cereal_killerxx
Junior Member
They most certainly do. People are flawed and will make wrong choices no matter they believe in or don't believe in.
As far as the notorious terrorists go, they do not believe in the same God that I believe in.
Nihilism is the athiest God.
- Thread starter Trumpets
- Start date
- Status
They most certainly do. People are flawed and will make wrong choices no matter they believe in or don't believe in.
As far as the notorious terrorists go, they do not believe in the same God that I believe in.
Airola
Member
Worth is a subjective concept. It only exists because of us "meaningless piles of atoms".
mentallyinept
Banned
From my perspective, this is a really odd question to ask. God in this case, is removed wholly from the entire question via Occams Razor. It is an unnecessary addition to the question pertaining to the significance of the meaning I derive from love, acceptance, etc.
They probably aren't that far apart.
Atheists find joy in love, acceptance, etc.
Theists find joy in love, acceptance, etc. through the grace of god or a divine guiding hand or Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
The lack of future significance does not rob a bit of joy from my day to day life.
This I can agree with.
Precicely. You ask a fluffy question, you get a fluffy answer. A truly materialistic-minded person would not be at all concerned with worth or meaning because they are so transparently mental constructs that have no bearing in the physical world. It's not like you can measure the volumetric meaning of a thing.
And yet, meaning still impacts how a human being views things. That is undeniable since human beings are discriminatory in their preferences and tastes no matter how far they try to push toward Going the Full Vulcan.
You never go the full Vulcan.
I believe that all of this existing without some sort of divine presence is what makes it so special and meaningful. The fact that the probability of all this existing being so small, makes it even more special to me.
We can debate religious texts for years but ultimately those are rules and rituals created by men 2 millennia ago.
My goal is to be the best human being I can be and live my life to it's fullest. No matter the religion, the threat of eternal damnation seems to do the opposite and bring the worst out in people.
MajinSweet4
Member
And why does any of that matter? Those things have value now how and why is it relevant that someday those things will be gone? It would be like saying why bother eating because eventually the food will rot. Why make that person happy because someday they will die. We can be happy now and value that, a future of non-existence doesn't change that.
Aaronrules380
Member
Ok, but why does this matter? Why is the end result the only important thing?
And who gives a crap? The fact is at the present moment, we are alive, and we are able to feel, and there are things we can do to make other people's life better. All that matters is the present.
mentallyinept
Banned
As an atheist, I fail to see how this endgame, while completely true, matters at all to the previous 100 billion years of existence. Those things that mattered at the time had significance at the time, just because they won't at some point in the future doesn't detract from that moment when it did.
Edit:
What this guy said.
Aaronrules380
Member
Exactly, something doesn't need to be eternal to have meaning
HazySaiyan
Banned
There is no middle ground here though, you either believe in a god or you don't. Atheism is about belief, agnosticism is about knowledge; they're not the same.Well I don't like being grouped in with people who say 'there is absouluty no gods anywhere' any more than the people who believe. Haha
Put me in the middle away from both crazy sides.
Life's about the journey, not the destination.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
At first I thought you were describing what it feels like to have your heart broken. It ain't far off.
Not so inept, eh?
The logical way out is to not be atheist, but agnostic. Don't confuse agnosticism with "believing in a higher power, just not sure what it is" -- agnosticism is simply saying "i don't know, i can't know, i won't assume i know". If you consider yourself agnostic, you leave your mind open to any possibilities- maybe we're in a simulation, or maybe there is some sort of higher being, or maybe we're in someone's dream, etc. That helps with existential crises such as "no meaning to life".
Atheism and theism both share something- faith. Atheism has faith that no 'higher power' exists, but on what grounds?
As for morality- we live in societies where the rules of what's moral and immoral are passed down to us. Is killing a cow and turning it into a food moral? What about a dog? Why/why not. etc. Some societies have differing morals.
Atheism and theism both share something- faith. Atheism has faith that no 'higher power' exists, but on what grounds?
As for morality- we live in societies where the rules of what's moral and immoral are passed down to us. Is killing a cow and turning it into a food moral? What about a dog? Why/why not. etc. Some societies have differing morals.
TheOctodad
Member
Sorry if it seemed odd, but you answered it perfectly. I wanted to hear how someone who is an agnostic/atheist perceived Christianity to (if it were true) create more "meaning" to life. Because I'm not convinced that the point of God/Faith is actually to create "meaning" at all.
