I will become Atheist if.....

[Edwardo Piet]

It;s really easy Mystic.  Use your own justification and simply sub in the word "god" for "my wife" or "steve".  The justification is identical, and if you accept that you have value because you have value to "inset the other guy here" it doesn't really matter whether or not the other guy is god, your wife....or some rando named Steve.  I mean hell, it could just be you.  

But Khem! You forget that the difference is God must be right because he knows everything because the book that he's the main character in says he knows everything and the book must be right because he says so right there in the book! Neither Steve nor your wife has written a magic book perfectly fit for cherry-picking that claims right in there that your wife/Steve must be right because they know everything and they must truly know everything because it says so right there in the magic book! It's totally different! Your wife and Steve aren't being even CLOSE to logically fallacious enough!

---

Value cannot be arbitrary for it to be meaningful to me.

Emphasis being to you. What is meaningful to you is what your brain values biochemically, and it's the same for everyone else and their values are no less real either. (The difference is that some people value values that are healthier and better promote other values rather than harm those things that others value!) You're kind of proving my point, MK!

[Minimalist]

I'm just asking you guys to justify the human experience in a Atheistic framework.

You don't catch on very quickly, do you?

[Mystic]

Love values personality and intelligence as more beautiful than body beauty? Agree or disagree?

In this case, immaterial soul would not be a physical thing as well, it would be a program like a software generated by a material thing, would it not?

We were just talking about this in the other thread. Sentience is a good measure for moral regard. You can bang a rock against a wall (because a rock doesn't feel pain). That would be morally permissible.

It is not morally permissible to bang another person's head against a wall. Why? Because it would hurt them. 

If we went by personality and intelligence, it might be morally permissible to take a severely mentally retarded person and bang his/her head against a wall, even though it would still hurt them. That doesn't sound right, does it?

Therefore, regardless of what "love values," intelligence and personality are not matters for consideration when when speaking of moral responsibility.

Personality and intelligence from most frameworks have both value and moral praise.

Intelligence is a requirement for morality in my view point for those able to acquire it, because without it, a person acts unwisely and causes harm with non-malice intentions. He becomes a fool.

Intelligence however is not how fast your brain thinks, it's how wisely you act and how truthful you are in accepting knowledge and gaining it, and perceiving and reflecting deeply. Although all that increases "the fastness" of your brain as well.

[Aegon]

Value cannot be arbitrary for it to be meaningful to me.

And value if it was not eternal, would be arbitrary.

Just the very fact value came to be and didn't always exist, from Atheistic framework, makes it arbitrary.

This is true even if a Creator exists. If a creator was valueless and created value, then value as we know it would not be what it is but rather an arbitrary illusion and deception.

All value of all things existed before in a unity from my perspective.  If they didn't, then their creation would not be based on truth but falsehood and arbitrary nature.

And than meaning in value becomes rather meaningless.  Like some drug we depend on to feel good but has no reality.

MK, I got some bad news for you. Life is kind of chaos, and almost everything is arbitrary the more you look at it. The fact that you have trouble with that is the source of your problem. I suggest thinking about my signature for a while.

[robvalue]

I will become a theist if you do one of the following:

1) Memorise 85% of a phone book

2) Discover a new element and name it "wankium"

3) Check under my bed for monsters

[Mystic]

lol you said equation, so I just re-worded your metaphor.

All you have to do is justify value of a human being from an Atheistic framework. Yes I know Atheist value human beings. But I'm asking you to justify value itself.

