Atheism, A Grim Position?

[Mister Agenda]

Hello, I'm new to the forum.

Welcome.

Full disclosure: I'm currently a non-traditional theist. However, I have considered atheism a few times but it seems to be such a grim position. Let me explain.

As I understand atheism, these would be a few of its tenets:

Neither mere atheism nor mere theism are the sort of things that have 'tenets'. They are differing opinions on the same topic: the existence of God(s). Both good Samaritans and people sacrificing babies to Moloch are theists. Atheists aren't quite that diverse...but we're pretty diverse. If all you know about a person is that they're an atheist, you know next to nothing about them.

There is no ultimate meaning. Therefore, all lives and events are ultimately meaningless.

You seem to have confused atheism with some form of nihilism.

There is no ultimate basis for value.

Maybe, maybe not. An atheist's opinion on that depends on other opinions than the existence of God. And one could believe in God without believing in an ultimate basis for value. For example, under divine command theory, what's good is good because that what God wants. That's not an 'ultimate basis', it just makes morality arbitrarily determined by God.

Therefore any moral position is ultimately arbitrary and logically, equally defensible.

Could you demonstrate how one might equally defend rape and kindness?

This means that things like genocide, pedophilia, torture, etc. are equally defensible to any other moral position.

Unless you support this claim, I will dismiss it as a mere assertion.

There is no ultimate intentionality associated with/in reality.

Probably not, but that could be the case with God, as well. The Bible certainly isn't clear what ultimate intent God is supposed to have for reality.

Therefore, all events, actions, thoughts and behaviors are determined by chance and necessity.

And if you throw God in, that makes it so much better?

Thus, an individual's thoughts and actions are determined solely by prior causal events and chance.

Atheists didn't invent determinism nor are all atheists determinists. But throw God in the mix, and you've just added one more causal event, God doesn't make your will any freer. An omniscient and omnipotent God necessarily eliminates your free will altogether.

At least for me, if I take these atheist positions to their logical conclusion this all seems psychologically pretty grim.

The only position common to all atheists is not believing in God. Those aren't 'atheist positions', none of them are even unique to atheists. And if they ARE pretty grim, that's completely irrelevant to the question of whether they are true. Would you rather believe a pleasant lie or a grim truth?

I'd be interested in comments why this is not necessarily the case.

I hope my comments were helpful.

[Mudhammam]

I'll say goodbye.

I don't think anyone saw this coming.

[robvalue]

Hmm. These sorts of things seem to come down to, "I want things to be this way." Which is fine, but it's not an argument. Conclusions are pre drawn, and then rationalizations fill the gaps. If we have no way of distinguishing "God" from nothing at all, then it's not a useful claim.

[Mister Agenda]

Your meaning in life is derived from you. My meaning in life is derived from me. Yours is not mine, and mine is not yours. If you've decided that christianity is your meaning in life, then fine. It's a personal thing.

First off, let me short circuit the Christian thing. I'm not a Christian. My theology derives in large part from philosophical ideas like those found in VishishtAdvaita (qualified monism) and absolute idealism. No savior, heaven, or hell in my beliefs.

What, when it's YOUR beliefs, you don't like people assuming a bunch of stuff about them? Ironic, that.

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Religious ethics fills in the blank with something supernatural. "Pleasing God", "Getting admission to Heaven", "Achieving Nirvana", whatever.

Atheist ethics fills in the blank with something in this world. What is the purpose of human life? We have our choice on that. "Promoting the health and happiness of my family, friends, adopted circle, and our descendants." "Contributing to the long-run survival of human civilization". "Maximizing my lifetime total of pleasure." There are a million possibilities.

I get that. So then if "Maximizing my lifetime total of pleasure" entailed killing redheads because it was pleasurable, does that go against atheist ethics? If so, how?

