An atheists guide to reality

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Alex Rosenberg, (in his book "An atheists guide to reality") at last an honest atheist who admits that ultimately atheism when taken to its logical conclusion leads to lack in intentionality, lack of meaning or purpose in life and nihilism. If only a few more atheists admitted this to the general public we would be a lot better off. The true colours of atheism are coming out.

If a person believes in the giant slug worm God on the planet Mudhole in the M62 Galaxy is he still an atheist?

[Jacob(smooth)]

So I'm waiting .. StayPuff man. Are you going to show how the lack of a belief in God is *logically* inconsistent with acknowledging the meaning we find in our lives.

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Oh dear gawd .. did we break him? Now who is going to explain to us the logical implications of what we think?

Ah, sorry. That might be my fault.

[eyemixer]

I want to establish something we can agree that atheists believe.

Lack of belief in god(s) is the most reasonable position given the lack of any verifiable evidence to the contrary.

You can go home now.

[LastPoet]

Its rather funny that religionists make they god "all that there is to believe" without evidence for such an evidence demanding claim. Oh well, they all are full of bullshit to fill that void huh?

[pocaracas]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I guess no one has said this, so here goes! :p

Alex Rosenberg, (in his book "An atheists guide to reality") at last an honest atheist who admits that ultimately atheism when taken to its logical conclusion leads to lack in intentionality, lack of meaning or purpose in life and nihilism. If only a few more atheists admitted this to the general public we would be a lot better off. The true colours of atheism are coming out.

Yes, nihilism is a possible outcome of over thinking atheism...
And, as everything that's overdone... it's done wrong.
Meaning and purpose are two very complex mental states... while the deterministic post in our brains deal with simple things. Of course, the complex ones end up as deterministic, but they depend on such a complex network of processes that, for all intents and purposes, we make our own meaning and purpose and intentions.
Complexity gives us the illusion of these things... and this illusion provides an evolutionary advantage over the nihilist. so we prefer to remain aware of the illusion, but also aware that it's a useful illusion, so we're not nihilists.

[truthBtold]

Actually, without explicit reference, I proposed the argument of parsimony (using Occam's razor) which largely contends that since natural theories adequately explain the development of religion and belief in God's, both the claim of existence and the actual existence of such supernatural agents is superfluous and may be dismissed unless otherwise proven to be required to explain the phenomenon.

I dismiss those claims as being superfluous. That doesn't remove meaning from my life.

God is superfluous if you're looking for a God that "explains" things, we can all exist not accepting God, in that sense God can be superfluous, that is missing the entire message.

George Coyne explains it from 38:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkS1B0huWX4

Now why would I watch ... an instructional video on how to molest boys..

[*Deidre*]

Alex Rosenberg, (in his book "An atheists guide to reality") at last an honest atheist who admits that ultimately atheism when taken to its logical conclusion leads to lack in intentionality, lack of meaning or purpose in life and nihilism. If only a few more atheists admitted this to the general public we would be a lot better off. The true colours of atheism are coming out.

So, one guy hasn't found any real "purpose" to his own life and you make the leap that all atheists feel that way?

A wee bit of a stretch. lol

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When I was following Christianity, my mind was always "torn" between focusing on this life and also on "the afterlife." The problem with religion is that it takes a "believer's" focus off of the here and now and causes the here and now to look "less than" the after life.

We should be wishing to support one another and make the world a better place. Religion divides, it creates competition and acts self righteous. To me, it is breeds angst fear and a sense of purpose as being an unhealthy focus on the whereabouts of one's soul after death.

All people would gain a greater sense of purpose and well being if we all worked together to make the world a more compassionate and tolerant place. Religion gets in the way of that, frankly and instead, causes more focus on a life that may or may not exist.

[Mister Agenda]

Alex Rosenberg, (in his book "An atheists guide to reality") at last an honest atheist who admits that ultimately atheism when taken to its logical conclusion leads to lack in intentionality, lack of meaning or purpose in life and nihilism. If only a few more atheists admitted this to the general public we would be a lot better off. The true colours of atheism are coming out.

Yay, you think found an atheist to mouth the words you want us to be saying to prop up your straw man version of us. You must feel very fulfilled now.

Shall I go looking for a book by a Christian author (any Christian author) who says something you disagree with and announce that the true colours of Christianity are coming out?

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The problem for atheists is that his position is logically consistent with atheism, its the atheists that try to maintain that intentionality, meaning, purpose in life etc are consistent with atheism that have the problem. I agree with Rosenberg, I just wish other atheists would face the problem and admit that's logically where you end up, empty, meaningless and pointless existence

Sacrificing babies by fire is logically consistent with theism. Atheism and theism are opinions on a single topic, not world views. Anything is consistent with theism but atheism, and vice versa.

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Ah, is this where you get to tell me what I believe?

Hypocrisy, much?

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Its not meaning in the sense of having any purpose. Swimming in a lake may be a pleasant sensation, it doesn't give it meaning. Sensual gratification is not meaning. I don't think you're understanding the full implications of athesim, you can create "your own meaning" but that is not objective meaning, ultimately the atheist has to create false meaning whilst having to admit there is no "real meaning" in life. This seems to be absurd logically.

