Answers needed

[Redbeard The Pink]

Hi everyone!

I'm not sure whether this is the right place to post this, but I'd really appreciate some answers to some/all of the following questions. I'm interested in how an average atheist thinks about these topics. It would be great if you could give some explanation for your answers. I'm coming from a protestant worldview.

1. Does God exist?
2. Where did the universe come from?
3. Does my life have a purpose?
4. Why do people suffer?
5. Is there life after death?
6. Can I distinguish right from wrong?
7. Can people know truth?

Sorry for being point form. 

I wouldn't call myself an average anything, but here goes nothing.

1. Which god(s)? There are so many, the scriptures about them are filled with obvious fiction, and they all have about the same level of evidence to demonstrate their existence (which is to say none). My studies and understanding indicate that the very idea of god is a man-made concept originally formulated to do a range of things, from filling in the gaps in our understanding to controlling our thoughts, feelings, and actions. If there really is an all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing entity in the universe somewhere, and it's trying to communicate with us through some or all of the world's various holy texts, it's doing a shit job. If it's so knowledgable and so powerful, why would it be making such a cluster-fuck of something so simple as communicating with humans?

2. We don't know. How's that for an answer? We don't know, and we don't believe there's any use or justification in saying that a deity might have done it. Until we find some evidence to give us a really good answer, that's the only good answer we have. We have some idea of how the universe began, but what caused it to begin is still something of a mystery. There are a few schools of thought on the matter at the upper end of physics: one postulates that some form of material reality has always existed; another suggests that by adding matter and anti-matter together you actually get nothing, and so the process could theoretically be reversed to bring matter and antimatter out of nothing. Honestly, though, we don't fucking know, and I'm pretty much ok with that. I certainly don't lose sleep over it.

3. "Purpose," like value, morality, and many other abstract ideas, is completely subjective. While life as a phenomenon does seem to have things that it consistently does as a matter of function, there is no purpose in the sense you seem to mean (as in, does life have an inherent purpose that is somehow dictated by a higher order of the universe?). The purpose to your life is whatever you make of it.

4. People suffer because suffering is part of the condition of being alive and conscious. Sometimes it happens at the hands of other humans, sometimes it happens because of the environment, and sometimes we even do it to ourselves. One thing's for sure, though: religious thoughts and actions have added a lot of suffering to this world any way you slice it.

5. All evidence indicates that the self rests within the brain, and that when the body and brain die the consciousness dissipates. What one experiences during death varies widely from person to person (if near-death accounts are any indication), but something interesting happens when many people die: their brains release a substance known as DMT. DMT is a powerful hallucinogen that can dramatically warp one's sense of time and cause hallucinations that are a complete sensory disconnect from reality. Some people just see auras and funny colors and shit when they do it recreationally, but some people have vivid, dream-like hallucinations that are entirely subjective. The experiences are usually only a few minutes long real-time, but I've heard stories of people having DMT trips where they spend years on an alien planet learning another culture's language and customs. When it's not used recreationally, DMT is only released during death and extremely intense transcendental/religious experiences (go figure). Taking all that into account, it's possible that many people experience an "after-life" kind of hallucinatory phase to brain death where one spends a stretched amount of time experiencing what feels like passing onto and becoming a resident of a new dimension. I don't know if that's really what happens, especially to people who die in such a way that their brains are instantly obliterated, but I think it could happen to some people.

6. I think the question you mean to ask is whether humans can distinguish right from wrong, and I'd contend that this is an overly simplistic question. The real question is whether morality is objective or subjective, or more simply whether morality comes from within ourselves or from some outside force. The evidence as I understand it indicates that our morality is subjective, personal, and sourced by the evolved senses of empathy and social justice. The closest thing we have to objective morality is social morality, which is usually just the average of a population's personal morality, and so will vary from population to population (meaning it's actually still subjective).

7. A skeptic would say that we can't know much of anything for 100% certain because we're always learning new things, but in some cases we can gain a sufficient level of evidence and clarity to justify the claim that something is probably true. God is not an example of one of those things.

[doomed]

1. Does God exist?
I don't know.

2. Where did the universe come from?
The Big Bang, I guess.

3. Does my life have a purpose?
I don't know. That's something you should answer. Why are you here? What's your purpose? Mine's to enjoy life as much as I can.

4. Why do people suffer?
Because their minds make them feel bad as a warning that there's something wrong going on that migh harm/is harming them like: hunger, bullying, getting wounds, losing important people, etc.

5. Is there life after death?
I don't know.

6. Can I distinguish right from wrong?
I don't know. Do you obey some sort of moral code which dictates what's right or wrong for you or you just do what you want?

7. Can people know truth?
Not sure about this one. We can get a close answer to the truth through science, but even it might not give you the right truth.