My point is that it's self-evident. We hold value because we exist, and are alive, and feel anger and happiness and pain and sorrow and displacement and family and love and hate, and we are born and we die and all there is is what's in the middle. Our lives are spent impacting other lives. We are complex beings who crave meaning and belonging. Our existence is justification of our value. That's it. I can't make it simpler than that. For some reason you think it must be further complicated. In your eyes you can't see why I would see value in things without God. And I think that is incredibly sad. I think you should drop your beliefs and learn to see and cherish the value in things without it. Learn to see deeper meaning in the material. Because if your belief in God is the only reason anything holds value or meaning... then that isn't real, and you cannot be truly happy. From my perspective, anyway. I think I recall telling you this a month or two ago, MK. You have to find meaning within yourself and the nature around you without God, or you will be stuck in this rut of yours forever, never feeling true bliss. I know you've had issues with this from your past posts. I'm not asking you to abandon your faith, but rather put it in the backseat for a while. Once you feel comfortable looking at things from this atheist's perspective, like I've been outlining to you, then return to it. I think you will be more at peace.

But I'm just some idiot on a forum. Who knows if what I'm saying holds any merit.

What you said to me just further emphasizes life and value are interlinked, that by viewing we have life, we have value.  But you are doing this from the framework that life has value.

I'm not asking you to justify belief in value, I am asking to show how it works in Atheistic framework, to justify it from this framework. Yes we obviously feel compelled to value our living essence.

What is important in what I stated in the OP is human value.  Animals are alive, but we don't value them to the degree of humans.

You can't just say well we feel value therefore it's real. Yes if we see value it's real. And we definitely do see it. The question is, what narrative does go with. The Atheistic framework or Theistic framework.

I don't see it working with Atheistic framework because it would be in many ways arbitrary and chaotic although given structure in some degree if it came to be as opposed to always existed.

To me I believe value is true, it's true to the extent it's accurately given to us.   But what accuracy can we have through blind forces of evolution?

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There is no point in these discussions anymore. I promised I would stop but didn't!

[The Grand Nudger]

Predictable.  You ask a question, insist that getting a -single- answer will destroy your faith..get many answers, including the -same- answer you accept in your religious framework...and your faith being completely unaffected, you quit.

Until next time, ofc, when you lie to yourself, again..and pretend in front of us, again.

[Mystic]

We have gotten back and forth. You are right in that there was no point. I've heard the same things before, and we have discussed this endlessly here. I don't know why opened this topic except like a bad addict, can't stop.

[Brian37]

My point is that it's self-evident. We hold value because we exist, and are alive, and feel anger and happiness and pain and sorrow and displacement and family and love and hate, and we are born and we die and all there is is what's in the middle. Our lives are spent impacting other lives. We are complex beings who crave meaning and belonging. Our existence is justification of our value. That's it. I can't make it simpler than that. For some reason you think it must be further complicated. In your eyes you can't see why I would see value in things without God. And I think that is incredibly sad. I think you should drop your beliefs and learn to see and cherish the value in things without it. Learn to see deeper meaning in the material. Because if your belief in God is the only reason anything holds value or meaning... then that isn't real, and you cannot be truly happy. From my perspective, anyway. I think I recall telling you this a month or two ago, MK. You have to find meaning within yourself and the nature around you without God, or you will be stuck in this rut of yours forever, never feeling true bliss. I know you've had issues with this from your past posts. I'm not asking you to abandon your faith, but rather put it in the backseat for a while. Once you feel comfortable looking at things from this atheist's perspective, like I've been outlining to you, then return to it. I think you will be more at peace.

But I'm just some idiot on a forum. Who knows if what I'm saying holds any merit.

What you said to me just further emphasizes life and value are interlinked, that by viewing we have life, we have value.  But you are doing this from the framework that life has value.

I'm not asking you to justify belief in value, I am asking to show how it works in Atheistic framework, to justify it from this framework. Yes we obviously feel compelled to value our living essence.

What is important in what I stated in the OP is human value.  Animals are alive, but we don't value them to the degree of humans.

You can't just say well we feel value therefore it's real. Yes if we see value it's real. And we definitely do see it. The question is, what narrative does go with. The Atheistic framework or Theistic framework.

I don't see it working with Atheistic framework because it would be in many ways arbitrary and chaotic although given structure in some degree if it came to be as opposed to always existed.

