Atheists... Your life is pointless

You draw it where your viscera tells you to I should imagine.

I want a prescription not a description!

Okay. Putting more than a dollar in the collection plate.

Seems like a poor return on investment.

Hello Creasy,

First of I would like to separate morality and religion, morals do not depend on the existence of a God, and do not end if you don't believe in one. It is a far stretch to credit a God with imposing morality when moral views vary so drastically from religion to religion and from age to age.

Now to directly refer to your question : "I've always wondered why people that are so adamant about the non-existence of God, debate morals and what is right and wrong."

Well that is very simple, since atheists do not follow in the belief of any deity, they are without any religious books that answer these questions of right and wrong. They are obligated only by their own initiative to find out the answers to these questions, and it is not a healthy practice to discredit that search for self improvement, some people find their answers in a God format, others find it however they like in whichever way they can think of, they are not necessarily the better or worse for it, it is simply the process which they choose, the same as your faith which is an option.

Now to your conclusions based on the initial question. "If there is no God and this world is truly just a cosmic fluke, than your life and everything that happens in it are of no consequence whatsoever. Why not just do whatever you want and not care about others. After all, survival of the fittest is the name of the game right? Love of others is just some accidental emotion that means nothing. So do whatever you want. Your life, your children's life, and your children's children's life will all be over soon and nothing will be remembered."

In your first statement regarding purpose and consequence of life. Well you pretty much answer that in your initial question. Starting from the point where you recognize no deity as responsible for the creation than you begin to search for answers, purpose or consequence. The way you answer these questions will determine your attitude towards the rest of the world. If you believe in mere survival, than you might take as it has commonly been referred to the Darwinian approach to things. It all depends on your own free will.

In these matters it is impracticable to derive absolutes as interpretation is key.

Well stated, and I agree. Humans existed thousands of years before most religions came into being - or gods were created. Most were mythical gods that became a "all powerful, loving, god" who has come down to earth to sacrifice himself to save mankind.

Religions are powerful organizations for humans, and most end up believing what their parents told them about "their" god.

What religions have proven is that mankind lives according to its nature. Even the holiest of men/women do harm to other humans. Morals that are supposed to derive from religion is an oxymoron.

Religious people even try to enforce their beliefs on to others - complete strangers they don't even know, care for, or otherwise have no contact with during their lifetime.

Even women remain "second class humans" in many religions.

Nobody needs a book with hundreds of pages filled with myths, mysteries, rules, dogma, thou shalt not's, and what are sins.

The only important moral is "treat all living things with dignity and respect."

Nothing more is needed, because it's the individual's subjective perception of who is good or bad regardless of which religion they belong to.

I guess that cicerone imposter is unable to understand the objective universal understandings of how somethings are wrong such as rape and racism?

Izzy the classic belief held that we had one integrated brain but research is showing that are brain is more like symphony then a solo instrument. Neuroscientists now believe that we have three separate brains that have evolved over time. The first is a reptilian brain that regulates body automatic body functions, blood pressure, digestion, heart rate. The second the limbic system, this is the emotional brain, responsible for fight or flight, and the root of our emotions. The third and last to evolve was the neocortex or the rational brain. This is the area of the brain responsible for logic.

In age of enlightenment man deluded himself that he was a rational creature, a creature of reason but in fact his emotional mind remains in control much of the time. The emotional mind may have faded into the background but has yet to abdicate power. The Functional Magnetic Resonate Imaging or fMRI allows neuroscientist to look inside the brain as thoughts are being processed. In one experiment political partisans were read statements by one of their political party’s leaders that were inconsistent with their beliefs. In a few second an area of their brain that was responsible for resolving conflicting thoughts would light up on the fMRI. By then the political partisan had found a way to rationalize the conflicting statements or conflicting actions of their political leader.

In other words the rational brain was simply being used to rationalize the emotional brains decision. This same thing happens with members of religious cult that were studied by neuroscientists. Shankar Vedantam calls the emotional brain the “Hidden Brain.”

“Research studies into brain disorders that effect social behavior suggest that our basic notions of right and wrong do not spring from what we learn in text books and Sunday school, or from laws handed down by messiahs and legislatures, but from parts of the brain we barely understand. Joshua Greene, a Harvard neuroscientist and philosopher, told me that much of what we call ethics and morality, in fact might not be handed down to us by the holy books and human laws, but handed up to us by algorithms in the hidden brain, ancient rules developed in the course of evolution. People with normal behavior function do not need to be taught to care about social relationships, and social relationships lie at the heart of all morality.”

