Human Value Nonexistent?

[Ryantology]

First part, yes. Heat death? I don't think so, I thought it was going to be a freeze.

To be annoyingly technical, Heat Death is a freeze. No energy can be utilized for dynamic processes. I think it'd be kind of boring.

[Hovik]

Of course there is no objective meaning to life. That's where subjective experience comes in to fill the void.

[Norfolk And Chance]

Where would value come from? To think that you're life is more valuable than an ant would just to be guilty of speciesism.

Why would I think my life is more important than an ant?

If there is no objective being to give your life value, then it has no objective value. Any value that you would perceive your life to have would be just an self-deception.

Correct. We can give ourselves our own meaning, but is there any grand meaning? Nope, not as far as I can tell.

It absolutely doesn't bother me if life is meaningless or an accident, I can't understand why some people are so mortified by that thought.

Moreover, the OP quoted Dawkins saying that there exists no good, no evil.

AND ALL OF YOU AGREE WITH THIS?!?!?!?!?!

(the following is from wikipedia on the topic of Nazi Experiments)

Bone, muscle, and nerve transplantation experiments

From about September 1942 to about December 1943 experiments were conducted at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Armed Forces, to study bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and bone transplantation from one person to another. Sections of bones, muscles, and nerves were removed from the subjects without use of anesthesia. As a result of these operations, many victims suffered intense agony, mutilation, and permanent disability.

