Atheists - what drives you?

Quote:

Atheists - what drives you?

Ignorance......

neologist wrote:

And the reason is. . . ?

He's already given you a reason.

He said that for God to be absolutely free and all powerful, he could not exist.

That's a reason?

He said that for God to be absolutely free and all powerful, he could not exist.

That's a reason?

snood wrote:

He said that for God to be absolutely free and all powerful, he could not exist.

That's a reason?

Isn't neologist asking for a reason why "for God to be absolutely free and all powerful, he could not exist"?

He was given this reason, "Saying that a necessary being exists with absolute freedom, to whom absolutely everything is possible with regard to his own volition is like saying he doesn't exist. Even his own existence would be a limit unto himself. Even he creating himself would be a limit unto himself."

agrote wrote:

snood wrote:

He said that for God to be absolutely free and all powerful, he could not exist.

That's a reason?

Isn't neologist asking for a reason why "for God to be absolutely free and all powerful, he could not exist"?

He was given this reason, "Saying that a necessary being exists with absolute freedom, to whom absolutely everything is possible with regard to his own volition is like saying he doesn't exist. Even his own existence would be a limit unto himself. Even he creating himself would be a limit unto himself."

Congratulations.
You have posed two contradictory premises and concluded they both must be false.

Does the term 'non sequitur' mean anything to you?

Keep this link for reference:
http://www.dianahsieh.com/misc/fallacies.html

neologist wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:

neologist wrote:

I suppose if you were to supply some examples of the limitations necessitated or placed on an all powerful God having free will, it might help me to 'cobble up' some sort of answer.

Saying that a necessary being exists with absolute freedom, to whom absolutely everything is possible with regard to his own volition is like saying he doesn't exist. Even his own existence would be a limit unto himself. Even he creating himself would be a limit unto himself. For God to be absolutely all powerful and absolutely free with absolute volition, he could not possibly exist.

And the reason is. . . .?

Existence itself would be a limit to the absolute possibility, and absolute freedom, and absolute volition of God .

neologist wrote:

I suppose if you were to supply some examples of the limitations necessitated or placed on an all powerful God having free will, it might help me to 'cobble up' some sort of answer.

Saying that a necessary being exists with absolute freedom, to whom absolutely everything is possible with regard to his own volition is like saying he doesn't exist. Even his own existence would be a limit unto himself. Even he creating himself would be a limit unto himself. For God to be absolutely all powerful and absolutely free with absolute volition, he could not possibly exist.

Well, it's obvious that you completely failed to understand what Infrablue was saying.

provoko wrote:

megamanXplosion wrote:

What am I? I am nothing more than an arrangement of matter, am I not? To say that my existence has a purpose is to say the existence of a rock, a crystal, or water droplet has a purpose for its existence. The intellectual and emotional faculties I possess do not differentiate me from the rocks, for those faculties are also the result of matter. I cannot entertain the notion that I am fundamentally different from the rocks. As such, hypothetically I can only entertain the notions that the existence of everything has a purpose or nothing at all has a purpose. How am I to argue that a piece of dust floating in the empty abyss of space, millions of miles away from anything, has a purpose for its existence? The only tenable notion is that nothing has a purpose for its existence.

The hell, thats not going to help anyone, haha. You're like that guy at a funeral that just brings everyone's mood even lower. Haha.

You're just validating the thread starters feelings of being insignificant and that life has no point. What are you trying to accomplish, you're informing him that theres a right way to feel meaningless? Hahahaha.

First, life has a point/purpose, if it didn't or if you believe it doesn't, you wouldn't be on these forums. You wouldn't even be alive. Emotionally you wouldn't be able to bring your self to go to school, work or anything. You'd just lay down and die or involve your self in anti social behavior like crime. If life is meaningless, your actions are meaningless, therefore the consequences/benefits of your actions are meaningless. I won't even go through the spiritual damage believing in an existence of pointlessness because the physical damage is severe enough to prove my point.

Believing like this is horribly problematic and is destructive to your self and society.

You are confusing the purpose for the existence of a person with what one chooses to do with one's life--in other words, you are uncritically combining will and purpose. I am currently in school to become a computer programmer and I intend to follow through with that goal, and that is what I will, but that is not the purpose for my existence. The reason I exist is not because I have a grand purpose for my existence but because my parents had sex. Unless, of course, one is to argue that the purpose for their existence was partly to bring myself into this world, but that is a silly notion, to say the least. You can trace this mating/replication, cause and effect, pattern all the way back to the first life forms and still not come to a logical conclusion concerning their purpose for existing--whether one uses the clay theory, deep-hot biosphere theory, bubble theory, or the RNA world theory. The only way one can assign a purpose for the existence of the first life forms is if you bring some kind of god or extraterrestrial race into the equation. Since this was a question for Atheists, the God answer will not work and there is zero evidence that extraterrestrials played any part in the development of life on Earth.

You have also uncritically combined the concepts of purpose and value. I can see the value of bringing a smile to a child's face, to create software that improves the productivity of individuals, and so on; however, while they may be valuable they are not parts of the purpose for my existence. Their smile bringing others joy is not a part of the purpose for their existence either. Because one lacks a purpose for existing does not, in any way, mean that they cannot enjoy their existence or help others enjoy their existence.

But you didn't give any reason to why one should do that (haha), thats why I brought up those values in the first place.

Besides, to me will and purpose are the same thing, they aren't separate concepts.

I could say people will themselves into existence, so they are solely responsible for their own purpose.

But see, you did say the opposite, but it just doesn't make any logical sense. Without any purpose whatsoever you would not have a desire for will.