That said, my conception of God is not one that grants meaning to love, acceptance, etc. But is actually the very nature of love, acceptance, etc. itself, then this goes back to my original post. Regardless of if you subscribe to belief in God or not, it doesn't matter, all of the universe is experiencing it. There is no other response really necessary other than to be present in your enjoyment of love, acceptance, etc.
Ultimately this is why I find the argument of atheism vs. deism tiring. Because my belief in God allows for them to already be experiencing God, just by another label/name. And I don't think you go to hell or something if you don't believe that. To me, learning about God is simply a way to help me stay more in tune with the gift that this existence is, to appreciate the gift of life, and to do my best to care for this world and others in a selfless way as I grow in awareness of myself.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
Believers think that the meaning in their lives matters for eternity, e.g. reuniting with loved ones for eternity after death. That's where a lot of the breakdown occurs when believers and atheists debate- believers come from a perspective of their lives on Earth as just a small sliver of their existence.
There are times I think we need a GAF script that auto includes a brief explanation in the OP of every atheism thread.
GuessMyUserName
Member
Well I don't like being grouped in with people who say 'there is absouluty no gods anywhere' any more than the people who believe. Haha
Put me in the middle away from both crazy sides.
Do you feel the same about anyone that would say "there is no Santa Claus"? There's nothing crazy about denying something that's completely unfounded.
If you're talking about people that insult others for believing that's a completely different thing, but people don't have to hold onto whatever minuscule chance they might be wrong when they make such basic claims.
I identify as Athiest as well, and i'm having none of those nihilistic thoughts whatsoever. To me, being an Athiest means being able to live my life to the fullest without wondering or fearing the possibility of a reckoning based on nothing. It means I focus on the here and now. It means i don't have to worry if i'm living life 'the right way', or if how my life measures up to that of others. I'm focussed on me and my loved ones, and I make sure we all get to enjoy all of life's bounties.
To me, death is only scary if i end up looking down the tunnel with regrets. Life is a big fat teat and i get up every single day ready to suck it all down, and so far i'm having a fucking blast. I love my life, my social standings, my house, my family AND my job, and you know what ? I'm totally fine completely living the shit out of life and dying an old, tired man.
Getting my rest when rest is due, in he meantime i'm too busy doing life ¯\_(ツ_/¯
To me, death is only scary if i end up looking down the tunnel with regrets. Life is a big fat teat and i get up every single day ready to suck it all down, and so far i'm having a fucking blast. I love my life, my social standings, my house, my family AND my job, and you know what ? I'm totally fine completely living the shit out of life and dying an old, tired man.
Getting my rest when rest is due, in he meantime i'm too busy doing life ¯\_(ツ
_/¯HazySaiyan
Banned
I don't know why but it always frustrates me when someone says they're agnostic without elaborating. OK but what do you actually believe? That answers nothing.
cereal_killerxx
Junior Member
Because He needed us to realize that we needed a savior. That the law would be impossible to keep without His help. He wasn't tricking anyone. Basically, He needed us to realize that we need Him. In the end, the bible is about a relationship with God. That's the whole point of all of this. God wants to be close to us. He made a way to do that with Jesus Christ. But God is also a God of love. And you can't have love without free will because you can't force someone to love you. So we have a choice. To choose God or to choose the world. In the end, the Bible is not a rulebook. It's a book on a relationship with Him.
Aaronrules380
Member
Ok, but why does it matter how long the meaning exists for? Going back to a few posts ago, is making someone sad smile meaningless if they'll go back to being sad in a few hours? A few hours is an incredibly short time compared to the entire human lifespan after all. But meaning can exist on any timescale, and the fact that the situation that gave meaning no longer applies does not detract from the meaning it had in any way
Funyarinpa
Member
"why wake up if you will fall asleep anyway"
Honestly, I appreciate that it helps you to perfect yourself. I didn't find the same enlightenment waiting for me there, but sought and found it elsewhere and it seems like we've mostly arrived at the same place, even if our language is different.
However, I never get tired of discussing the differences between secular philosophy and religious philosophy. I'm seeking understanding and meaning in everyone and everything. All of this is endlessly fascinating for me.
Oh my stars, yes. That would be so handy.
mentallyinept
Banned
Well the only thing I can say is that I typically don't get into arguments with Deists/Pantheists (which is what your beliefs seem to align with). It's somewhat pointless (even though the God of the Gaps analogy is really annoying to me). From the perspective of humans, a pantheistic universe and an atheistic universe would be indistinguishable.
SturokBGD
Member
How many people do you know who think there is a Santa Claus?