There are no peculiarly atheist or theist ethics. There's centuries of moral philosophy without the assumption of God that you can draw upon for reasons why you shouldn't kill redheads if you like it. It's completely worthless to someone who likes killing redheads though, just as much as religion is. Our prisons are full of theists, theism doesn't have much of a track record for stopping bad people from doing bad things. Secular moral philosophies aren't particularly more successful as far as I know, but they don't claim to be backed by some supernatural power that knows more about turning vicious psychopaths into good productive citizens than we do.

The answer to 'what if I was a psychopath' questions is always 'then you'd be a psychopath'. Morality kind of goes out the window if you're a psychopath. If you like killing redheads, a good explanation of why it's wrong won't stop you. Moral reasoning is really only applicable to people who don't like killing redheads.

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Wrong: the ultimate basis is called "reality," of which we are individual components thereof, with objectively verifiable natures as biological beings. Due to this, some positions, like genocide and torture and all that, are not equally defensible, and are, in fact, indefensible. You just need to rationally reason through these things, keeping in mind the facts of our biology and the world we live in.

Ok, here's how this would go. I'd ask you why they are indefensible. You'd offer an answer, then I'd ask why that? Next answer. Then I'd ask why that again? On and on. There is no stopping point if there is no ultimate basis of value so any answer would eventually go nowhere or just be a personal (or group) preference. In that case any other position would be just as equally defensible.

'Because God' isn't an explanation, it's admitting you don't have one.

There is nothing such "atheist ethics".

From your previous post "Atheist ethics fills in the blank with something in this world"

It would have been better phrased as 'an atheist's ethics fill in the blanks with things in this world'. There are no 'theist ethics', why should you expect there to be 'atheist ethics'?

[The Grand Nudger]

If you like killing redheads, a good explanation of why it's wrong won't stop you. Moral reasoning is really only applicable to people who don't like killing redheads.

MA......I want you to know that I'm going to repeat this to my children someday, word for word.

[Mister Agenda]

Hmmm. So your argument against genocide is that morality needs conscious agents which it would eliminate. So something is morally wrong if it would eliminate morality. Sounds somewhat circular to me. Why not just do away with morality and everyone just does what they want, even if it eliminates all moral agents?

So what you're saying is that if you didn't believe in God, you'd think that was a fine system? Can't see any drawbacks to living in a society like that?

Are you an actual moral idiot or just pretending in order to make theists look bad?

[Cato]

I found his website. What he intentionally omitted here, for good reason I think, is his starting point:

Now if one accepts the reasonableness of an intuition of a purposeful divine, then the question becomes, where does this come from?

He invokes the idea of people's thinking being hindered from ideas born in Jensen's Axial age. I find this amusing since his entire argument hinges on the assertion that people just seem to have a divine intuition; ignoring of course that this could very well be vestigial bias from a religious upbringing.

Morality. For those who avail themselves to the dimension of depth, glimpses of divine preferences and telos may be sensed. However, as these intuitions have a contextual and subjective element, they are best tested with every possible resource, i.e. intuitions of others, wisdom literature, history, results, etc.

Dimension of depth refers to Steve's ideas of revelation. He invokes a pantheistic type deity in that all of what we observe in reality constitutes divine revelation. What baffles me is that after several pages of 'ultimate purpose' arguments his own ideas invoke subjectivity tested by intuition, literature, history, etc. Ultimate purpose has no meaning if it constitutes all of reality and does not have a decoder ring.

In the end, as far as morality is concerned, Steve is just like the rest of us in doing the best we can with the tools available to figure it all out. The difference may be that he simply cannot let go of the notion of a deity. Pity really; he seems sincere and is not totally fucking nuts. Perhaps just misguided by starting with the 'intuition of the divine' and then ignoring efforts to steer him towards other well established ethical schools of thought (virtue/consequentialism).

[Mister Agenda]

But what if I ( as a rational human being ) don't care about society?

Then you're not actually a rational human being.

I just want what I want and I want to kill redheads, and will try to get away with it. Is that somehow fundamentally wrong irrespective of what society thinks? If so, how?

