Re: Atheists - what drives you?
Monolith wrote:Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
To do well and be happy. To ensure that in the process, I do not harm other people's attempts to do well and be happy.
Why? For what purpose? Why is it important to you not to harm other people? Because that might impact your own ability to achieve happiness, or something more?
Does doing well and being happy have to be a purpose? All animals strive to do the same. It is the natural order of things. An animal that is hungry isn't happy. So what does it do? It kills to eat. That is how things are.
A person that thinks about their existence eventually comes to a point they might not be able to reconcile or accept. They then seek a solution that would make them feel happier and better. This may mean to ignore it, believe in God, what have you.
Yes, even a belief in God, is driven by the same purpose.
And yes, it is important I do not harm other people and their chances to do well and be happy. For one, yes, it might impact on my own ability. If they see me as a threat to their happiness and well-being, they will attempt to remove me from the equation or remove themselves from the equation.
In the former, I get hurt and my chances of being happy and well are impacted. In the latter, should I need their help, they won't be around (they'd be somewhere else, helping other people, who might impact on my chances to be happy and well).
Secondly, it is because I wouldn't want to be unhappy, so why should they be?
Quote:But is there any alternative "reason" for life than that supplied by god? Is there any reason to believe that life has a point?
Is there any reason to believe that life has a point if it really was created by a god?
Let's say a god created us. So what? What does that prove? It only proves that he created us. But for what reason? It could have been because he was bored. It could have been by accident. Just because a god says he created us for a reason, doesn't mean he ain't lying out of his backside.
If the existence of a god does not necessarily mean life has a point, why should the non-existence of one be any different?
I do not know the reason for life. I do not know the reason why trees grow the way they do, either. Yet neither bothers me. Perhaps, eventually, I'll find out. But I don't know what it is now.
Just because you don't know what it could be if there was no god, just because you can't think up of one, does not mean that there isn't one. And what if you don't know the reason to life? Well, then you can make the reason for your life be to find out what the reason to life is.
Quote:Then what drives you to continue living knowing that if the earth were destroyed tomorrow, the universe wouldn't even notice? Is it simply that it's easier to live than to die?
It is because it is natural to want to live.
Even if there was a god, and our earth was destroyed tomorrow, the universe wouldn't notice. The existence of god does not change anything.
Quote:Are you just as happy with your family as when you're thinking about the futility of life?
You don't understand me. I never said I thought about the futility of life. When did I ever say that? We all die in the end, even if there was a god. Death does not make a life futile. The non-existence of an afterlife does not make life futile.
It is only futile, if you refuse to think of it as anything but futile.
You are confusing atheists with nihilists. They are not the same thing. This could be the reason why I find your questions absolutely ridiculous and irrelevant.
Nihilists would probably agree with you and state life is futile, that there is no god, that there is no real truth, there is no real meaning or reason or higher power or morality.
Atheists would not necessarily state that, unless they happened to be nihilists.
Yes. Why shouldn't I? Why should the existence or non-existence of god make life any less precious? Just because some god created it? What's so special about the god that makes life so much more precious than if a god didn't create it?
Surely, if a god didn't create life, then that means we're very accidents. Very rare. What's rare is precious.
Quote:Nope, just trying to figure things out.
Well, you won't do it holding to the assumption that god gives meaning to life.