Existence Apart From God....

[seer]

Agree, disagree?

"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..." Shakespeare's Macbeth...

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” Richard Dawkins

"Existential nihilism: is the philosophical theory that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism suggests that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence..."

"Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution."

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Agree, disagree?

"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..." Shakespeare's Macbeth...

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” Richard Dawkins

"Existential nihilism: is the philosophical theory that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism suggests that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence..."

"Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution."

The biological imperative of any living thing is to survive long enough to breed and produce/rear viable offspring.

Humans with our big brains, our ability for abstract thought, and our awareness of our own mortality give our lives the meaning each of us considers most appropriate.

At the cosmic level this pale blue dot orbiting a middle-aged star is entirely irrelevant.

Or as Death puts it in Hogfather "TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET— Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."

[eider]

[I]Agree, disagree?

"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..." Shakespeare's Macbeth...

Love the point .... above.
So..... in the moment.

Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution.

I'm a Deist. That makes me a non-Theist despite the calls of all the fools who insist that 'belief in an unaware God' is part of and within the realm of 'Aware and caring God' or Theism
As a non-Theist I'm fairly close to atheism but that lot won't let me in to their club. Anyway I don't care because their beer is flat and overpriced.

But..... No.... Deism is not about the death of hope.
Think of an atheist that you know (or a Deist). We were both dead for countless millennia, and it was alright. I felt no pain nor had to wait for endless eons before this life. This life has been amazing, all it's happiness and sadness, success and failure, and love.... how I have loved and still do. And after this life it will be alright, for countless millenia it will be OK.

I think that Muhammad had some fun with this in his tale of the shepherds and dog that went in to a cave to sleep, and God played a trick upon them; when they woke and left that cave they knew nothing but the sleep and the waking, but it had been 300 years since they went in. Something like that? I must look it up.

But at that point my Deism leaves atheism behind, because I believe that every particle and energy in existence is a part of the whole, and the whole is God, so vast that God is quite unaware of such a tiny spec of dust which is our solar system. Look at the back of your hand..... closely, and see any one tiny hair. There! You never ever thought of that part of you before, nor knew of its existence. This vastness will extend far beyond our Universe, of that feel quite sure. So I get smaller and smaller as I think of this. But I can realise how many billions of atoms exist in my self at this time, each one a whirling mass of protons and neutron in motion. Nothing is dead.

Everything in me has lived for endless eons and will do so long after I am gone. Nothing gets destroyed, only changed. It will be OK.

[Starlight]

Disagree.

There are plenty of possibilities that don't have God in them, but don't endorse the OP quotes.

One of the more common ones these days is the we're-in-the-matrix view, where the world is thought to be an immersive computer game. In such a view there is, presumably, life after the in-game 'death' of the players. But there wouldn't be a God (in the sense of the biblical religious entity who needs worship), unless you want to extend that term to whoever programmed the computer game (which may well have been us).

Even if you don't like that modern spin on that view, there's always been plenty of philosophical/pseudo-religious positions that have taken the view that this world is in some way not truly 'real', but have not endorsed the idea of God. Buddhism for example does this. Such a view was popular within early Christianity - gnosticism was very popular and a common view among them was that this world was an evil and inferior version of the true spiritual realm and that the God of the Israelites was an evil being who had tried to lead people away from the truth.

I consider the OP quotes bogus and silly. And I think you are silly Seer to think your options are to embrace those quote claims or God. There's a lot more options than that.

[seer]

Disagree.

There are plenty of possibilities that don't have God in them, but don't endorse the OP quotes.

One of the more common ones these days is the we're-in-the-matrix view, where the world is thought to be an immersive computer game. In such a view there is, presumably, life after the in-game 'death' of the players. But there wouldn't be a God (in the sense of the biblical religious entity who needs worship), unless you want to extend that term to whoever programmed the computer game (which may well have been us).

So you have created an afterlife, presumably created by an intelligence.

[Mountain Man]

Any atheist who is not a nihilist has rejected the logically necessary implications of his worldview.

After all, what is so special about human beings? They are just accidental by-products of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe and which are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writ...d-without-god/

Seems to me that anybody who is convinced that atheism is true should willingly and confidently accept that their life has no inherent value or meaning.

[Tassman]

Any atheist who is not a nihilist has rejected the logically necessary implications of his worldview.

After all, what is so special about human beings? They are just accidental by-products of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe and which are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writ...d-without-god/

Seems to me that anybody who is convinced that atheism is true should willingly and confidently accept that their life has no inherent value or meaning.