TheOctodad
Member
But you're redefining "change" then. He gave us rules to make us realize we needed a savior and then told us we didn't need those rules because of Jesus. That's changing morality. I'm familiar with this line of reasoning (I grew up in it), but it doesn't hold water when it comes to saying, "The Bible never changes." You said you got your morality from the Bible which never changes, I disagree. The Bible did change, you claimed as much.
I think what you mean (and I would affirm) as a fellow Christian. Is that you follow Jesus, who never changes.
The Bible is a book that points you to Jesus. As a Christian you don't worship the Bible, you worship Jesus. Therefore your morality should be filtered through being Jesus like first and foremost - not the Bible. This typically leads to what scholars call a "gospel centric" or "Chrstio-centric" lens.
Just clearing that up a little bit.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
I was referring more to eternity as the crux of the belief system. Our lives as a whole, to a believer, is meaningful for eternity.
You're referring to a particular event, which to a believer will be one of many memories (and another example of being a good person worthy of eternity in heaven), that will never be forgotten in heaven. A lot of the draw to the belief system is that the event will be meaningful not just as a fleeting moment, but for eternity. The god saw it happen.
TheOctodad
Member
I'm closer to a panENtheist. I don't believe God is a tree, but I believe God is in the process of holding the tree together, but God is also beyond that. To quote the Bible, "he is over all, through all, and in all." and "in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
Yeah, I'm pretty much exactly where you're at here. Not much else to contribute aside for an appreciation at your succinct explanations. I do think after a certain level these kind of debates become games of semantics (oh but that can't be God because such and such), but I think ultimately we're all experiencing the same things but attaching different monikers to them.
Edit:
Just saw your post about being a panentheist. Finally there's another on this board lol
That's such a useless way to think about belief and knowledge. It's useless to the point where you can't point out nonsense as nonsense. Furthermore I don't see how that helps in figuring out existential crisis.
As for on what grounds, lack of evidence. Really, in practical terms, that is all you need. Because at the end of the day there is no way to know things in the way knowledge is defined in philosophy. Heck, the whole question of what "knowledge" is is an open question. There is a reason in science we go with empiricism, induction, and falsification. And it is the most practical way of assessing the world around us, without leaving us paralyzed with uncertainty about everything.
GuessMyUserName
Member
... Millions?
Everyone knows children aren't people. ;-)
cereal_killerxx
Junior Member
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8
Thanks for the correction. And I would agree. But we learn about who Jesus was and how to be like Him through the Bible, God's word.
Human cooperation, altruism, empathy, personal motivation, and what could be defined as ethical standards in a group far precedes religion. After all religious morality is merely a collection of mores and norms influenced by the period it was conceived and its authors or authorities. Unless you believe some sort of otherworldly being drafted them. Even then, it ignores the existence of cooperative communities that existed before or outside that particular religious construct.
We are evolutionarily hardwired as a species thanks to natural selection to socialize, cooperate, empathize and such.
Like all products of evolution, this has levels of variance.
Those that say a person is absent morality without religion, ignores human history. For multiple reasons.
mentallyinept
Banned
Panentheism
I learned a new SAT word! Nice.
That said, it doesn't change my last statement. In this case, it would still be indistinguishable from non-existence, like pantheism.
What about people who say that chemtrails aren't real? You can systematically dismantle any particular chemtrail theory, but someone can and will just make up a new one. You can say "I don't believe the evidence points to any chemtrails being a real thing" but that qualifying language is literally already how you think of everything, it's superfluous.
I can say "from the evidence provided to me, and with the collective information and knowledge at hand, I believe that dinosaurs did exist and their bones were not planted there by a devil or devil like creature. In fact, I would assert strongly that this did not happen and think that you should also understand this".
Or I can say "the devil didn't plant dinosaur bones, dinosaurs are a real thing".
Considering that I can qualify any assertion I make with the doubt born of my human fallibility, while still putting forward my opinion, maybe it's just easier to assume that's the case going forward.
Someone saying God doesn't exist" is basically applying that same shorthand.
Edit: I'll add that probably the only thing you can truly know to be truth is that you exist, and maybe not even that. Everything else is varying degrees of certainty, most things being near zero, some things being closer to 100.
More Fun To Compute
Member
Finding meaning and patterns is something you naturally do as a human. But there is no permanence or objective reality attached to those interpretations of the world. This is not fluffy. It's a quite brutal thing to admit, that everything you know and experience is all transitory like a bolt of lightning. In essence it's an anti materialistic position saying that the substance of the material world as we see it from day to day is an illusion. Physics itself left materialism in the dust a long time ago.
