I will become Atheist if.....

[Mystic]

Does a soul really need to have a metaphysical existence to be acknowledged for what it is?

"Body am I, and soul"-- thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak as children?
But the awakened and knowing say:"Body am I entirely, and 'soul' is just a word for something about the body."

My question to MK is: What if it turned out to be just as Nietzsche says, and the thing you call the soul turned out to be ultimately physical in nature? Doesn't it deserve the same respect and regard that you gave to it before? Does a soul only deserve moral respect if it is immaterial?

For starters, you have to show how the material thing get's something called "value". It's convenient if the value giver is me and I assume I have value because it makes me feel good and I want to feel good because I value myself. And it's convenient if evolution is true and we evolved developing a sense of value, and the greater a person believed in his own value, the better their survival chances and leaving their genes behind.

All that doesn't mean there is an actual justified belief.  A justified belief is something base on truth that it sees.  Are we that truth? If we are, how do we get our value from material brain and components from a point that it had no value? (like before there was life). It seems rather chaotic and arbitrary.

You have to justify the very thing as value.  Sure it's convenient if evolution favors us valuing ourselves, that we would value ourselves, and the higher we value ourselves, the better we do, but is any of that based on anything but a feeling created by chemicals?

If a person doesn't believe they have much value, does it make it true? If a person believes he is more valuable than almost everyone on the earth, does it make true?

What is worse is if evolution framework is true, how we justified ourselves from the Atheistic framework, would not be through evolution theory and science and psychology, but actually stories and myths.

Some of them true some of them, some of them totally made up, some of them with elements of truth.

Yet we would evolved our magic concept of self worth with magical stories and myths of how we such value and why we are better than animals, and so on and so forth, and our higher calling, and etc..

[Aegon]

I don't know what the hell that means

Justify the human experience of virtues, deeds, value of people, worth of people increasing by their good actions, perpetual identity,  the language of love etc, from the Atheistic framework.

You want me to justify why it's worth putting in the effort to treat people kindly and commit honorable deeds? I'm not a sociopath. There's your answer.

The effect human beings have on one another is insurmountable. How one treats another impacts how they treat another and how they are treated impacts how they treat another, so on and so forth. We are all interconnected in this fashion. And, of course, if you are kind and respectable and you show this to others, you begin to attract those who value that, and you become respected yourself. Soon you've created a very positive vibe and a very positive and productive crowd of people, and those people will go on to do the same with others. And you've improved the human ecosystem, if only a little. Aside from that, I think all we have is life. When we die it's like before we were born: nothing. Non-existence. So, for the time that we're here, I want to play a part in ensuring that every person's life is as joyous and great as it can be, even if it's in small gestures. If anything, a lack of belief in God and the afterlife make virtue and empathy even more important for these reasons.

I feel very rooted in reality, MK. I feel a serious connection with individuals around me, I feel a serious connection with nature and the Sun and the stars and the moon and all that good stuff. All we have is this, and we must make serious steps to ensure it is worth our time to be living.

This isn't revolutionary stuff. This isn't even stuff that only an atheist would think. This line of thinking, this "one-ness" with everybody and everything is an ancient worldview. It's evident in the Abrahamic tradition too. Only difference is there is no God in the equation, because there is no necessity for one. It wouldn't make sense to add one in.

I hope I worded that well, I need coffee.

[Whateverist]

I prefer that you choose. But don’t worry if you make a dumb choice I’ll let you know.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Posts like this infuriate me. To assume I'm not a good person because of my lack of belief in a deity is just astounding.

No one is saying anything of the sort. You can behave good according to traditional notions of morality. It's just that whim and consensus do not provide a sound intellectual basis for the values you hold.

[Mystic]

Justify the human experience of virtues, deeds, value of people, worth of people increasing by their good actions, perpetual identity,  the language of love etc, from the Atheistic framework.

You want me to justify why it's worth putting in the effort to treat people kindly and commit honorable deeds? I'm not a sociopath. There's your answer.

The effect human beings have on one another is insurmountable. How one treats another impacts how they treat another and how they are treated impacts how they treat another, so on and so forth. We are all interconnected in this fashion. And, of course, if you are kind and respectable and you show this to others, you begin to attract those who value that, and you become respected yourself. Soon you've created a very positive vibe and a very positive and productive crowd of people, and those people will go on to do the same with others. And you've improved the human ecosystem, if only a little. Aside from that, I think all we have is life. When we die it's like before we were born: nothing. Non-existence. So, for the time that we're here, I want to play a part in ensuring that every person's life is as joyous and great as it can be, even if it's in small gestures. If anything, a lack of belief in God and the afterlife make virtue and empathy even more important for these reasons.

I feel very rooted in reality, MK. I feel a serious connection with individuals around me, I feel a serious connection with nature and the Sun and the stars and the moon and all that good stuff. All we have is this, and we must make serious steps to ensure it is worth our time to be living.

This isn't revolutionary stuff. This isn't even stuff that only an atheist would think. This line of thinking, this "one-ness" with everybody and everything is an ancient worldview. It's evident in the Abrahamic tradition too. Only difference is there is no God in the equation, because there is no necessity for one.