People existed long before the gods with their ‘promises’ of everlasting life. Cooperation, bonding and attachment within our communities among those we love is an evolutionary trait which was naturally-selected as a survival mechanism. Without it our species would have perished long ago. Cooperation, love and satisfaction within the family unit is an evolutionary trait among many social species not just the human animal.

[Starlight]

So you have created an afterlife, presumably created by an intelligence.

No part of your statement makes sense. I haven't created an afterlife. One might exist or not, independently of me.

In the case of the world being a computer game, 'afterlife' doesn't really seem like the right word - it would be the real world, but yes it would be a life after this one, and yes presumably some intelligent beings created that computer game, but identifying them as gods doesn't really make much sense because we don't call computer programmers gods.

In the case of something like a Buddhist or panpsychist view there would be a continuation of mental existence post-death but there are no gods, so that afterlife would not be created by an intelligence.

[Starlight]

should willingly and confidently accept that their life has no inherent value or meaning.

As an English speaker, the words "inherent value or meaning" strike me as totally nonsensical.

A conscious entity can value things. Things have meaning to a conscious entity.

So if you want to talk in English about something having meaning or value, you, linguistically, need to specify a conscious being who it is having meaning or value to. Otherwise you're talking utter gobbledygook.

A statement that something has "inherent value or meaning" as if the object itself possessed such qualities, lacking connection to a specific conscious entity, makes no more sense than saying "2 plus orange equals justice" - it's connecting words that don't make sense together.

I'm not saying this as an atheist (I would equally say this as a Christian), I'm saying that as an English speaker, I literally have no idea what on earth you're trying to talk about or what point you're trying to get at or convey when you use the phrase "inherent value or meaning". Those words, together as a phrase, aren't coherent in English.

If you think you're actually saying something real, try expressing it in different words and see if that helps?

[Mountain Man]

People existed long before the gods with their ‘promises’ of everlasting life. Cooperation, bonding and attachment within our communities among those we love is an evolutionary trait which was naturally-selected as a survival mechanism. Without it our species would have perished long ago. Cooperation, love and satisfaction within the family unit is an evolutionary trait among many social species not just the human animal.

That does absolutely nothing to address the fact that if atheism is true, then human life necessarily lacks inherent value and meaning. The fact that so many atheists instinctively reject nihilism is a strong argument against atheism.

[Mountain Man]

As an English speaker, the words "inherent value or meaning" strike me as totally nonsensical.

A conscious entity can value things. Things have meaning to a conscious entity.

So if you want to talk in English about something having meaning or value, you, linguistically, need to specify a conscious being who it is having meaning or value to. Otherwise you're talking utter gobbledygook.

A statement that something has "inherent value or meaning" as if the object itself possessed such qualities, lacking connection to a specific conscious entity, makes no more sense than saying "2 plus orange equals justice" - it's connecting words that don't make sense together.

I'm not saying this as an atheist (I would equally say this as a Christian), I'm saying that as an English speaker, I literally have no idea what on earth you're trying to talk about or what point you're trying to get at or convey when you use the phrase "inherent value or meaning". Those words, together as a phrase, aren't coherent in English.

If you think you're actually saying something real, try expressing it in different words and see if that helps?

Your inability to understand basic English with obvious meaning is not my problem.

[seer]

I'm not saying this as an atheist (I would equally say this as a Christian), I'm saying that as an English speaker, I literally have no idea what on earth you're trying to talk about or what point you're trying to get at or convey when you use the phrase "inherent value or meaning". Those words, together as a phrase, aren't coherent in English.

Of course they are. Meaning and value proceed from the mind and will of God. That He created us for a purpose, an end, there is a goal. And our value and meaning is tried to that purpose.

[MaxVel]

As an English speaker, the words "inherent value or meaning" strike me as totally nonsensical.

A conscious entity can value things. Things have meaning to a conscious entity.

So if you want to talk in English about something having meaning or value, you, linguistically, need to specify a conscious being who it is having meaning or value to. Otherwise you're talking utter gobbledygook.

A statement that something has "inherent value or meaning" as if the object itself possessed such qualities, lacking connection to a specific conscious entity, makes no more sense than saying "2 plus orange equals justice" - it's connecting words that don't make sense together.

I'm not saying this as an atheist (I would equally say this as a Christian), I'm saying that as an English speaker, I literally have no idea what on earth you're trying to talk about or what point you're trying to get at or convey when you use the phrase "inherent value or meaning". Those words, together as a phrase, aren't coherent in English.

If you think you're actually saying something real, try expressing it in different words and see if that helps?

Doesn't seem too hard to me - meaning 'in and of itself', not dependent on anything else to give it meaning. Or existing in something as a permanent and inseparable quality or attribute. There are a bunch of articles and references to this mind of thing readily available.


