The terrifying thought of no afterlife

[SomewhereInND]

Your doing it again, you just cant  see it.

Apply your complaints to your religion, and in many cases, YOU!

Your view comes across as Atheism is wrong because they do this, they do that.....no....We all do this, we all do that....YOU do this, YOU do that.

Your house is made of glass too, problem is, your throwing stones at my glass house, from inside your glass house, and your doors/windows are not open son.

[Achronos]

Where would you like me to begin on my complaints against my own faith?

[SomewhereInND]

Where would you like me to begin on my complaints against my own faith?

Lets start by opening thine eyes!
Then look at your last few posts, and replace the words 'those atheists' with 'my religion'
Then thou shalt see.

[Achronos]

I was being sarcastic.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Also my "angry degenrates" was not targeted at a collective whole but a select few that would love to see religion abolished from the world and those included in it.

Here would be a good starting point: not lumping us all together.  After all, I'm not doing that to you.  Certainly you can return the favor.

If you have a disagreement or problem with a particular poster, either address the poster specifically in your post, PM him or her, or file a complaint with Whitney.  

But honestly, when you throw out generalizations like this, you  only reduce your own credibility.

[hunterman317]

Matter always reassembles.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Matter always reassembles.

... so long as there is an input of energy.

[Persimmon Hamster]

Achronos, I can't help but note that you said the following:

Atheists will never stay on point, and I don't expect them too.

This is amusing because it is exactly how I might describe you.

Alright, now that everyone has gotten that out of their system...???  

Back to [one of] the issue being sidestepped...

eta: Per Persimmon's request, I ask that you answer this question which you have yet to answer:

Please demonstrate the intrinsic goodness of these qualities without reference to your god.

I saw you made an attempt at this, but it did not satisfy me nor did it satisfy Thump.

Beings in the world have characteristics to varying degrees. Some are more or less good, true, noble, and so forth. Such gradations are all measured in relation to a maximum, however. Thus, there must be something best, truest, noblest, and so on. Now, as Aristotle teaches, things that are greatest in truth are also greatest in being. Therefore, there must be something that is the cause of being, goodness, and every other perfection that we find in beings in the world. We call this maximum cause God.

You ask me to accept the existence of characteristics which you refer to as "goodness", "nobility".  You must define these qualities before you apply them in any quantity to any creature/object/idea.  Please define them.

What is this "maximum" you assert we can measure those qualities in relation to?  Please define it.  What would maximum "goodness" be?  What would maximum "nobility" be?

Why did you claim we find "perfection" in beings in the world?  To which beings do you refer?  (Surely you did not mean God, because in the next sentence you then claimed he caused these beings -- or were you saying he caused himself?)

Once you define all of this for us, we can continue the discussion about your original statement, and how you will demonstrate the goodness of those qualities/characteristics/ideas which you originally mentioned (in the manner that Thump requested, "without reference to your god"):

But existence, intelligence and will are in themselves good.

At risk of complicating things, I will nevertheless bring up one other part of the very problematic post you made in your first attempt at addressing the question:

We observe in nature that inanimate and nonintelligent objects act toward the best possible purpose, even though these objects are not aware of doing so. It is clear that these objects do not achieve their purpose by sheer chance but rather according to a plan. Any inanimate or nonintelligent object that acts toward a purpose, though, must be guided by a being that possesses knowledge and intelligence, just as an arrow is directed by an archer. Therefore, there must be some intelligent being that directs all natural things toward their purpose. We call this being God.

There is absolutely no reason to suspect some "intelligence" is orchestrating the efforts of every "nonintelligent" object on earth.  I would also need you to define "intelligence" as it relates to the "objects" (animals?) to which you referred--so that I might understand whether you consider the intelligence level of chimps, dolphins, cephalopods, crows, etc, to be low enough to also require "divine guidance in purpose".  Currently I take you to be saying that some external intelligence is guiding the squirrel in my yard to hoard nuts for the upcoming winter; is that what you are getting at?
The above quotation suggests, as has been previously noted by others and myself, that you have very little grasp of evolution.  Have you any interest in filling that gap of knowledge?  At the very least it might help you make a better case for yourself, because the moment you appear to lack even a basic understanding of evolution is the moment many atheists will stop paying much attention to you.

[Whitney]

If you have a disagreement or problem with a particular poster, either address the poster specifically in your post, PM him or her, or file a complaint with Whitney.  

I second this and add that a complaint can be filed with any mod as they all have the ability to take care of issues if they feel action is necessary.