Head injury experiments

In mid-1942 in Baranowicze, occupied Poland, experiments were conducted in a small building behind the private home occupied by Nazi SD Security Service officer, in which "a young boy of eleven or twelve [was] strapped to a chair so he could not move. Above him was a mechanized hammer that every few seconds came down upon his head." The boy was driven insane from the torture.
~~~~~

I also read where pregnant women were used for vivisections.

On atheism, you have no grounds to say that this is wrong. Life simply is....you can do what you wish with it.

We as a species get to decide what we think is wrong or right, what is appalling and what isn't.

There's nothing wrong with using other humans for science experiments against their will and at the cost of their lives.

The majority say it is wrong. Would I like it to happen to me? No. So I wouldn't like to see someone do it to somebody else.

If there is no God, life came from nothing and ends in nothing. Not only do our individual lives end in death, the universe itself will end in a heat death and will go back to being what it was in the beginning...nothing.

Nothing before the Big Bang, nothing afterwards....we're just this drivel in between nothings. Meaningless, purposeless, valueless.

Yep. I have no problem accepting this possibility. It is what it is.

If there is no God what value could your life possible have? Perhaps you could benefit the human race? To what end? All ends in nothingness, it would be a fruitless, pointless endeavor anyway. All acts of humanity are ultimately of no consequence.

Why should my life have any meaning?

A life lived for pure selfish gain would be equal to a life lived selflessly giving to the human race. Both would end in death.

And that's the funny bit, when I look at you christards wasting your time praying and preaching, in the end we're both going to be as dead and clueless as each other.

Sacrifice is foolish and selfishness is the only logical perspective to approach life with.

Life IS about survival of the fittest, which essentially includes selfishness. However there advantages to sharing and sacrifices.

If there is no God, all things are permissible....our world essentially is Auschwitz.

Not all things are permissible. Because WE decide what is fair and just for members of our species.

If there IS god, why do WE bother punishing criminals? After all god will punish them, so why bother?

If God exists, then you have value because he ascribes value to you. If God exists then you would have objective value because the objective being gave it to you.

Your argument seems to be addressing extrinsic value, like sand...if there's a ton it's not really valuable.

However, if God exists we have intrinsic value because we are made in His image and those who Jesus died for would have extrinsic value as well because their life would have been purchased by the blood of Jesus, who is Himself God.

I've sort of lost interest now.

[Aroura]

Right, and yet atheists aren't out doing terrible things in droves, so obviously your reasoning is flawed.

Ever hear of the social contract?

Here, let me google that for you!
We don't need any higher power to not do "bad" things. Even though you don't know it, neither do you. If God and the threat of hell are the only things preventing you from raping and murdering, then you need help.

What is considered evil and bad is constantly changing and...evolving...hehe, in different societies. If you had been born in the middle ages, it would have been socially acceptable, and NOT condemned even by the church, to kill someone who had wronged you, say, raped your virgin daughter or stolen your sheep. Yep, no trial needed, murder them. BUT if you had fed them in your house first, then it would suddenly become evil to kill them. Makes no sense to us, but that's because the social contract has evolved.

If you could time travel forward 100 years, you probably would hardly recognize what you call "morality", because it is constantly changing.

Oh, and I agree, humans only worth is that which we give ourselves. Its a lot harder when it's up to us, and not magic sky daddy to be worth something. I have to do it myself. Christians (and some other religions) take the cop out easy way to "self worth".

[The Grand Nudger]

Where would value come from?

Myself, my family, those who depend upon me for this or that, sources of value aplenty. Same place your own value comes from.

To think that you're life is more valuable than an ant would just to be guilty of speciesism.

Guilty as charged, but, to be fair, the ant likely feels that it;s life is more important than my own, in this regard we are equals.

If there is no objective being to give your life value, then it has no objective value. Any value that you would perceive your life to have would be just an self-deception.

Why? My wife assigns a value to me and that value is far from illusory to her or to myself. No deception involved. My wife is far from "an objective being" and yet she's capable of doing precisely what you seem to think is impossible. This ignores the value I place upon my own life, which, again, requires no deception. Maybe if I led a shitty life and people couldn't count on me for this or that I'd have to leverage a little bit of illusion to give my life meaning...I just don't find myself in such an unfortunate situation.

Moreover, the OP quoted Dawkins saying that there exists no good, no evil.

AND ALL OF YOU AGREE WITH THIS?!?!?!?!?!

Yep, and?

(the following is from wikipedia on the topic of Nazi Experiments)

Bone, muscle, and nerve transplantation experiments

From about September 1942 to about December 1943 experiments were conducted at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Armed Forces, to study bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and bone transplantation from one person to another. Sections of bones, muscles, and nerves were removed from the subjects without use of anesthesia. As a result of these operations, many victims suffered intense agony, mutilation, and permanent disability.

Head injury experiments

In mid-1942 in Baranowicze, occupied Poland, experiments were conducted in a small building behind the private home occupied by Nazi SD Security Service officer, in which "a young boy of eleven or twelve [was] strapped to a chair so he could not move. Above him was a mechanized hammer that every few seconds came down upon his head." The boy was driven insane from the torture.
~~~~~

I also read where pregnant women were used for vivisections.

Sounds horrible, isn't it interesting that both you and I have such similar opinions with regards to our subjective notions of evil? I bet there are tiny little differences between us though, eh?

On atheism, you have no grounds to say that this is wrong.

Sure I do, and what this has to do with atheism is a mystery to me. I give these things a negative value judgement, if enough people agree with my value judgement we can collectively call those things "evil" without evil being objective. Similar to the above..I bet we can find people who don't think these things are evil at all (smart money would be the torturors and experimenters)

Life simply is....you can do what you wish with it.

A dry statement of fact if ever there was one, yes.

There's nothing wrong with using other humans for science experiments against their will and at the cost of their lives.

Unless enough people agree that there -is- something wrong with this. That's what was missing from your comment above. Life simply is..you can do what you wish with it, but from time to time, your wishes may be at odds with "ours"...and that will incur consequence.

If there is no God, life came from nothing and ends in nothing.

Well that's complete bullshit right there. My life came from quite a lot, and it will "end" with quite a lot as well.

Not only do our individual lives end in death, the universe itself will end in a heat death and will go back to being what it was in the beginning...nothing.

You seem to know an awful lot about what the universe was "at the beginning". Have you shared this hypothesis of yours with anyone?

Nothing before the Big Bang, nothing afterwards....we're just this drivel in between nothings. Meaningless, purposeless, valueless.