I'm sorry, I should say without believing in purpose you wouldn't have a desire for will. I can't prove purpose exists, but I can look at it logically and explain why people feel depressed and why people create topics like the one here.

Forget purpose and will for a moment. You said previously the universe has no purpose and we're part of the universe, so we don't have purpose. Now, think of an apple seed, it always grows into a tree, it never gets depressed, it never says it can't, it always ends up a tree, same is true for all the animals on this planet. They're functioning on a system that we can detach our selves from. This is true, we can get depressed and stop growing, stop eating, lay down and die. Animals don't do this, maybe higher forms of life like apes (usually when we interfere), but do birds, bees, sharks, plants, and so on do this? No they don't. So if this system exists, what is it? Is it not... purpose or some FORM of purpose? If it was some completely different concept with another name, isn't it functioning like purpose?

Without any purpose whatsoever you would not have a desire for will.

Quote:

Without any purpose whatsoever you would not have a desire for will.

I smell something generally found in cow pastures...wonder what it could be.
Anyway. I have no illusions that I am here for any purpose whatsoever. Yet, somehow I get up and do things, set goals and accomplish them..and to top it off, I absolutely love my life.
So much for your quasi-thesis.

You see, a purpose assumes a purpose giver. And in this case, it also implies this purpose existed before the existence of the life in question. I see no evidence of such a thing, much less a necessity for one.
On what logic do you assume the existence of and further the necessity for, a purpose for the existence of life, or more specifically an individual life? For one that likes to attempt to arbitrate what constitutes logical behavior, you aren't being very thorough or consistent.

As an aside, inserting inane bits like 'hahaha' into your posts detracts immensely from any serious points you may be trying to make, not that I have noticed any.

Doktor S wrote:

Quote:

Without any purpose whatsoever you would not have a desire for will.

I smell something generally found in cow pastures...wonder what it could be.
Anyway. I have no illusions that I am here for any purpose whatsoever. Yet, somehow I get up and do things, set goals and accomplish them..and to top it off, I absolutely love my life.
So much for your quasi-thesis.

You see, a purpose assumes a purpose giver. And in this case, it also implies this purpose existed before the existence of the life in question. I see no evidence of such a thing, much less a necessity for one.
On what logic do you assume the existence of and further the necessity for, a purpose for the existence of life, or more specifically an individual life? For one that likes to attempt to arbitrate what constitutes logical behavior, you aren't being very thorough or consistent.

As an aside, inserting inane bits like 'hahaha' into your posts detracts immensely from any serious points you may be trying to make, not that I have noticed any.

Bet you don't have, and don't have any desire for, kids. Just a wild premonition. How accurate was I?

Setanta wrote:

Well, it's obvious that you completely failed to understand what Infrablue was saying.

No one else here does and infrablue keeps failing on giving a reason, so why don't you explain and give that reason?

I smell something generally found in cow pastures...wonder what it could be.
Anyway. I have no illusions that I am here for any purpose whatsoever. Yet, somehow I get up and do things, set goals and accomplish them..and to top it off, I absolutely love my life.
So much for your quasi-thesis.

You see, a purpose assumes a purpose giver. And in this case, it also implies this purpose existed before the existence of the life in question. I see no evidence of such a thing, much less a necessity for one.
On what logic do you assume the existence of and further the necessity for, a purpose for the existence of life, or more specifically an individual life? For one that likes to attempt to arbitrate what constitutes logical behavior, you aren't being very thorough or consistent.

As an aside, inserting inane bits like 'hahaha' into your posts detracts immensely from any serious points you may be trying to make, not that I have noticed any.

Please do some research on behavioral genetics.

Death allows one to live, to seek happiness, and prevents the beings from becoming completely miserable, but what makes it possible for a being to seek happiness? Life allows this to occur. Every newborn is a new opportunity to seek happiness. Again, death shall come to its rescue in due time to prevent absolute misery. The subject becomes more interesting when one considers the genetics of the newborns. The newborns share your genetic code so, in a way, it is as if you still live on, just that you do not know it. Your parents live on through you. Your grandparents live on through you. Your great grandparents live on through you. The Cro-Magnon people live on through you. Death has come to the rescue for all and life has continued as before.

I see absolutely no need to reconcile my existence with the cycle of life and death. Ever since the first life on Earth existed, I was, to this day, I am, and five hundred years from now, I shall be.

I need not cope with my insignificance in this Universe. The Universe itself is insignificant. Woolsey Teller, in his book "The Atheism of Astronomy," gives an accurate perspective of the Universe: "It is estimated to have taken cosmic evolution some 20,000,000 million years to produce our universe as we see it today.... When one truly considers the amount of matter in the Universe, in comparison to the vast abyss of nothingness, and how long it has taken to get this way, the Universe also seems insignificant.

I think I have already explained my view of death. It is a wonderful mechanism. I am not afraid of death. My only fear in relation to death is that I may not have enjoyed my life or that I may not have benefited the world before I go into that dark night.

What am I? I am nothing more than an arrangement of matter, am I not? To say that my existence has a purpose is to say the existence of a rock, a crystal, or water droplet has a purpose for its existence.

The intellectual and emotional faculties I possess do not differentiate me from the rocks, for those faculties are also the result of matter. I cannot entertain the notion that I am fundamentally different from the rocks.

As such, hypothetically I can only entertain the notions that the existence of everything has a purpose or nothing at all has a purpose.

How am I to argue that a piece of dust floating in the empty abyss of space, millions of miles away from anything, has a purpose for its existence? The only tenable notion is that nothing has a purpose for its existence.