RE: Dear atheists,
April 25, 2015 at 11:21 pm
(This post was last modified: April 25, 2015 at 11:22 pm by henryp.)
An interesting side effect of a meaningless existence, is the non-meaning applies to logic. People can live irrational lives based on whatever beliefs they want, and it doesn't really matter as long as they don't mind. The theist mindset of truth mattering doesn't really apply to atheists.
It creates interesting situations. One of the earlier quirks I realized, was that a religious person is invested heavily in atheists. Souls on the line, living the right way, blah blah blah. But as an atheist, the whole discussion becomes a big ole pile of who cares. It's fun for the mental stretching, I suppose. But there's no real difference between arguing with a Theist and playing Chinese Checkers. It's just something to do.
I also realize it doesn't matter if Atheists who profess to be fans of science and logic have some half-assed rationale for their belief system. Because it's no different than religion, in that it doesn't really matter. There is no Logical > not Logical. There is no hypocritical > not hypocritical. It's a complete 'whatever floats your boat' situation. You want to tell yourself life's precious if it's human or a select number of other animals, dumb as shit in my mind, but thinking dumb shit is in 0 ways inferior to someone with a complete understanding of the universe outside of the desires of the individual.
To conclude, and true believer probably won't ever come here again, so this is just out loud talking, it's the difference between Soccer and Calvinball. Theists have rules they think everyone should play by. Atheists can make whatever they want up, including the belief that they have rules that everybody has to play by.
That's sort of an interesting dynamic, that a theistic life is a subset of an atheistic existence, in that originally, an atheist made up a god and a shitload of rules, and decided that was truth. That's perfectly fine inside the rules of an atheistic existence. Pretending or convincing yourself there is a God is in no way dependent on the existence of a God.
I find a similar relationship with Libertarians and Dictators. Generic libertarian idea says "people can do what they want." Dictator says "What I want to do is oppress a bunch of people." Based on a libertarian existence, his oppressing people makes sense. Just like it makes sense the people will probably want to oppress him by not letting him oppress people like he wants.
It creates interesting situations. One of the earlier quirks I realized, was that a religious person is invested heavily in atheists. Souls on the line, living the right way, blah blah blah. But as an atheist, the whole discussion becomes a big ole pile of who cares. It's fun for the mental stretching, I suppose. But there's no real difference between arguing with a Theist and playing Chinese Checkers. It's just something to do.
I also realize it doesn't matter if Atheists who profess to be fans of science and logic have some half-assed rationale for their belief system. Because it's no different than religion, in that it doesn't really matter. There is no Logical > not Logical. There is no hypocritical > not hypocritical. It's a complete 'whatever floats your boat' situation. You want to tell yourself life's precious if it's human or a select number of other animals, dumb as shit in my mind, but thinking dumb shit is in 0 ways inferior to someone with a complete understanding of the universe outside of the desires of the individual.
To conclude, and true believer probably won't ever come here again, so this is just out loud talking, it's the difference between Soccer and Calvinball. Theists have rules they think everyone should play by. Atheists can make whatever they want up, including the belief that they have rules that everybody has to play by.
That's sort of an interesting dynamic, that a theistic life is a subset of an atheistic existence, in that originally, an atheist made up a god and a shitload of rules, and decided that was truth. That's perfectly fine inside the rules of an atheistic existence. Pretending or convincing yourself there is a God is in no way dependent on the existence of a God.
I find a similar relationship with Libertarians and Dictators. Generic libertarian idea says "people can do what they want." Dictator says "What I want to do is oppress a bunch of people." Based on a libertarian existence, his oppressing people makes sense. Just like it makes sense the people will probably want to oppress him by not letting him oppress people like he wants.