[Ihateyoumike]

The old breed of atheism, the kind which tolerated religion to a generous degree, and which promoted friendliness and temperance with religious people is largely dying out.

Or perhaps, the "old breed of atheism" is no longer kept silent by the fear of religious persocution thanks to the positive progression towards being able to freely think for ourselves without as much fear of said persocution. Perhaps what your religious mind viewed as "temperance for religious people" was more the result of your church having more power to control minds than it currently does. Damn the power to think freely!!

And the martyr hat you're wearing in this thread is not becoming on you.

[Achronos]

You ask me to accept the existence of characteristics which you refer to as "goodness", "nobility".  You must define these qualities before you apply them in any quantity to any creature/object/idea.  Please define them.

Good and bad are wider terms than right and wrong. Any lack of good is bad, but only falling short of a goal is wrong, lacking rule. Rule in nature is a thing's natural tendency to a goal, and only those actions go right which accord with the tendency; deviation from this straight path we call a fault. In willed activity (will [no pun intended] get to this soon) the immediate rule is reason and above that the eternal law. So an act on line for its goal according to reason and the eternal law is right, while an act which goes awry is wrong and called a sin. In their turn, the terms right and wrong are wider than praiseworthy and blameworthy; for the latter impute to an agent responsibility for his acts, presuming them voluntary. In the arts reason aims at some particular artistic goal of its own creation, but in moral activity at a goal common to all human living. The artist can sin either as an artist, when he fails his own artistic intentions (and then he is blamed as a bad artist), or he can fail as a man when what he intends fails to accord with the common goal of human life (and then he is blamed as a bad man). The only moral sin is that of failing to aim as the goal of human living, and moral blame is of a man as man. To call an act deserving or undeserving brings in the notion of just deserts rendered to people for profiting or hurting others. When you help or harm and individual both he and the society to which he belongs owe you deserts; when you help or harm society as such society and all its members owe deserts; and when you help or harm yourself the society you belong to owes them. And if you do something that cannot be related to God as ultimate goal you do him dishonor and deserve universe, he has to judge the deserts of every human action. Not everything in man is subordinate to the political community, so not every deed is subject to its judgments; but everything a man has or can have is ordered to God and all human actions merit God's reward or punishment.

Considering various different ways of characterizing voluntary actions: firstly, as actions of the will itself (willing, enjoying and intending goals; choosing, accepting and employing means), and secondly, as actions of other powers controlled by will. Our will is both attracted to what seems good and repelled by what seems bad; but we specially use willing to name the act of desiring good (the act of shrinking from evil we could perhaps call won'ting). Moreover, our will is attracted both to goals and to what serves those goals; but the most basic act of willing is the desiring of what is in itself desirable, namely, goals; we desire what serves a goal not for its own sake but for the sake of the goal, and so what we will in it is in fact the goal. In the strict sense of the word then we will goals, (just as what we understand are premises, and conclusions only when seen as enshrining those premises). Clearly we desire the goal in the means with one and the same act of willing as we desire the means; through there may have preceded pure desire of the goal. Interrupting execution of an action can leave us with a willed goal but no means.

Our psychological powers can act or not act, and, if they act, do one thing or another. So we can ask the cause of the exercise or performance of an act (what moved its subject into action?), and the cause that determined the type of act performed (what gave the at its object?). Moving a subject into action requires an agent attracted by a goal, and since what attracts is goodness as such (by definition the province of the will) is our will that brings our other powers into action: we use our powers as and when we will. But the type of action is determined by conformation to some object, and since conformation to being and truth as such is by definition the province of the mind, it is the mind that determines the will by presenting to it its object. Theoretical grasp of truth without grasp of its practical goodness or desirability will not move us, and more that merely imagining objects without judging them helpful or harmful stimulates animal emotions. Will moves mind to perform, since the truth mind seeks is one good among others and an instance of what will seeks: goodness as such; but mind determines what it is we will, since we know the good we will as one truth among others, an instance of what mind grasps: truth as such. Because what seems good to us must seem congenial, and that depends on our constitution as well as that of the object presented, it is obvious that emotions can so affect our composure that things appear congenial which would not otherwise do so. In this way emotions can affect the will through its object. Besides moving other powers, the will can also move itself to perform; for by willing a goal it moves itself to will what serves that goal. So the will is formed by the mind presenting its object, but moved to perform by itself pursuing its goal. Things in the external world can obviously be objects for hte will and influence it that way, but can anything external move the will to perform? Well, when the will moves itself to perform it starts by willing a goal, and then by a process of deliberation, brings itself to will what serves the goal. But what brought it to will the goal in the first place? Itself perhaps by deliberation based on some earlier willing, and so on. But, as Aristotle points out, the process must start somewhere with an original willing caused from outside, just as natural movement depends eventually on someone setting nature in motion. Things in nature can be set in motion by other things than God, the author of nature, but only God can cause them to move natural; and in the same way men can be set in motion by other things than God, the author of their wills, but only God can set them in voluntary movement. God moves our wills towards goodness as such, the all-inclusive object of the will; and without this all-inclusive movement by the mover of all things men couldn't will anything. But man uses his own mind to determine whether to will this or that genuine or seeming good; though as we shall see later God sometimes moves some people by his grace to will some particular good.

