RE: Atheism, Theism, Science & Philosophy
April 21, 2013 at 6:01 am
(This post was last modified: April 21, 2013 at 6:23 am by Love.)
(April 20, 2013 at 10:05 am)Rhythm Wrote: How did your atheism progress to existential nihilism? What would the belief in (or lack thereof) any god have to say on the matter? IOW, I think that -something else- probably led to this...although I have to admit..this is starting to sound like a pastors script to me.
I understand some people on this forum are concerned about intellectual dishonesty. Therefore, I would just like to clarify that I am not a philosopher, theologian, mathematician, physicist or a psychopharmacologist. My specialist area is computer science/IT, and I simply have a passing interest in all of the above topics. Although I do go very deep into the topics that I enjoy studying, so maybe this is why it comes across as though I am acting as an authority in any of the aforementioned disciplines.
As regards your question about existential nihilism, I just don't see any other way around it. In the grand scheme of things, human beings are small organisms (in comparison with earth), earth is an infinitesimal piece of matter in a tiny solar system, in a small galaxy, in a gargantuan universe. According to contemporary biological and cosmological theories, all species will eventually be extinct, and our universe will ultimately perish. To me, these ideas just seem to make life devoid of any real meaning, and that the human species is no more significant than bacteria, a cabbage or a cauliflower, for example.
I want to make it clear that my new found belief system is not a cowardly emotional reaction to not being able to handle this atheistic and nihilistic worldview; it is much more about a full intellectual reflection of the way things are. It may very well be the case that I am simply wrong and mistaken; however, it just makes far more sense to me that there is a special purpose for the existence of human subjective consciousness, love and morality (other than biological survival). I find it very difficult to believe that human subjective consciousness simply emerged as the result of outlandishly complex biochemistry via the process of evolution by natural selection. I feel that there is far more to it than this simplistic naturalistic explanation.