To me I believe value is true, it's true to the extent it's accurately given to us.   But what accuracy can we have through blind forces of evolution?

You keep using the word "value" but the stupid thing you keep doing, is assuming because we use it too, we are somehow secretly using it in the same context you are.

NO we are not.

OF COURSE humans value things, if we didn't we would not protect our kids, we would not seek shelter and food. 

You look at the word "value" in a antiquated magical romantic context. 

We look at value in terms of EVOLUTION. 

Humans evolved to socialize, that socializing fosters cooperation, that cooperation evolved into empathy, so threat to the local tribe was deterred. 

I can value the FINITE life I have AND accept there is no after life, just like I was not around 4 billion years ago. 

But in the context of a 13.8 billion year old universe, no, it does not give one shit if humans exist, and after our planet and sun die in the future there will be no record of any life on our planet, much less our species. In that context, no humans have no value.

I only have value now, while I am alive, and that to me is far more important to worry about NOW, than to pin my hopes on a falshood based on the mythology of antiquity.

[Aegon]

My point is that it's self-evident. We hold value because we exist, and are alive, and feel anger and happiness and pain and sorrow and displacement and family and love and hate, and we are born and we die and all there is is what's in the middle. Our lives are spent impacting other lives. We are complex beings who crave meaning and belonging. Our existence is justification of our value. That's it. I can't make it simpler than that. For some reason you think it must be further complicated. In your eyes you can't see why I would see value in things without God. And I think that is incredibly sad. I think you should drop your beliefs and learn to see and cherish the value in things without it. Learn to see deeper meaning in the material. Because if your belief in God is the only reason anything holds value or meaning... then that isn't real, and you cannot be truly happy. From my perspective, anyway. I think I recall telling you this a month or two ago, MK. You have to find meaning within yourself and the nature around you without God, or you will be stuck in this rut of yours forever, never feeling true bliss. I know you've had issues with this from your past posts. I'm not asking you to abandon your faith, but rather put it in the backseat for a while. Once you feel comfortable looking at things from this atheist's perspective, like I've been outlining to you, then return to it. I think you will be more at peace.

But I'm just some idiot on a forum. Who knows if what I'm saying holds any merit.

What you said to me just further emphasizes life and value are interlinked, that by viewing we have life, we have value.  But you are doing this from the framework that life has value.

I'm not asking you to justify belief in value, I am asking to show how it works in Atheistic framework, to justify it from this framework. Yes we obviously feel compelled to value our living essence.

What is important in what I stated in the OP is human value.  Animals are alive, but we don't value them to the degree of humans.

You can't just say well we feel value therefore it's real. Yes if we see value it's real. And we definitely do see it. The question is, what narrative does go with. The Atheistic framework or Theistic framework.

I don't see it working with Atheistic framework because it would be in many ways arbitrary and chaotic although given structure in some degree if it came to be as opposed to always existed.

To me I believe value is true, it's true to the extent it's accurately given to us.   But what accuracy can we have through blind forces of evolution?

"You can't just say well we feel value therefore it's real" Watch me!

Like I said, MK, life is in many ways arbitrary and, in some ways, a little chaotic. It's one of the many reasons people cling to religion, as is evident by your position. They need to make sense of all the nonsense, and they need some sort of structure and security. "We suffer from the delusion that the entire universe is held in order by the categories of human thought, fearing that if we do not hold to them with the utmost tenacity, everything will vanish into chaos." But the world is not structured in the way you want it to be, and there is no security in the end, considering we all eventually cease to exist. Some find this depressing and disappointing. I find it empowering. The Zen koan in my signature deals with this problem. Perhaps you're better off consulting people who hold the same viewpoint as me, but are much more intelligent and well-spoken. Great speakers and thinkers from ancient China to the 20th century. Do some digging yourself. Or you've wasted my time and you're not at all interested. Then keep doing you. It really doesn't matter.