Sure, everything I do is pointless. I don't believe life has any predetermined meaning, and I don't think there's a grand plan or purpose to the universe. I could be wrong, but I don't think we have any way of knowing. Even the goals I set and the accomplishments I make are ultimately pointless in a broader sense. That's fine with me! They don't need to have a grand meaning; they already have meaning to me, and that's all I care about.
I'm actually really glad that there's no predetermined meaning to everything, since that means I'm able to be whatever I want to be. Whatever I see as having meaning just has it, because I'm the only one who can determine what these things mean to me. It's great! Trying so hard to find meaning in everything is futile; it's a lot easier when you sit back and realize that even if there is meaning, we can't grasp it, so it's nothing we need to worry about. Just relax and try and be the best person you can be. If you want to follow a religion to do that, that's fine. I don't think you need to though. That's just how some people make sense of the world.
Honestly, I really feel like the whole idea of absurdism really resonates with me. Even if everything's ultimately meaningless, we can still make the most of it and live lives that have our own meanings.
I'm actually really glad that there's no predetermined meaning to everything, since that means I'm able to be whatever I want to be. Whatever I see as having meaning just has it, because I'm the only one who can determine what these things mean to me. It's great! Trying so hard to find meaning in everything is futile; it's a lot easier when you sit back and realize that even if there is meaning, we can't grasp it, so it's nothing we need to worry about. Just relax and try and be the best person you can be. If you want to follow a religion to do that, that's fine. I don't think you need to though. That's just how some people make sense of the world.
Honestly, I really feel like the whole idea of absurdism really resonates with me. Even if everything's ultimately meaningless, we can still make the most of it and live lives that have our own meanings.
TheOctodad
Member
Yes, but at this point, you have to admit that there's so many variations that you understanding of "God's word" might change.
Do you know Greek? Because if not you are relying on other's translations of the language that have morphed with cultural assumptions and agendas.
What about the letters Paul wrote that were lost? If we find those, are they God's word? Or were they lost for a reason?
What about the fact that James almost wasn't in the Bible during the canonization process?
See what I mean? The Bible is an awesome book that helps us understand Jesus, yes. But the early Christians didn't even have the Bible, most of them learned about Jesus through word of mouth. Most Christians until a few hundred years ago didn't even have a personal Bible or know how to read, but they still had what you call a relationship with Jesus.
My point in all of this is I think we would be healthier as Christians in America if we stopped with phrases like, "The Bible is clear," "I stand on the truth of the Bible," etc. It's really elevating specific interpretations above Jesus. Unfortunately Jesus/The Bible have become so enmeshed in American culture that to question an interpretation is quickly seen as questioning God himself. This is unhealthy and has led to a lot of the venom in today's Christian culture.
Be like Jesus, learn about Jesus, read the Bible. Filter ANY interpretation through if it is really "Jesusy." If someone tells you that war is justified through "just war theology," no matter how many theological words they drop ask yourself, "Would the Jesus in the gospels do this?" If not, then you need to let that theology die even if there's some obscure argument in another book of the Bible. Jesus' life trumps any other argument - or it's just not CHRISTian - it's Americanized Christianity.
I like the way you put it. That is what I mean when I say that particular way of thinking about knowledge and belief is freaking useless.
Seriously.
Finally someone puts in clever words what I've been trying to say... the problem for me is that I'm pretty close to the nihilistic and bitter atheist stereotype so its hard for me to show to other people that atheism by itself doesn't mean that.
cereal_killerxx
Junior Member
This is true. In the end, it's all about Jesus.
RaySpencer
Member
There is a difference between something that is existing on our planet and something that could exist beyond our universe though.
Plus Santa Claus could exist on some other planet in another Galaxy, I don't know! Haha
But yeah, Ive just always tried to distance myself from both ends of the spectrum, the people who say 'there is a God and you will go to hell for not believing' and the people who say 'there's is no God, you people are idiots!'
Both are bad choices and I don't think either people know the answer.
So I guess my point is, i feel that people who are athiest need to start saying what type of athiest they are, becuase the name has gotten a bad rap and lumps 2 very different opinions together.
What if an Atheist says "there is no god" - is that a problem? They didn't add the idiot part. What if they say "there is no Thor"? Is there anything that you think anyone is right to say "there is no X" about?
SaganIsGOAT
Junior Member
- Status