Atheism

xris-

The reason why the amount of atheist criminals is a minority is because atheists are a minority, not because atheists are nicer.

avatar-

Well, just now xris mentioned bleeding rocks and crying statues, which is obviously catholic. Earlier, he mentioned the paradox of the trinity, which is also confined to the catholics. And, from experience, I know catholicism-related paradoxes are cited quite often in atheist vs. theist arguments.

Anyway, that's all off-topic, because, like I said, this thread was meant to be about whether one should be atheist or not, not about whether atheism is right or not.

However, right now, it seems to me that the atheists are still using their robotic instincts as goals- the goal to survive, the goal to discover, the goal to be happy, the goal to make others happy. These are all just instincts, so IMO there's still no meaning.

Neither extreme-

By robot vs. free, do you mean no-free-will vs. free will? If so, I'd like to see a paradox within the two robotic possibilities.

Well, whenever a tangent comes up, I like to explore it, but only for one or two posts. So, you're fine. Anyway, I don't really consider those disproofs or paradoxes. They're just uncomfortable.

To call our emotions, etc... instincts is not the same as denying free will.

Anyway, I was just trying to show the nihilism that still results when an atheist states that the only meaning in their life is their emotions.

God is probably the single most commonly used circular argument in the history of mankind.

True enough that.

For the theists, why do you want God or everlasting life, or whatever other spiritual thing, to be the ultimate meaning of your life anyway? Sometimes I think that theists worry so much about the meaning of life that they forget to just live it, and thus never hope to ever grasp any meaning to it anyway.

For the theists, why do you want God or everlasting life, or whatever other spiritual thing, to be the ultimate meaning of your life anyway?

Great question. Simple answer though !

A population of green bugs, living in green grass will go toward extinction if persistent drought turns the grass yellow, because the bugs are no longer camouflaged from predators. If they get lucky (and 99% of all species didn't get lucky and are now extinct) there will be some baby bugs born with the beneficial mutation that turns them yellow, thus camouflaging them in yellow grass, effectively POSTPONING DEATH and extinction. Basic stuff, really.

A more complicated tool employed by evolution to POSTPONE DEATH is what humans call fear.
Fearless antelopes are dead antelopes. "Look at the cute little lion, aww, so cute". That's a dead antelope, an antelope that doesn't get to pass its fearlessness onward. Fear is built in by evolution in every organism in the food chain. Fearless antelopes are (have been) weeded out by natural selection. Obviously fear fear also governs human beings. When you see a bear charging, you don't say "Peace and long life" and do the Vulcan salute. You instinctively run from or shoot it. There is no "thinking" going on, you act like a machine that's programmed to stay alive, just as you would step away when you look up and see bricks falling. You just GTFO without thought, effectively POSTPONING your DEATH. Just like antelopes and lions. Extremely useful stuff, this fear thing, no wonder natural selection eliminates fearless organisms.

To the subject at hand, Solace's question, "why do you want God or everlasting life", well, the answer is simple, yet quite hard to swallow, as it devalues religions.

Think about it. How does evolution work ? Whichever organism is better suited to POSTPONE DEATH gets to pass onward its death-postponing properties more often (simply because it has more time to do so, by not being dead). Reaching the ability to live forever, that is, evolving to a form that can FOREVER POSTPONE DEATH is the ultimate goal of any biological entity undergoing an evolutionary process.

But this is a slow process. Humans are complicated machines, cells don't renew themselves properly, with time we grow old and die, just like iron, with time, rusts away. While evolution still goes on, giving some people resistance to the plague, to heart disease or unbreakable bones (see yalemedicine.yale.edu) we don't have patience to reach immortality naturally, by evolving. So we study things like medicine, biology, biochemistry, genetics and all that stuff, greatly increasing average life expectancy from 25 years to 65 years. 65 years is far from immortality though !

We die, and have been conditioned to be afraid of dying because it's useful to the evolutionary process to be afraid of dying. But we don't like fear so ... why not live forever! Our bodies die, our brains die, but our minds(!) will live(?) forever in the spiritual world(?!). Extremely comforting solution, as it allows one to accept death while guaranteeing everlasting life. It doesn't make sense but it doesn't need to.

Religion cuts the corner, reaching the pinnacle of evolution that is a perfectly self renewing and thus everlasting organism, by replacing the concept of life as we know it with afterlife, living while being dead. Funny stuff, isn't it ?

Thanks for reading.

with that eastern crap about 'living contendly and not questioning' we would still be in a cave banging rocks together and grunting.

How does evolution work ? Whichever organism is better suited to POSTPONE DEATH gets to pass onward its death-postponing properties more often (simply because it has more time to do so, by not being dead). Reaching the ability to live forever, that is, evolving to a form that can FOREVER POSTPONE DEATH is the ultimate goal of any biological entity undergoing an evolutionary process.