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If you think this is the area where you tell everyone you are sorry for eating their lunch out of the fridge, it probably isn't the place for you


This forum is open discussion between atheists and all theists to defend and debate their views on religion or non-religion. Please respect that this is a Christian-owned forum and refrain from gratuitous blasphemy. VERY wide leeway is given in range of expression and allowable behavior as compared to other areas of the forum, and moderation is not overly involved unless necessary. Please keep this in mind. Atheists who wish to interact with theists in a way that does not seek to undermine theistic faith may participate in the World Religions Department. Non-debate question and answers and mild and less confrontational discussions can take place in General Theistics.


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  • #31
    Originally posted by Machinist View Post

    Thanks. But why would they build an entire culture and tradition around something that doesn't make sense?
    Well think about it. You go through a series cycles (death and rebirth) to learn particular behaviors and responses. When you gain pure enlightenment you reach Nirvana. Now ask yourself, what designed this system? What decided that some behaviors are acceptable while others are not? If not a mind akin to a god, then what?
    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...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by seer View Post

      Well think about it. You go through a series cycles (death and rebirth) to learn particular behaviors and responses. When you gain pure enlightenment you reach Nirvana. Now ask yourself, what designed this system? What decided that some behaviors are acceptable while others are not? If not a mind akin to a god, then what?
      Well yeah. It would be a god of sorts then wouldn't it. Everything, including the entire process and series of cycles of death and rebirth would be their equivalent of God. Why would there be a need to extract and isolate any conception of a monotheistic God in that belief system?

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Machinist View Post

        Well yeah. It would be a god of sorts then wouldn't it. Everything, including the entire process and series of cycles of death and rebirth would be their equivalent of God. Why would there be a need to extract and isolate any conception of a monotheistic God in that belief system?
        But where does that system come from, what decided that some behaviors are acceptable while others are not to reach Nirvana? These are at bottom moral questions, what or who designed this moral system?
        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...

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by seer View Post

          But where does that system come from, what decided that some behaviors are acceptable while others are not to reach Nirvana? These are at bottom moral questions, what or who designed this moral system?
          I would guess generations of Buddhists created it.

          Comment


          • #35
            If anyone thinks that atheism/atheists lack(s) a moral compass or that atheism is synonymous with nihilism, they haven't done even the most basic investigation into atheism or really any academic moral philosophy.

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Psychic Missile View Post
              If anyone thinks that atheism/atheists lack(s) a moral compass or that atheism is synonymous with nihilism, they haven't done even the most basic investigation into atheism or really any academic moral philosophy.
              That is silly, there is no standard atheistic view on morality or nihilism. Just individual opinions of atheists.
              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...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Machinist View Post

                I would guess generations of Buddhists created it.
                So they invented it. Whether right or wrong true or not.
                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...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by seer View Post

                  So they invented it. Whether right or wrong true or not.
                  I wouldn't use the word "invent".

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                    Exactly. For the atheist, there are no objective standards of right and wrong, no objective source of moral obligation.
                    Agreed.

                    It's nothing more than personal preference,
                    Mostly agreed, though collective preference is needed to actually enforce the rules.

                    and whether one is a wise man or fool, all will suffer the exact same fate in the end: death and oblivion.
                    Also agreed.

                    Now that we've agreed on the basics, you just need to figure out how to get from there to statements like: "If there is no God then there are no wrong choices in life."

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Stoic View Post
                      Agreed.


                      Mostly agreed, though collective preference is needed to actually enforce the rules.


                      Also agreed.

                      Now that we've agreed on the basics, you just need to figure out how to get from there to statements like: "If there is no God then there are no wrong choices in life."
                      Um... not sure where the disconnect is here.

                      P1: If atheism is true, then there are no objective standards of right and wrong, and no objective source of moral obligation.
                      P2: Atheism is true.

                      Since you agree with both of those premises, then you must necessarily accept the logical conclusion:

                      C: Therefore, there are no wrong choices in life.
                      Last edited by Mountain Man; 04-10-2021, 02:47 PM.
                      Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                      But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                      Than a fool in the eyes of God


                      From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Machinist View Post

                        I wouldn't use the word "invent".
                        Then they made it up.
                        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...

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by seer View Post

                          Then they made it up.
                          Could we explore "unconscious synthesis' over many generations"?