What belongs intrinsically to a thing as such we call natural. If anything is to have properties at all it must first have nature in this sense: thus, understanding presupposes premises which are naturally understood, and willing something willed by nature. For the will (like any power) tends naturally to object defining it, namely goodness as such, and to that ultimate goal desired in all desiring (in the way first premises are understood in all understanding), and in general to all particular goods natural to the person willing: to knowledge of the truth, to existence, to life. The will, as mistress of its own actions, works in a way which transcends the way nature works, following one determined pattern. Nevertheless, what acts by will first exists by nature, and the will's way of seeking must in some way reflect and incorporate nature's. Every nature is determinate, fixed on one thing, but in the case of immaterial powers the oneness is a oneness of generality: the will, for example, responds to all good as such, and the mind to whatever is true or exists. No object can oblige us to exercise our wills, for, whatever it is, we can omit to think about it, and so omit to will it. But if it is presented to the will and is good in every way from every point of view, then, if the will wills at all, it is obliged to accept that thing and refuse its opposite. We are obliged to will happiness in this way (and whatever is essential for happiness, like existence and life). But all other particular goods, since they cannot contain every good there is, can be regarded as not good in some respect, and for that reason can be either refused or accepted. Emotions move the will by predisposing us to judge objects congenial or not. If passion is so great that a man loses all reason, then he becomes like the other animals, deprived of all will; but if something of reason and will remains then passion can always be resisted. The will cannot always stop desire arising, but it can always refuse to consent to it. God irresistibly moves causes to effects in ways suited to the nature of the cause; so he moves wills freely. For the will to move necessarily would rather be to resist God's will. The supposition that God is moving the will to such and such an object necessarily entails that the will is tending to that object; by the tendency is not in itself necessary.

Seeing God is as such an activity of mind, but as the goal of our desires it is an object towards which the will moves the mind, and which the will enjoys when the mind has achieved it. So enjoying is an act, not of the achieving power, but of the power of desire directing the achievement. In things that lack awareness we find power to achieve goals but no power to direct the achievement, since this belongs to a higher power which directs all nature in the way desire directs the actions of things with awareness. Clearly then only things with awareness enjoy the goals they achieve. And of these only creatures with reasons are fully aware of their goals as such, knowing their function as goals; other animals are aware only of the particular things which are their goals, to which their appetites direct them unfreely by natural instinct. So reasoning creatures enjoy in a full sense, animals in a lesser way, and other creatures not at all. The ultimate goal of all life's activity is enjoyable in the fullest sense; whatever exerts a temporary attraction is enjoyable in a restricted sense; and what is not attractive in itself but only serves some other goal (like a nauseous medicine) is not in any sense enjoyable. There is already joy in intending a goal, but not the full joy of really achieving it. Joy in other things differs in kind from joy in God. But joy in moving to God is of the same kind as joy in achieving him, different only in degree.

To intend something is to tend towards it: either actively (the primary sense), or passively under the influence of some active tendency. Since all our powers tend to their goal under the influence of some active tendency. Since all our powers tend to their goal under the influence of the will, intending is primarily an act of will. Reason makes a plan, and will tends to a goal according to the plan. So intending is willing that presupposes a reasoned plan for reaching the goal. Simple attraction to a goal, without further qualification we call willing; resting in a goal reached we call enjoyment, but in order to intend a goal we must will it as the terminus of some action directed at reaching it. Going from A to B by way of C, B is our final destination, C an intermediate one. So we can intend goals that are not yet our ultimate goal. To be enjoyed a goal must be an ultimate goal that we can rest in, but any goal that we can move towards can be intended. Clearly we can intend many subordinated goals (final and intermediate) at one and the same time; and since we can prefer one course of action to another because it serves more than one purpose, we can also intend many subordinated goals at once. Things which are in reality many can be unified by reason into one terminus of intention. When we will something as mean to a goal, one  and the same act of will tends towards goal and means together, the goal making the means attractive; just as we see light and colors together, with light making the colors visible. It is one and the same act of will that wills means as a way to a goal (and in that respect is called choice), and wills the goal as reachable by the means (and in that respect is called intention). Nature intends goals passively, under the active influence of God; and this is the way animals intend goals by natural instinct. But reason intends goals actively.