[Ravenshire]

I've not read all the way through the thread yet, but I'll answer #3 (it's the only one worded in such a way that I care to answer). Yes, there is meaning to your life. Whatever meaning you choose to give it. You have chosen religion (sorry 'bout that) while other choose other things. The meaning you find in your religion still comes from you though because the only meaning you'll ever find comes from within, not without.

[Ravenshire]

Yeah... if you look at the descriptor next to my avatar, you'll realize, OP, that I don't let up.  "Tenacious" is the word SteelCurtain used to describe me not too long ago, and I think he was being nice.  

I will keep posting this until you answer.  Thanks.

Rexbeccarox,

I appreciate good tenacity. Do you want my answer so you can be appropriately shocked when I say YES! :-) I'll leave it at that. I didn't answer because hypothetical questions of this nature are not usually productive. You wrote, "If it weren't for your god . . . ." That isn't a situation I'll ever find myself in, so why ask morbid questions?

If you would like to share a good, educational reason for this question, I would love to discuss it with you further!

I always find it aggravatingly amusing that so many religious folk refuse to engage in hypotheticals about their morality but want us to engage hypotheticals like Pascal's Wager.

Not saying you've done this Louis, but it's very far from uncommon.

[Ravenshire]

SteelCurtain,

Thanks for answering the question. Regarding your assessment of me, believe it or not, I actually feel that the evidence I've seen points to a creator. Have you read Misia Landau's Narratives of Human Evolution? Apparently the interpretation of evidence has more to do with presuppositions than actual empirical truth. 

"The question to ask, then, is not what do fossils tell us about human evolution but what is it about human evolution . . . that through fossils is getting said."

I'm glad to hear you aren't a dogmatist about your beliefs. :-)

We all have presuppositions. Scientists, by and large, attempt to remove these presuppositions from their interpretations of evidence. What you are suggesting, (by begging a creator god) is the very worst type of presuppositionalism. You are starting from a conclusion. This is the worst backwards thinking. No one started with an idea for evolution and sought to prove it with the fossil record. The start was observation in nature, and from that evidence came a hypothesis, which has been tested and proven over and over again.

We have had the morality thread. This will be the third thread for morality in the last month. See "What IS good..." by Catholic_Lady and "Why be good?" by Randy Carson. Well over 2500 posts on where morality comes from. Evolution we haven't done in earnest since Rev777 and his 7 proofs. (Of which he only got 2-3 done and claimed victory despite getting thoroughly smacked around.) If you're interested in actually learning what you're arguing against, then maybe you should make a thread with your questions?

Compared to the current crop, I kinda miss Rev.

Louis, evolution is one of the most rigorously tested and thoroughly understood scientific theories we have. To deny it at this late date is to willfully put your own blindfold on.

[Ravenshire]

That only deters sissy cowards.  Real men are not afraid of such things, and eat what they want to eat.  Next you will be telling us how vegetarians live longer than omnivores, and vegans live even longer.  As if you would live forever if you don't eat people!  Fucking cowards.

Next thing they'll be saying we should give up out baby-ques!

[Ravenshire]

Hey. You were supposed to ignore that!   Feel free to discuss the first two points I made if you'd like.

You spouted it and this is a discussion forum.

[Ravenshire]

There’s something apparently antithetical between the concepts of nature and the supernatural.

As has been said already in this thread, every time humanity has been faced with something with an unknown cause and has sought and found an answer, that answer has always been a natural cause. Every time. Why should we give credence to any claim of a supernatural cause, especially when those seeking are not using any methods to protect their search from false answers?!?

[Joko]

Hi everyone!

I'm not sure whether this is the right place to post this, but I'd really appreciate some answers to some/all of the following questions. I'm interested in how an average atheist thinks about these topics. It would be great if you could give some explanation for your answers. I'm coming from a protestant worldview.

1. Does God exist?
2. Where did the universe come from?
3. Does my life have a purpose?
4. Why do people suffer?
5. Is there life after death?
6. Can I distinguish right from wrong?
7. Can people know truth?

Sorry for being point form. 

1) Not an existence that we can prove, therefore it's only natural to say no.
2) Processes that are or soon will be described by proper scientific models.
3) Yes, the meanings that we create for ourselves. In complete liberty. And that is actually more beautiful than having to follow a strictly defined meaning in a given scripture.
4) That's just the way the universe works. Sometimes we inflict it upon ourselves, in the case of poverty in the United States or warfare. Other times its nature. But what I find hopeful is the fact that good-hearted citizens can come together to fight these forces using altruism and scientific research.
5) No, per lack of evidence.
6) Yes. In my view, there are strictly right and wrong things in the world. Denying women and LGBT people their fundamental rights will never be right, and no sound philosophical system should attempt to defend "cultural relativism." Murder outside of war or self-defense is wrong. Stealing outside of physical emergency is wrong. Denying health care to people just because they can't afford it is wrong. However, I understand that there are no objective reasons for me to defend these beliefs. But I created my vision in a way that lines up with ideals dating back to the Enlightenment.
7) Their own truth. And that's OK.