From the book “The Hidden Brain” by Shankar Vedantem

Izzy for you have practiced magical thinking almost from birth and it certainly shows. There are many forks in the road of life and only one can be correct when you chose the magical thinking path it is almost impossible to backtrack.

In the end magical thinking will put the world in a grave. In Magical thinking mode you can believe that god spoke to you and told you to invade the Holy Lands and plunder them or he spoke to you and told you to fly planes into the World Trade Center and even now as we correspond god is telling the religious cultists like yourself to kill, kill, kill and if you believe, really believe how can you disobey what god commands?

I covered what you believe to be exaggerations on previous posts.

I've been agreeing with lots of what you have said in this thread, RL, but...




"objective universal UNDERSTANDING"???????

Sounds like an oxymoron.

An "objective universal understanding" of something would have to be a subjective thing? An "understanding" of anything would be subjective...wouldn't it?

There's more to fear from extremists of whatever persuasion. Eugenics.

It not only sounds like an oxymoron, it is! As you stated, everything we humans perceive are subjective when it has to do with religion.

Cicerone I was replying to your post addressed to me on Monday the 18th of February. I believe that one day if man survives the superstition and ignorance, the light of knowledge will replace the darkness of superstition. In the future they will refer to this time period as the dark ages when the darkness of superstition and ignorance ruled mankind. Many think the dark ages are over but we kept the darkest part of the dark ages. Those who would burn people at the stake or burn 3,000 people alive in the World Trade center are still among us.

Yes that was my thought as well when I wrote it but for some reason I ran with it because it is a universally held belief even tough I think you are correct it sounded dam near empirical.

I think that your prediction is correct but the odd thing is that the people who see this in the future may be seen in the same light by those who come after them thousands of years later.
Welcome to evolution baby.

Matt mankind has long believed in “free will” but with every new discovery in neuroscience we find we have far less free will than we believe. The very discovery that are physical brains are hard wired by thought, our brains circuits are shaped by thought and just as a red light is wired to turn red when a switch is thrown our brains are wired for a certain response when a certain stimuli occurs. Some free will still exists but not nearly as much as we imagine.

Zardoz do you ever think at times that you are to smart for your body like some people think they are to sexy for their body?
If you do it's OK because I think you may be correct.
You are very smart.

Is this the study you refer to?

"I have taken an experimental approach to this question. Freely voluntary acts are pre-ceded by a specific electrical change in the brain (the ‘readiness potential’, RP) that begins 550 ms before the act. Human subjects became aware of intention to act 350–400 ms after RP starts, but 200 ms. before the motor act. The volitional process is therefore initiated
unconsciously. But the conscious function could still control the
outcome; it can veto the act. Free will is therefore not excluded. These findings put constraints on views of how free will may operate; it would not initiate a voluntary act but it could control performance of the act. The findings also affect views of guilt and responsibility."--Benjamin Libet
(bolding mine)
http://www.centenary.edu/attachments/philosophy/aizawa/courses/intros2009/libetjcs1999.pdf
I agree it is very interesting, however, the studies implications are often overstated.

Could it be as other scientific understandings "that is that they are all not perfect but trying to get as close to truth as possible?

Izzy I have over 150 hours at a University, I know you are from England, over here that is 5 years full time study not counting the hours of law at a second university. I spent 10 years of my life studying metaphysics different type of mystics and I never found one nugget of truth in any of it. In the end it was all magical thinking. I have a large library it is over 17 feet and my books run the length of the room from ceiling to floor. I don’t buy fiction nor do I read it. I not only read the books but study them and mark the important ideas. I spend a lot time driving and I have done most of the college course on the library has on disc. I have done many colleges courses on tape or disc. Something should have rubbed off in all those years.

I agree greed is one of the main problems facing us today but religion wants to puts all in a grave. Greed runs in cycles throughout history the ungodly greedy want all the wealth and they use their increased wealth to take even more when the ungodly greedy have 99% of the wealth there is a revolution and the ungodly greedy are killed and roasted like the pigs they are in France they fed them to their wives. The process then resets and starts over. Most religions foretell of a world ending apocalypse, something they will bring about in a self-fulfilling prophesy if left to their own devices.

Why do you need to tell everyone how much time you've spent in academia? Surely if you were as wise as you say you are, you wouldn't have to bang on about it all the time.