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Does atheism have anything worth living for?

Started by MarcusA, May 04, 2023, 09:45:18 PM

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Asmodean

Quote from: billy rubin on March 13, 2024, 12:01:06 PMwhy cant atheists believe in an afterlife?
They can, though that would necessitate the same sort of mental gymnastics that the religious go through to "marry" the afterlife with the real world. That, or believe it "for the feels," and avoid thinking too much about it like the proverbial plague.

Quoteno reason for religion to get involved. maybe we are just an early instar of something else
That's the thing though, unless it is purely "for the feels," as I put it above, curiosity would have one dig for the way it functions and then reality would beg to differ in one way or another.

for instance, if you are still you after death, then what is a dementia sufferer, who lost most of "himself" to dying neurons long before whatever degree of organ failure constituted death? If he is just as "mentally reduced" in his newly-dead state, then how was he more than the processes running in his brain and the systems connected to it in life? If he "regains himself" upon death, then why did he degrade mentally from neuron death in the first place?

Conversely, if you are not you after death... Well, there is an argument for reincarnation. Rather than be cremated or buried, get yourself disposed of somewhere you can literally push daisies and you will get recycled back into the biosphere. Become all kinds of bacteria, plant, fungus and animal that eat each other until such a point where perhaps most of what once was you has become a whole bunch of other humans - well, parts of them anyways. If that is the idea, then "life after death" has a completely different meaning, devoid of all rewards, accountabilities, seeing loved ones, thinking thoughts and so forth. It's just... Chemistry.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

billy rubin

Quote from: The Magic Pudding.. on March 13, 2024, 12:05:00 PM
Quote from: billy rubin on March 13, 2024, 12:01:06 PMwhy cant atheists believe in an afterlife?

theres evidence of ghosts, communication with the dead, all that stuff. evidence, but no proof that i know of.

no reason for religion to get involved. maybe we are just an early instar of something else

Are you, do you designate yourself as an atheist Billy?

by my definition, no. i consider atheism, in practice, to be more of a positive assertion of knowledge than a statement of ignorance. i am an agnostic, using the older defintion of huxley

"it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty"

in practice, the definitions arent really important to me. i just ask people what they personally think and believe, and dont try to classify them.


News has been received from the Punjab that the Amritsar mob has again broken out in a violent attack against the authorities. The rebels were repulsed by the military and they suffered 200 casualties.

Old Seer

Quote from: billy rubin on March 13, 2024, 12:01:06 PMwhy cant atheists believe in an afterlife?

theres evidence of ghosts, communication with the dead, all that stuff. evidence, but no proof that i know of.

no reason for religion to get involved. maybe we are just an early instar of something else
Yes. But, using info I have is" after life is when all religions and governments are removed", after of which life goes on under a different social form, which would be a forth generation/age. Whether true or false is for the individual to decide.
The only thing possible the world needs saving from are the ones running it.
Oh lord, save us from those wanting to save us.
I'm not a Theist.

billy rubin

im not defending the idea. im just saying that i try to distinguish things i know from things i dont know.

i suspect a great deal but i know very little.


News has been received from the Punjab that the Amritsar mob has again broken out in a violent attack against the authorities. The rebels were repulsed by the military and they suffered 200 casualties.

Asmodean

I consider knowledge to be fluid and prone to change. I might know something today which will be some-degree-of-debunked tomorrow. Then, I might know that something.

There is a case to be made that the distinction between that and agnosticism is one without difference, though I think that that is not always the case.

It "all" works in a similar way though - updating mental models of reality. A square may represent a cube well enough in some circumstances. Then the cube may be changing into a pyramid with time, its base square unchanged. In this case, I know that the square is a square, but recognize that there may be more to it. That said, there may also not. Not every square is a base of a pyramid or even a cube.

A bit of an esoteric example, I guess, but such is life. Substitute geometry for pretty much whatever, and it still holds.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.