It only seems incoherent to you because (a) you're so wedded to you secular worldview that you can't grasp any concepts that fall outside it; and/or (b) you'd rather not accept the implications of MM's statement, so you assume your position and ignore any other possibility.

Of course an atheist can claim that their life has value (to them), but it's not a value that is inherent to that life, but a value that can be given or taken away, accepted or legitimately denied by others, and so on. It's a claim about their personal view of the value and meaning of their life, and not an objective claim that anyone else is in any way bound to consider or accept.

[Tassman]

That does absolutely nothing to address the fact that if atheism is true, then human life necessarily lacks inherent value and meaning. The fact that so many atheists instinctively reject nihilism is a strong argument against atheism.

Before animism, totemism and the other emerging glimmerings of religious superstition, and well before the gods as we know them today were created, ‘atheism’ was the default position. There were simply no gods in which to believe. And yet primitive man – and his archaic fellow humans such as Homo erectus et al – seemed to find sufficient inherent meaning in life. Namely, the evolved instinct to live in cooperative communities by bonding and attaching to our loved ones. It’s an evolved survival mechanism and common to many of the other primates.

In short, we find inherent meaning by living as we have evolved to live as a social species, i.e. in loving and supporting one another.

[siam]

Love the point .... above.
So..... in the moment.



I'm a Deist. That makes me a non-Theist despite the calls of all the fools who insist that 'belief in an unaware God' is part of and within the realm of 'Aware and caring God' or Theism
As a non-Theist I'm fairly close to atheism but that lot won't let me in to their club. Anyway I don't care because their beer is flat and overpriced.

But..... No.... Deism is not about the death of hope.
Think of an atheist that you know (or a Deist). We were both dead for countless millennia, and it was alright. I felt no pain nor had to wait for endless eons before this life. This life has been amazing, all it's happiness and sadness, success and failure, and love.... how I have loved and still do. And after this life it will be alright, for countless millenia it will be OK.

I think that Muhammad had some fun with this in his tale of the shepherds and dog that went in to a cave to sleep, and God played a trick upon them; when they woke and left that cave they knew nothing but the sleep and the waking, but it had been 300 years since they went in. Something like that? I must look it up.

But at that point my Deism leaves atheism behind, because I believe that every particle and energy in existence is a part of the whole, and the whole is God, so vast that God is quite unaware of such a tiny spec of dust which is our solar system. Look at the back of your hand..... closely, and see any one tiny hair. There! You never ever thought of that part of you before, nor knew of its existence. This vastness will extend far beyond our Universe, of that feel quite sure. So I get smaller and smaller as I think of this. But I can realise how many billions of atoms exist in my self at this time, each one a whirling mass of protons and neutron in motion. Nothing is dead.

Everything in me has lived for endless eons and will do so long after I am gone. Nothing gets destroyed, only changed. It will be OK.

interesting perspective....
The story u r referring to is actually a Christian folk tale "Seven sleepers of Ephesus" that the Quran "re-purposes" to make several points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_...3A9%E2%80%9326).
Quran Surah 18: 18-26

One such point is that time/space-time is relative. The "measure" of time differs. So, in the Quranic story---when the sleepers awaken, they think---from their perspective--- they have slept only for a day. From those in the town, the speculation is ---it has been several hundred years.
Another interesting aspect of this story is that a "belief system" that was "abnormal" (not valued) when it was marginal, became normal (valued) when it became "powerful". When it comes to belief-systems/paradigms---it is the people who choose to give assent to it that give it 'power" and therefore "value"

...but perhaps when we ponder on inherent value---it may be "Nature" /laws of nature that give perceptions/inkling of "value". (these "perceptions" may be known through instinct or intelligence). In the natural fluctuations of scarcity and abundance, those that become scarce in nature may have more value and those that become abundant may have less?
If we use this assumption on the concept of (relative) time/space-time---then the Quranic story could also suggest that "life" (on earth ) is valuable because of its scarcity? ....relatively, our time on earth (life) may be the space of "a blink of an eye" in the vast measure of time/time-space....?.....

If so...that is, if such an conclusion is acceptable...then, for an intelligent species like humanity---that has the capacity to perceive such value (both instinctively and intelligently) context (meaning) becomes necessary.....

Without such context (meaning), a zero-sum outlook/philosophy would make more sense---but we all know (instinctively and intelligently) that such a path cannot lead to survival---but destruction of humanity. (...other species in "Nature" that also have group systems...may not have the intelligence---but prbably have the instincts to understand this "law" of nature....?....)