Does atheism inspire people?

[Tobie]

The idea that there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife. I get one life and I'll be damned if I don't make it count.

This is an argument I hear often and makes no logical sense. What do you mean exactly by "make it count" count for what? If this is it, nothing after, then this life is meaningless and any attempt to imbue any meaning is purely delusional, while it may make you feel better its ultimately living a pointless lie. Belief in God and eternal life gives meaning and purpose with consequence to our actions and lives, its internally coherent. Saying life has no meaning then creating meaning is internally incoherent. Faith and doubt are two sides to the same coin, the types who worry me are those with certainty, those who claim they are certain there is no God.

How does making your life count make no logical sense? We only have one, we might as well make it enjoyable and meaningful, rather than wasting our time chastising ourselves for the enjoyment of some all-powerful being that mos likely doesn't exist.

Life has no goal, but we can create our own, giving it meaning to us. Our lives have a meaning, because we have the ability to give ourselves one.

[StatCrux]

yes, you could argue that nothing really exists other than in your brain, all that is really out there is a mass of atoms bouncing around, its only in your brain that any sense is made of them all. Maybe reality was created 1 second ago with the illusion of age, that can't be shown to be false either. But most people don't think that and most people live with the idea of colour being real too.

So we've gone from religious myth to si fi mental masturbation?

We are our brians, nothing more, and no, reality was not created 1 second ago. You could argue the moon was made of cheese too, but it would have as much credibility as any god claim.

"Prove it isn't true" is called shifting the burden of proof.

"Prove Allah isn't the one true god"
"Prove Yahweh isn't the one true god"
"Prove that their isn't a giant invisible teapot orbiting Jupiter"
"Prove to me that reality didn't start 1 second ago".

Anything you cannot replicate, test and falsify and have independently peer reviewed, will remain mere mental masturbation. Otherwise everything is true by default just because people have the ability to string words together in a sentence.

We use logic to reason, the 1 second world is not just "si fi masturbation" its a valid logical argument that cannot be shown to be false, can you show that the world isn't 1 second old with the illusion of age? No, you just accept it as a given that it is not, science does this it has presuppositions which it simply accepts in order to function.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrMFv6QoX0

[Panglossian]

The idea that there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife. I get one life and I'll be damned if I don't make it count.

This is an argument I hear often and makes no logical sense. What do you mean exactly by "make it count" count for what? If this is it, nothing after, then this life is meaningless and any attempt to imbue any meaning is purely delusional, while it may make you feel better its ultimately living a pointless lie. Belief in God and eternal life gives meaning and purpose with consequence to our actions and lives, its internally coherent. Saying life has no meaning then creating meaning is internally incoherent. Faith and doubt are two sides to the same coin, the types who worry me are those with certainty, those who claim they are certain there is no God.

"Make it count" basically means to leave a positive impression of yourself after you're gone i.e. create/do something memorable, fight for a cause you passionately believe in, affect and treasure the lives of those you love, and your life will have meaning, purpose, however you wish to label it. Constructing a deity to do all that for you is a cop-out. Your sense of worth should come from who you are as a person, not what you believe in.

[Reforged]

So we've gone from religious myth to si fi mental masturbation?

We are our brians, nothing more, and no, reality was not created 1 second ago. You could argue the moon was made of cheese too, but it would have as much credibility as any god claim.

"Prove it isn't true" is called shifting the burden of proof.

"Prove Allah isn't the one true god"
"Prove Yahweh isn't the one true god"
"Prove that their isn't a giant invisible teapot orbiting Jupiter"
"Prove to me that reality didn't start 1 second ago".

Anything you cannot replicate, test and falsify and have independently peer reviewed, will remain mere mental masturbation. Otherwise everything is true by default just because people have the ability to string words together in a sentence.

We use logic to reason, the 1 second world is not just "si fi masturbation" its a valid logical argument that cannot be shown to be false, can you show that the world isn't 1 second old with the illusion of age? No, you just accept it as a given that it is not, science does this it has presuppositions which it simply accepts in order to function.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrMFv6QoX0

er... yes? Science operates on what it *can* prove.
Is that a system thats not quite up to your standard?
Could you give me an example of one that is?