I hope I worded that well, I need coffee.

You are in short saying humans have compassion and love for one another. Sure I agree. But you haven't shown how the equation works without the big guy.

[The Grand Nudger]

I hope I worded that well, I need coffee.

Be one with the bean!

[Aegon]

You want me to justify why it's worth putting in the effort to treat people kindly and commit honorable deeds? I'm not a sociopath. There's your answer.

The effect human beings have on one another is insurmountable. How one treats another impacts how they treat another and how they are treated impacts how they treat another, so on and so forth. We are all interconnected in this fashion. And, of course, if you are kind and respectable and you show this to others, you begin to attract those who value that, and you become respected yourself. Soon you've created a very positive vibe and a very positive and productive crowd of people, and those people will go on to do the same with others. And you've improved the human ecosystem, if only a little. Aside from that, I think all we have is life. When we die it's like before we were born: nothing. Non-existence. So, for the time that we're here, I want to play a part in ensuring that every person's life is as joyous and great as it can be, even if it's in small gestures. If anything, a lack of belief in God and the afterlife make virtue and empathy even more important for these reasons.

I feel very rooted in reality, MK. I feel a serious connection with individuals around me, I feel a serious connection with nature and the Sun and the stars and the moon and all that good stuff. All we have is this, and we must make serious steps to ensure it is worth our time to be living.

This isn't revolutionary stuff. This isn't even stuff that only an atheist would think. This line of thinking, this "one-ness" with everybody and everything is an ancient worldview. It's evident in the Abrahamic tradition too. Only difference is there is no God in the equation, because there is no necessity for one.

I hope I worded that well, I need coffee.

You are in short saying humans have compassion and love for one another. Sure I agree. But you haven't shown how the equation works without the big guy.

What equation!? What are you talking about?! You're not making sense. Humans can have compassion and love for one another, I'm telling you WHY they should.

[The Grand Nudger]

You are in short saying humans have compassion and love for one another. Sure I agree. But you haven't shown how the equation works without the big guy.

-What- big guy, and why would it matter?  I have compassion and love for the guy standing next to me regardless of whether or not you're in the room, too.

What use is an irrelevant third party to the interaction between two people? Is your existence or presence...or anyone elses..a requirement of me loving my wife? Fuck no..and anyone who's leering at me loving my wife in creeper mode will probably get told off.

[vulcanlogician]

For starters, you have to show how the material thing get's something called "value". It's convenient if the value giver is me and I assume I have value because it makes me feel good and I want to feel good because I value myself. And it's convenient if evolution is true and we evolved developing a sense of value, and the greater a person believed in his own value, the better their survival chances and leaving their genes behind.

All that doesn't mean there is an actual justified belief.  A justified belief is something base on truth that it sees.  Are we that truth? If we are, how do we get our value from material brain and components from a point that it had no value? (like before there was life). It seems rather chaotic and arbitrary.

You have to justify the very thing as value.  Sure it's convenient if evolution favors us valuing ourselves, that we would value ourselves, and the higher we value ourselves, the better we do, but is any of that based on anything but a feeling created by chemicals?

If a person doesn't believe they have much value, does it make it true? If a person believes he is more valuable than almost everyone on the earth, does it make true?

What is worse is if evolution framework is true, how we justified ourselves from the Atheistic framework, would not be through evolution theory and science and psychology, but actually stories and myths.

Some of them true some of them, some of them totally made up, some of them with elements of truth.

Yet we would evolved our magic concept of self worth with magical stories and myths of how we such value and why we are better than animals, and so on and so forth, and our higher calling, and etc..

Let's just start with some preliminaries, then. We'll ignore evolution in this conversation.

If it turned out that every human body was inhabited by an immaterial soul, would that mean that it deserves moral regard (just based on that)? Why or why not?

[Edwardo Piet]

If you think you would lose all concepts of justice, morality, and compassion without your theism, then please for the love of your god stay a theist.

If a true psychopath without any conscience at all, who would happily murder a bunch of people if they can figure out how to hide the bodies and the evidence of their killings, and who was not afraid of the police at all, could be convinced that a God exists that would send them to hell if they murdered... and that stops them from murdering: I hope they would stay convinced of theism as well!

Not that MK is a psychopath! But I truly hope that if he did become an atheist, he would still have compassion and morality and refrain from evils because of his conscience and he wouldn't need a soul or faith. Methinks that he thinks faith is needed for those things, and perhaps he thinks that on some level atheists must be in denial, but I hope that he is mistaken and he really would care if he became an atheist, like any non-pathological human would. MK may have his psychotic moments, but so have I in the past. Having psychotic experiences is not the same as being pathological. Few psychopaths have experienced psychosis or mental illness, they're otherwise normal humans that are missing any conscience whatsoever and the ability to control their urges regardless of how sadistic and evil. Psychopaths are almost always rational, and know what they are doing is considered wrong by society and everyone else, and know that they are hurting people... they simply don't care, and aren't capable of caring.

I don't think MK is a psychopath. I think he is fully convinced that his religious beliefs help him and others a lot more than they actually do. His faith in religion is a lot more convincing and powerful to himself than his religion itself is in actuality.