Atheists... Your life is pointless

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And what makes something beneficial

You mean what makes a certain response to a certain stimulus more beneficial than another? Basically cause and effect. Some responses promote survival and reproduction whilst others restrict them. Individuals who consistently respond to the world in a manner inappropriate for survival and reproduction simply die out, leaving those who do to flourish.

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Suppose it happened a different way and brain reacts that it is beneficial to regularly burn my fingers, toes, knees, and elbows. Surely these would not be beneficial.

Correct, which is why it hasn't happened that way.

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but what about immaterial things like love. The atheist values it, but why?

You seem to be intimating that love cannot be explained in an atheistic world view. The survival of humans depends largely on our ability to communicate and cooperate. An evolutionary atheist might explain love as really just a specialised form of mutual bonding for the purposes of reproduction.

Incidentally, I'm not an atheist although I realise my answers could come across like that.

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But my big question is this: What makes survival and reproduction have real value? They seem to be the greatest values if there is no God, that is to live and prosper, but what makes them valuable? Certainly not God. If man did it, then it has no real value, because what authority does man have to say what is or isn't of value in is lack of understanding what non-existence is like. And if nature then for no reason is it valuable because nature cannot know anything as rational mind can know, and therefore can't know what happens if something does not have life and cannot know anything about values at all. It would not be of real value... just chance.

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fresco wrote:

pswfps

Welcome to A2K,

Your take on sentience and communication will be welcomed by those of us here who tend towards non-dualism.

Thanks fresco. Is that "good?" :wink:

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Quote:

What makes survival and reproduction have real value?

I suppose it is made valuable by our natural drive to survive. Without a desire to live, living is worthless.

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pswfps,

I note you say you are "not an atheist" yet you are obviously prepared to try to examine "sentience/consciousness" from an "objective" standpoint.
Am I correct in thinking that you tend towards "spirituality" as opposed to "religion" and that any "deity" you might be proposing is not an anthropomorphic father figure ?

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pswfps wrote:

Quote:
What makes survival and reproduction have real value?

I suppose it is made valuable by our natural drive to survive. Without a desire to live, living is worthless.

Right. So then by the chance as nature fell together survival is valuable. So if nature is the cause of this value and desire in us then for no reason is it truly valuable because nature cannot know anything as rational mind can know, and therefore can't know what happens if something does not have life and cannot know anything about values at all. It would not be of real value... just chance. So now we're down to figuring the issue: with no God, the greatest true value is survival, which is a desire determined by the chance the nature is the way it is, which means that it is not truly valuable; therefore, life in the atheistic worldveiw has no real value, that is, it's meaningless.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Those are not "wild" examples; they are true-to-life examples.

What relevance do they have to the subject at hand?

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Your inability to figure that out is "your" problem.

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Run 4 fun wrote:

pswfps wrote:
Quote:
What makes survival and reproduction have real value?

I suppose it is made valuable by our natural drive to survive. Without a desire to live, living is worthless.

Right. So then by the chance as nature fell together survival is valuable. So if nature is the cause of this value and desire in us then for no reason is it truly valuable because nature cannot know anything as rational mind can know, and therefore can't know what happens if something does not have life and cannot know anything about values at all. It would not be of real value... just chance. So now we're down to figuring the issue: with no God, the greatest true value is survival, which is a desire determined by the chance the nature is the way it is, which means that it is not truly valuable; therefore, life in the atheistic worldveiw has no real value, that is, it's meaningless.

You want to see meaningless. Go into a church, or a mosque or a synagogue and watch all the people bobbing their heads like a group of demented parrots. Now THAT, is sad and meaningless.

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Run 4 fun wrote:

Right. So then by the chance as nature fell together survival is valuable. So if nature is the cause of this value and desire in us then for no reason is it truly valuable because nature cannot know anything as rational mind can know, and therefore can't know what happens if something does not have life and cannot know anything about values at all. It would not be of real value... just chance. So now we're down to figuring the issue: with no God, the greatest true value is survival, which is a desire determined by the chance the nature is the way it is, which means that it is not truly valuable; therefore, life in the atheistic worldveiw has no real value, that is, it's meaningless.

What's your definition of 'value' within that context?

I think you're setting up a condition in your argument in which 'value' equates to the conclusion you are seeking.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

real life wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
Those are not "wild" examples; they are true-to-life examples.

What relevance do they have to the subject at hand?

Your inability to figure that out is "your" problem.

You want your POV to be understood and adopted by those who currently do not share it. It would seem that it would be your desire therefore to make your point and it's relevance clear.

This you have not done and apparently have no interest in doing. The loss is to your POV.

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real, The title of this thread is a dead giveaway. If you can't understand it, it's because you have a problem with reality vs what the title of this thread claims.

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I might (somewhat flippantly but not without a meritable point) speculate that real life would answer by saying "I would never give away the dead".

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To answer your question, something of value is something that actually has real worth, not just an illusion of worth arisen from mindless process. What definition of value can be given to give survival or anything else the atheist values real worth in relation to the arguments that have been made in the past few pages? You ask a good question though, that many tend to overlook. Very Happy

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Run 4 fun wrote:

To answer your question, something of value is something that actually has real worth, not just an illusion of worth arisen from mindless process. What definition of value can be given to give survival or anything else the atheist values real worth in relation to the arguments that have been made in the past few pages? You ask a good question though, that many tend to overlook.

How does one determine the what is real and what is illusion?

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By illusion, I'm referring back to previous arguments which showed that if nature was what made survival valuable (or anything for that matter), then it cannot be truly valuable. Check back to those to see what I mean by illusion of value in the context of this discussion. You may be delving into another topic there.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

real, The title of this thread is a dead giveaway. If you can't understand it, it's because you have a problem with reality vs what the title of this thread claims.

Your post:

cicerone imposter wrote:

Would that include Bush's preemptive attack on a soverign country that didn't pose any danger to Americans, and ended up killing some 100,000 innocent Iraqis?

had nothing to do with the title to the thread, did it?

You threw in this totally off the wall comment, without context, when nobody on the thread was discussing anything remotely related to it.

I'm not the one who has trouble following a conversation.

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real, I knew you wouldn't understand the reality related to this thread.

HINT: GWBush is religious.

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Yeah, Bush is religious. So?

Has he ever said an atheist's life is pointless?

Did he use that as a rationale for the war against terrorists (radical Muslim extremists and those who finance and shelter them) in response to 9-11?

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Again, it's something you'll never understand. It's too spatial for you.

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Atheists... Your life is pointless

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