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            That is silly, there is no standard atheistic view on morality or nihilism. Just individual opinions of atheists.
                            It's bizarre you accuse your opponents of having individual opinions and arbitrary views, while holding extremely arbitrary and individual opinions yourself. You're a very creative an unorthodox thinker for a Christian poster, and very much hold your own opinion on different issues rather than toeing the Christian line.

                            It seems to be a general rule of your posts I've noticed, that your own views always fare worse on the criteria you propose, than your opposition does. Given your views so badly fail by your own standards, never mind anyone else's, I am constantly baffled by why you think anyone would take you seriously.
                            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Machinist View Post
                              Interesting! Thanks for the reply! Could you point me to some further reading on this subject?
                              In the Philosophy subfield of Philosophy of Mind both the Dualist and Idealist positions on the Mind-Body problem take the view that the mind's existence is independent of the body.

                              One analogy that is sometimes used is that of a radio. Just because a radio is destroyed doesn't mean that what was playing on the radio was itself destroyed, because it was only coming to the radio from elsewhere. Or a laptop connecting to a supercomputer and taking advantage of the computing power the supercomputer can offer it. One possible way it might work is that perhaps our universe is a physical universe, but there are other universes that are mental universes, and a current many worlds theory in quantum physics suggests it might be possible for universes to interact on a quantum level, so perhaps evolution found that by arranging the physical brain in the right way it was able to tap into a mental universe and take advantage of the properties of that universe, harnessing a mind from that universe to guide the body in this one. It might therefore gain a huge evolutionary advantage by doing so, as the mental properties offered by that universe are unparalleled in this one.

                              I note actually that a common early version of Christianity, Gnosticism, had a similar view to this, but added the view that the mental universe was a pure and good spiritual universe while the physical 'flesh' universe was inherently evil by virtue of being matter and material, and they saw the 'trapping' of pure spiritual souls in/by the material universe as evil, and hence were against human conception and birth. They thought Christ was a spiritual being in the spiritual universe sent by the true God in the spiritual universe who had appeared to us (though not actually taken physical flesh as that would be part of the evil material universe) to rescue us from this evil physical world that they viewed as being ruled over by the evil Old Testament god of the Jews (they viewed the OT god as evil, and the true God as an entity in the spiritual universe who had sent Christ). That version of Christianity survived surprisingly long and was surprisingly popular given it taught its adherents not to have children and hence could only be spread by getting new converts rather than breeding them from existing ones. Eventually it died out as a result, however it is thought that at some point in the 2nd century it had more adherents than what we now term normal Christianity.

                              I don't have any specific books or articles to recommend on Dualism or Idealism, but googling those and the various topics I've mentioned, as well as the philosophical term 'qualia' which refers to conscious mental experience, might find you something interesting.
                              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by seer View Post
                                Well think about it. You go through a series cycles (death and rebirth) to learn particular behaviors and responses. When you gain pure enlightenment you reach Nirvana. Now ask yourself, what designed this system? What decided that some behaviors are acceptable while others are not? If not a mind akin to a god, then what?
                                It might be that there are some sort of natural laws akin to physical laws, where just as gravity pulls downward, so certain types of behaviors pull spiritually upward or are more 'enlightening' than others on the mental plane.

                                But you are overly focusing on really specific religious details about judgment, rather than more general concepts. An afterlife need not imply any judgment at all. There might be no Nirvana, just an endless cycle of rebirth. To pick one analogy from Buddhism, our minds might be as droplets of water, and when the body dies they return to the great ocean of all minds, dissolving into it but not ceasing to be water, only to later take the form of a droplet again. You might personally want to call that ocean 'God' seer, because you do seem to personally like to find things to label 'God', but that 'God' would then just be the mind(s) of all us and wouldn't necessarily have any of the properties that the Christian God does.

                                Another view might simply be that consciousness is an indestructible and individual entity. Perhaps like the Greeks thought 'atoms' to be the individual particle, Awareness itself is actually the true indivisible construct, and so survives the death of the body to which it is attached, perhaps to be attached to other bodies in future for whatever reason and according to whatever laws of nature happen to govern that process.

                                Perhaps there is only one Awareness in existence (you can call it 'God' again if you like seer, but it is just you, and just me) and all the lives of every person in history were experienced by that single Awareness, just as on a computer a single CPU can run all the programs.

                                There are many and various possibilities.
                                "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                                "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                                "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                                Comment

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