If that's how you feel, there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Psychopaths have impaired empathy, reduced response to stimulus, and a limited ability to care about the consequences of their actions to themselves and others. They're defective, and the condition is incurable. Fortunately, sociopathy is on a spectrum where redhead-killers are an extreme, even for them, and various flavors of con artist and petty criminal are on the middle of that bell curve of sociopathy.

I don't think it was by accident that Thomas Jefferson invoked the creator in the Declaration of Independence, "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". Full stop. All other opinions are subordinate to that ultimate endowment. No more "why that" questions.

Why would anyone think Jefferson invoked the creator by accident?

Atheists can believe in inalienable rights, too. I do.

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Yes, "descent with modification sieved by natural selection" encoded some behaviors and tendencies. So what? Does that make them fundamentally right or wrong? If so, how?

Why should something have to be fundamentally right or wrong? Why can't something be right or wrong for us, as human beings, depending on the circumstances and consequences?

Can you give an example of something that is fundamentally wrong?

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But you don't understand it at all if you don't understand it's simply a lack of belief in a deity/ deities.

Surely judging from the many thousands of comments in the forums there is more to atheism than just a definition.

There is more to atheists than just a definition. More to theists, too. It doesn't follow that there's more to atheism or theism themselves.

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True. But we subjugate ourselves to the mightiest all the time, often believing it is in our best interest or the interest of others. As children we do it, albeit maybe with some rebellion from time to time. For those who live in the US, most would accept the ultimate authority of the Supreme Court in determining what is lawful and what is not; an essential part of preserving the benevolent aspects of the Constitution. However, when it is felt this subjugation is not benign, rebellion often occurs.

Personally I don't have a problem with God determining what is moral and what is not. This is based on a belief in God's benevolence to creation.

You certainly abandoned fundamental rightness and wrongness the instant it was convenient.

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Ok, I get it. My bad. So atheism doesn't have any tenets beyond "Atheism is lack of belief in a deity or deities". But I'm curious then. Are there atheists who disagree with what I mistakenly called tenets in my first post?

* There is no ultimate meaning.
* There is no ultimate basis for value.
* There is no ultimate intentionality associated with/in reality.

If so, I'd like to hear what those disagreements are.

Let's hear it:

What's the ultimate meaning?
What's the ultimate basis for value?
What's the ultimate intentionality?
Why should I believe your answers are the truth?
Why is God necessary for your answers to be true?

I don't need to be an atheist to recognize it when a claim is insufficiently supported to justify accepting it as true in the first place. You haven't even attempted to make a case that 'ultimate meaning' is a real thing, and I shouldn't accept it until you (or someone) does.

That's not atheism. It's rational skepticism.

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What precisely do you mean by ultimate?

Take the US Supreme Court as metaphor for it. That court is the final adjudicator for what is consistent with the constitution and what is not. There is no higher authority that can be appealed to in that adjudication. It stops there.

The Court can still decide incorrectly. What use is this idea of 'ultimate' if it doesn't necessarily include being correct?

And please don't just tack on 'and it's necessarily correct' to your court analogy.

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I personally think moral systems are essential and good things. What I'm saying, however, is that without some ultimate basis for them, any reasonable person could argue against them or even their elimination. A thoroughgoing anarchist could offer a well reasoned, logically consistent argument that they are perfectly right to do whatever they want and all restrictions on individuals should be eliminated. It's "every man for themselves" is logically defensible without some ultimate basis for morality saying it's not right.

Person with no ultimate basis tries to justify killing redheads for pleasure: Long argument that goes nowhere and doesn't persuade anyone that redhead murder is okay.

Person with ultimate basis tries to justify killing redheads for pleasure: 'God told me to do it'.

[Esquilax]

Mister A, I fear your lovely efforts are wasted on the kind of person who would remove himself from the conversation the moment anyone tries to give his ideas better treatment, from the standpoint of rational inspection, than he's giving to everyone else's. It's pretty clear from Steve's "assert, assert, assert, offense at request for justification," pattern, that he wasn't really here for a conversation.

That is, assuming his presumptuous first post didn't tip anyone off.

[Cato]

I think he just needed an audience to observe him arguing with himself.