Atheism and Purpose

[Edward the Theist]

That's a very eloquent post. Thank you for writing it on my behalf. It sounds like the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. But if you're right, happiness is impossible because life and consciousness and the formation of a person who could write what you just did is a waste. We become aware, we go extinct. Actually, only a god could be that cruel to us.

But I do believe we cease to exist when we die. The difference, I would argue, is that we cease to exist the same way we ceased to exist as a small child.

For instance, I had a memory yesterday of something I said to my mother when I was five. I remembered it clearly for some reason, and it struck me that the person who said that to my mother was not the same person remembering it. The boy had ceased to exist a long time ago.

As for purpose, I would concede that it may not be possible to willfully follow a purpose in life. We have a purpose, each and everyone of us, but it comes to us automatically and deterministically. Some people are born for the prison yard, some people cure polio.

But you're here today, and tomorrow is a new day. So stop being so damned depressing, have a drink, read a book, look up at the stars, and life your life.

I don't find it depressing at all. I'm surprised you do. What I stated above is a simple first implication of atheism: determinism.

You talk about choices people make--what choices? You talk about the insult of human suffering, why? We are born, we live, we die, we cease to be as if we never were. The suffering means nothing. The happiness means nothing. We live, we breed, we die. There is no purpose because there is no Creator. Any purpose we invent, whether we are conscious of the fact or not, is simply part of the deterministic universe we live in, and that determinism is based on chaos and natural selection.

You seem to think atheism can create a better world for people--how is it going to do that? Eventually, we will see that human rights are unnecessary in the scheme of things, and we will come to eat the weak. Because no one is special, and we will have no reason to believe they are. We will eventually become lower than the animals, we will literally see ourselves and each other as only matter. Like George Orwell said in his book, 1984, and I paraphrase, "If you want to know the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever."

For the record, I don't believe in heaven. When we die, we cease to exist But in that moment, we cease to exist because we return to (and I apologize at this time I have no better term for it) a primordial conscious/eternity. We cease to exist but it probably feels like a great white light that welcomes us to the utter fullness of our being. Some people think of it as heaven, but it's really the necessary primordial monistic state (maybe that's a better term).

So, you see, I'm not depressed at all.