Say it with me now..."We don't know". I suppose in a sense you could see it this way though. Stepping back to take a look at the big picture we are a fairly small blip on the radar. You don't even have to step very far - even on this rock we are outnumbered, outweighed, outshone, outlived, outcompeted.....it really is humbling. Nevertheless, we do seem to be important to ourselves.

If there is no God what value could your life possible have?

There isn't, and yet my life retains the value and meaning which I (and those around me) have assigned to it.

Perhaps you could benefit the human race? To what end? All ends in nothingness, it would be a fruitless, pointless endeavor anyway. All acts of humanity are ultimately of no consequence.

LOL, meh, I'd settle for benefiting my immediate family...and that's probably all I can handle. Ultimately will it have been pointless, fruitless, etc? Sure, some day the sands of time will surround even the memory of yours truly......but again, it won't have been pointless to me. I've gotta be honest here, I don't understand why a creature that can reasonably expect to live maybe 80 years would expend some much worry into what value or meaning their short life will have had at the far flung ends of some imagined eternity. It really puzzles the shit out of me.

A life lived for pure selfish gain would be equal to a life lived selflessly giving to the human race. Both would end in death.

If death is the metric then yes, they are both equal, and?

Sacrifice is foolish and selfishness is the only logical perspective to approach life with.

Selfishness seems to you to be the only logical perspective to approach life with? Care to elaborate?

If there is no God, all things are permissible....our world essentially is Auschwitz.

All things are permissable, because ultimately no one is giving (or withholding) permission. Nevertheless, most things have consequences (good or bad).

All of this says more about why you feel compelled to believe than it does about the status of our lives or their meaning. To you, all would be pointless, all would be despair, life is Auschwitz...etc etc etc -if there were no god-. If I felt that way, I'd be hard pressed to find atheism appealing, for sure. However, for some strange reason, even though I don't believe in this god you feel is a necessity of some sort.....I can't agree with you in any meaningful part (and certainly not on the whole).

[downbeatplumb]

I grow weary of this endless need for life to have some sort of "meaning".

It is a childlike view.

Preoperational: (begins about the time the child starts to talk to about age 7)
Applying his new knowledge of language, the child begins to use symbols to represent objects. Early in this stage he or she also personifies objects. They are now better able to think about things and events that aren't immediately present. Oriented to the present, children have difficulty conceptualizing time. Their thinking is influenced by fantasy—the way they'd like things to be. Children's at this age show egocentrism-they assume that others see situations from his or her viewpoint. They take in information and change it in their mind to fit their ideas. Teaching must take into account the child's vivid fantasies and undeveloped sense of time

Has anyone seen a better description of Theism recently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development

[Cato]

Richard Dawkins’ assessment of human worth may be depressing, but why, on atheism, is he mistaken, when he says, “there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference. . . . We are machines for propagating DNA. . . . It is every living object’s sole reason for being”?

Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden: a Darwinian View of Life (New York: Basic Books, 1996), p. 133 and Richard Dawkins, “The Ultraviolet Garden,” Lecture 4 of 7 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (1992)

I agree with what Dawkins says. It's hard to argue against. What makes it beautiful is the fact that we are just dust in the wind, in a cosmic sense.

Instead of everyone getting along understanding this, I am forced to engage idiot Christians that want to shove their stupid religion down my throat. Why don't Christians take their religious liberty and enjoy their freedom? Not enough, I must be subjugated to their particular brand of stupid. If I say no, they are 'persecuted'. How the fuck exactly does that work?

I am not subject to the whims of your imaginary friends.

[Welsh cake]

Jeff, why are you bothered by what other people think?

[KichigaiNeko]

Ummm because his faith isn't that strong??

[Mystic]

I've heard Dawkin's say things like to not belittle the nobility of things like love, mercy, compassion when explaining evolution....So maybe this quote just refers to the smallest levels, but when it comes together, it produces something more valuable.