedom lover.

[chimp3]

When crysis hits or treasury is empty and people cant even afford food, its then when usually many peace time standards are abounded and men turn in to savages who steal and rape.

This new imaginary society might dive in to the wise man made religion to endure crisis.

But when there is peace time and abundance, its easy to live and claim to be caring freedom lover.

Much like the people turned to the Catholic church in Nazi Germany. Especially when they needed an escape route to avoid war crime persecution. An amenity the church did not provide to Jews or homosexuals.

[Gemini]

So , I ask you to pretend we are freshly new without knowledge of monotheism , the Golden Rule , life after death, woman as a lesser creature. What sort of fun , pleasurable , joyful life can we conceive of? What matters to you?

Gastronomy, wine and social gatherings based on these two.

Sex for pleasure with full awareness of the risks attached.

Politics for individual liberty with a concern for the common good.

Social mores such as marriage open to creativity as long as no one gets hurt.

This video is pretty much my manifesto on meaning:





Instead of thinking about meaning as something imposed on us by the structure of reality (theistic or otherwise), think of meaning as something like a creative project. We create meaning, but creating anything is like searching through a infinite library of all possible meaningful stories/endeavors. Every possible story is already out there, in that library of all possible combinations of thoughts, and it's our job to find the good ones. The really good thoughts, durable enough to last through a phase of your life, or longer. 

For me, a joyful, pleasurable life is a quest. A search for meaningful experiences, and the most important part is the people you experience life with.

[Simon Moon]

I recently read Michel Onfray's book :"The Atheist Manifesto". It is a great book and one idea really sticks with me. Onfray asserts that much of secular thought is simply christian without reference to God. He calls for a fresh look at the human condition devoid of all past ties to the theist world view. Morality, philosophy , pleasure divested of the baggage of the tyrant gods.

So , I ask you to pretend we are freshly new without knowledge of monotheism , the Golden Rule , life after death, woman as a lesser creature. What sort of fun , pleasurable , joyful life can we conceive of? What matters to you?

Gastronomy, wine and social gatherings based on these two.

Sex for pleasure with full awareness of the risks attached.

Politics for individual liberty with a concern for the common good.

Social mores such as marriage open to creativity as long as no one gets hurt.

You might want to check into John Rawls' (moral and political philosopher) concept of the "Veil of Ignorance".

The concept, or thought experiment, is to design a society without knowing what your status, abilities, sex, race, tastes etc, will be in the society. So, when selecting the principles for distribution of rights, positions, and resources in the society in which they will live, the veil of ignorance prevents them from knowing who will receive a given distribution of rights, positions, and resources in that society.

If you decide to design a society where some % of the population is held in slavery, not knowing what position you will have in the society, you may will end up as one of he slaves. Obviously, it would make you rethink the idea of having slavery in the society.

Another way of looking at is, having the person who is cutting the cake, choose their piece last. So as not cut yourself the biggest slice.

I am unable to think of a better method to have a fair and equitable society. It seems to me to lead to a moral and just society, by default.

[chimp3]

Instead of thinking about meaning as something imposed on us by the structure of reality (theistic or otherwise), think of meaning as something like a creative project. We create meaning, but creating anything is like searching through a infinite library of all possible meaningful stories/endeavors. Every possible story is already out there, in that library of all possible combinations of thoughts, and it's our job to find the good ones. The really good thoughts, durable enough to last through a phase of your life, or longer. 

For me, a joyful, pleasurable life is a quest. A search for meaningful experiences, and the most important part is the people you experience life with.

I compare music with meaning, morality, and well being. We might all agree upon a spectrum of sounds that contain what we would call music but our individual tastes might range from opera to dissonant jazz.

[Gemini]

Instead of thinking about meaning as something imposed on us by the structure of reality (theistic or otherwise), think of meaning as something like a creative project. We create meaning, but creating anything is like searching through a infinite library of all possible meaningful stories/endeavors. Every possible story is already out there, in that library of all possible combinations of thoughts, and it's our job to find the good ones. The really good thoughts, durable enough to last through a phase of your life, or longer. 

For me, a joyful, pleasurable life is a quest. A search for meaningful experiences, and the most important part is the people you experience life with.

I compare music with meaning, morality, and well being. We might all agree upon a spectrum of sounds that contain what we would call music but our individual tastes might range from opera to dissonant jazz.

I think that's a good analogy. There is definitely a subjective aspect to it; tastes in music and existential philosophy can differ. But music isn't completely subjective. There are (according to a friend of mine who's studied music theory) objective criteria by which we can evaluate the quality of music. Listen to David Hasselhoff for an example of objectively crappy music. 

Likewise, there are objectively crappy existential philosophies. Like a sense of purpose in life that comes at the expense of other people's well being. This invariably entails denying the humanity of human beings, which is ignorant or delusional.

Or finding meaning from obeying the commands of a supernatural person. If a course of action is worthwhile, it's meaningful to carry it out whether someone commanded you to do it or not. But if it isn't worthwhile, attaching a fiat to it does nothing to justify it.