RE: Do you wish there's a god?
April 3, 2019 at 8:03 am
(This post was last modified: April 3, 2019 at 8:04 am by Alan V.)
(April 2, 2019 at 7:47 pm)Belaqua Wrote:(April 2, 2019 at 7:38 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote: I personally think avoiding making anything into an idol, like a god, is a benefit of atheism. To me that's just an extrapolation.
Pure Lackism requires us to clarify: not having an idol is a possible trait of atheists. But since the only thing all atheists have in common is The Lack, they may idolize something else. Taylor Swift, maybe.
I agree.
Put it this way: I personally think that atheism, to be internally consistent, implies a whole range of other positions. But I also point out that atheists don't necessarily have to be, and often aren't, internally consistent. The "Lackism" is the minimum requirement, the price of admission to be an atheist. Individual atheists may not make the effort to be consistent. Some people just want to live ordinary lives without religion, and so ignore the deeper issues involved.
(However, I also do not agree with other atheists as to what those extrapolations are. For instance, I think free will and objective morality are entirely consistent with materialistic perspectives. I think many atheists underestimate what emergent materialism has evolved.)