Meaning: the end, purpose, or significance of something. For me, the lake is to swim in and catch fish in. Meaning/significance is only relevant TO the person who assigns it. Some things are arguably objective, meaning is not one of these things. All adding God does is add another subjective person for whom the lake has whatever meaning it holds for God. If it doesn't hold the same meaning for me that it does for God, that does not make my meaning false. The only way for a meaning to be false is for someone to be lying about what something means to them.

If I make a table leg, it doesn't make someone who uses it as a makeshift lever wrong. It means the table leg is also a lever. Meanings are additive because meaning is subjective by definition.

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Yep, you're definitely not getting the point. I don't need to provide evidence of any kind, I'm not trying to prove God exists. What I am saying is that if atheism is true then ultimately there is no meaning in life. We may "think" our lives have meaning and I'm sure most people do, it's whether this belief we have is true or not. So the focus is not on what I believe, but how atheists can logically claim meaning in life other than an imaginary one which they have created. Have you even looked at Rosenbergs book? He is an atheist and he wants atheists to face up to this problem.

What a nihilist who happens to be an atheist has to say is as relevant to me as what a theist who happens to be a Luciferian has to say is relevant to you.

There is plenty of work on moral philosophy that does not entail theism. Read all of it and get back to us with this 'you must be a nihilist' crap after you've educated yourself, if you still believe it.

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I think everyone is missing what I'm actually saying, I'm not saying that atheists don't believe or have any meaning in their lives, I'm saying its logically inconsistent with atheism. If we are simply whizzing through space destined to nothingness, nothing we do here on earth has any real meaning, we may think it has meaning but that is different from actually having any meaning.

This part is all assertions.

I don't think its the only position an atheist can hold, I think its the only logically consistent one.

Thanks for sharing what you think, but you haven't given a good reason to agree with you on this point.

Life have objective meaning (a point as you say) has huge implications on how we view things, intrinsic worth of human beings, equality, value of life etc, thats why it is so important,

This seems to be a claim that could be scientifically tested.

athesim paves the way for euthanasia, abortion, sexual promiscuity etc in some cases even infanticide has been proposed. So life having "a point" has huge moral implications.

Theists have not only proposed, but done all of these things. Test failed. Until you understand that atheists are as alike as theists (only the same in sharing one opinion on one topic) and address specific world views that the atheists you are talking to actually hold, you really can't be any more correct than an atheist who makes wild claims about theists without recognizing any distinctions between Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Wiccans.

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No, I wasn't asked to demonstrate the substance of the argument, I was asked to provide evidence for the existence of God, which has nothing to do with the argument, as I stated, if you had bothered to read the thread.

Re-reading Post #17, it really does seem to be asking you to demonstrate the substance of the argument, not asking you to provide evidence for the existence of God, which has nothing to do with the argument.

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OK, lets stick to this one point of contention, no asking for evidence of Gods existence or other red herrings

Simple question, Is life is simply the chance combination of matter and destined ultimately for decay and nothingness?

I want to establish something we can agree that atheists believe.

Whenever you say atheist, try saying what you really mean, instead. Are you talking about nihilists (none of whom seem to be posting here), naturalists, materialists, humanists, scientific rationalists, Raellians, communists, what? Would you walk into a Buddhist temple and ask them to defend Islam?

From the point of view of methodological naturalism, to the best of our current knowledge, life we know of is the result of hundreds of millions of years of generational adaptation to environments found on earth. Our physical bodies will die and decay, but what we say and do can have effects that ripple for centuries. Eventually, nothing will remain of any of that, but the energy and matter that compose us and our works will exist forever as an ever-dispersing cloud of photons in an ever-expanding universe. Assuming that it is technologically impossible for us to avoid participating in the ultimate fate of the universe and that we're right about the ultimate fate of the universe: I suspect something surprising might happen when the entire universe is entirely composed of nothing but space, time, and photons with no intrinsic mass, but I'm no physicist.

Simple question: is life just a prelude to a never ending existence, becoming more and more insignificant as trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years are an infinitely short prelude compared to the infinity yet remaining?

[MitchBenn]

His views on supervenience are rather flawed.

He has considerations that social hierarchy is predicated upon the simplest forms of natural existence. This position largely excuses us as responsible moral beings and thus encourages a nihilistic outlook on life.

It's rather bleak to hold that regard yes. But he doesn't define all atheists, just as the Westboro Baptists don't represent all of Christianity.

The problem for atheists is that his position is logically consistent with atheism, its the atheists that try to maintain that intentionality, meaning, purpose in life etc are consistent with atheism that have the problem. I agree with Rosenberg, I just wish other atheists would face the problem and admit that's logically where you end up, empty, meaningless and pointless existence

My existence is empty because I'm not enslaved to bizarre and just plain evil fairy stories?

[Neo-Scholastic]

The problem for atheists is that his position is logically consistent with atheism, its the atheists that try to maintain that intentionality, meaning, purpose in life etc are consistent with atheism that have the problem. I agree with Rosenberg, I just wish other atheists would face the problem and admit that's logically where you end up, empty, meaningless and pointless existence

Individually and socially determined meaning is still meaning, it's not invalid because some other people decided to label theirs extra special and omniscient. A lake has no intentionality either, that doesn't sap all the joy out of swimming in it.

You're trying to erect a problem where there isn't one.

You really are clueless about the infinite regress of getting meaning from something else that gets its meaning from something else, etc.