[Ace Otana]

I wonder what religious nuts who get their sense of purpose from religion would do with themselves if there really was no god or some afterlife? Kill themselves?

[Annik]

This is an argument I hear often and makes no logical sense. What do you mean exactly by "make it count" count for what? If this is it, nothing after, then this life is meaningless and any attempt to imbue any meaning is purely delusional, while it may make you feel better its ultimately living a pointless lie. Belief in God and eternal life gives meaning and purpose with consequence to our actions and lives, its internally coherent. Saying life has no meaning then creating meaning is internally incoherent. Faith and doubt are two sides to the same coin, the types who worry me are those with certainty, those who claim they are certain there is no God.

How does making your life count make no logical sense? We only have one, we might as well make it enjoyable and meaningful, rather than wasting our time chastising ourselves for the enjoyment of some all-powerful being that mos likely doesn't exist.

Life has no goal, but we can create our own, giving it meaning to us. Our lives have a meaning, because we have the ability to give ourselves one.

I agree with what Tobie has say with a few additions.

I make my life count for myself. If you're not going to try and live the best life you can, if you're willing to be complacent, if you never want to go anywhere, you might as well be dead (this is not trying to say theists should die, theists, for the most part, still work to further goals). We're alive, though. One life, one shot. Is that not enough to inspire you to enjoy it? In addition, we don't believe in an afterlife. You seem to be concerned with atheists and the consequence of our actions. If we harm someone, we can't comfort ourselves with the ideas of heaven. When we see death, it's final and much more meaningful. I will never see my grandfather again. I will never meet any of the people who perished in Norway or in Mexico. My family will not be waiting for me on the other side. The thought of murder is so repulsive to me... To take another's only life away from them... Even the death penalty is unconscionable to me. You can imagine how insulting it is to me (I cannot speak for everyone as a whole) when someone brings a god into that.

[StatCrux]

"Make it count" basically means to leave a positive impression of yourself after you're gone i.e. create/do something memorable, fight for a cause you passionately believe in, affect and treasure the lives of those you love, and your life will have meaning, purpose, however you wish to label it. Constructing a deity to do all that for you is a cop-out. Your sense of worth should come from who you are as a person, not what you believe in.

But how do you define "positive impression" in a meaningless universe, any action you take is neither positive or negative, its just a meaningless neutral action.

[Annik]

"Make it count" basically means to leave a positive impression of yourself after you're gone i.e. create/do something memorable, fight for a cause you passionately believe in, affect and treasure the lives of those you love, and your life will have meaning, purpose, however you wish to label it. Constructing a deity to do all that for you is a cop-out. Your sense of worth should come from who you are as a person, not what you believe in.

But how do you define "positive impression" in a meaningless universe, any action you take is neither positive or negative, its just a meaningless neutral action.

That's really up to you. Overall, our planet will die, our sun will die, our universe will die. Everything we are is temporary, you see. My positive influence is to be remembered fondly by my children, maybe be in the dedications of a couple books and brand something important. Also, I want to contribute to society, make the world better.

[Whateverist]

We use logic to reason, the 1 second world is not just "si fi masturbation" its a valid logical argument that cannot be shown to be false, ..

Not sure what you mean when you say the 1 second old world is a valid argument. The fact that we perhaps could not know that it was otherwise could be used to argue .. what? That all apparent cause and effect is an illusion? That would undermine science pretty badly if demonstrable. But has it been demonstrated? No.

By the way, what effect would a 1 second world have on your beliefs? Your bible just appeared out of no where and has been vouchsafed by no one. Jesus never lived, was never crucified and never rose from the dead.

If a 1 second world is supposed to be alarming it isn't clear who should be more alarmed. Alarming or not, it isn't -as stated- a coherent argument for anything as far as I can tell. I'd say it is mildly interesting as a thought experiment but essentially a red herring when brought up as an argument for anything whatsoever.

[StatCrux]

er... yes? Science operates on what it *can* prove.
Is that a system thats not quite up to your standard?
Could you give me an example of one that is?

Did you even listen to the clip? Science operates on assumptions.