Actions are like things: that they exist is good as far as it goes, but when they don't exist as fully as they should that is bad. To be fully realized actions, like things, must first be what by definition they should be: things must be rightly formed and actions must have a right object. For the basic moral evil is activity excised on the wrong object (taking something not your own, for example), just as the basic natural evil is misbegotten form. However good the external object of activity may be in itself, it may not be the right object for this or that action. So an action's goodness or badness is first decided by its object. Now this is not a case of effect causing cause. For one thing, human action is caused by desire, and that is an effect of objects rather than their cause. And even when actions do cause their objects, the goodness of the action's effect is not an agent of the goodness of the action, but actions are called good because they are such as to cause a good effect, the balance between the action and its effect being its goodness.

Toe be fully realized things must have properties over and above what defines them, and actions too, to be account good, must occur in the right circumstances. Circumstances lie outside the specific nature of an action and belong to it like non-defining properties do to things, contributing to its moral goodness in the same way that non-essential properties contribute to natural goodness. Finally, just as certain things depend for existence on outside causes, so human actions can depend for goodness on external goals; for activity must contain a right balance to its goal, even though its goal lies outside it.

Four elements therefore contribute to a good actions: first, its generic existence as activity at all: secondly, definition by an appropriate object, thirdly, the circumstances surrounding the act; and fourthly, its relation to a goal. Actions are good in the straightforward sense of the word only when all these elements are present: any defect will make a thing bad; to be good a thing must be wholly good.

Good human actions differ in kind from bad ones. For objects may differ and differentiate activity in relation to one source of activity even when they don't in relation to another: color and sound distinguish two kind of sense-perception but not two kinds of mind. Now human actions are good when they accord with reason and bad when they don't (for reason makes man human), and the difference of object which makes actions good or bad is directly related to reason, namely, whether the object suits or not. So goodness or badness of object must define specifically different kinds of reasoned or human or moral activity. Even in nature natural goodness or badness can diversify species of moral action. Morally bad actions don't lack objects; they have objects lacking reasonable suitability. Thus, in relation to reason, married and adulterous sexual intercourse are two different kinds of act and have different kinds of effect, one earning commendation and the other blame but in relation to our reproductive powers they are one in species and effect. The goodness or badness of actions derived from their goals also diversifies their moral species. Voluntary action is made up of the external activity the will is controlling (defined by the object of that activity), and an interior act of will controlling it (defined by the will's object, namely the goal of the activity). This act of will enters into the definition of the external activity, since only when the body is acting as will's too is its activity morally significant. Human activity therefore is defined formally by its goal and materially by its external object. As Aristotle puts it, stealing to pay for adultery makes you even more an adulterer than a thief. Even if the goal is incidental to the external activity as such it is not incidental to the interior act of will controlling and shaping the external activity. If the object of an external activity is not intrinsically related to its goal (stealing in order to give alms), then the action belongs morally to two disparate species; otherwise (fighting to achieve victory) one species must be subsumed under the other. Which under which becomes clear if we notice the more ultimate goals engage agents of wider scope and such agents lay down more general definitions of what gets done. So goals are what define actions most generally, and further specification is due to objects intrinsically related to those goals; for will, with the goal as its object, is general mover of all those powers with particular objects of activity. The goal is the last thing implemented but it is the first thing mentally intended, and moral acts are defined relative to mind.

Some actions then are by definition good (their object accords with reason(; some are by defintion bad (like stealing, their objects offends reason); whilst others are by definition neutral (like straw-picking, their object does neither). Every object and every goal is naturally good, but this doesn't ensure moral goodness or badness with respect to reason, just as man himself is neither virtuous nor vicious by nature. Actions which are by definition neutral are turned into good or bad actions in individual cases by attendant circumstances, by the intended goal if by nothing else. For it is the function of reason to direct, and any action that proceeded from reason without a due goal would be by the fact itself bad. Only absent-minded action like stroking one's chin or shifting one's feet can be neutral in the individual case, because not moral at all. What we mean by an action neutral by definition is an action capable of being either good or bad, not an actions obliged to be neither: indeed there is no object to our activity that cannot be directed to good or bad by some goal or circumstance. Individual actions may be neither good nor bad in some restricted sense of those words: neither profitable or harmful to others, for examples. But we are here speaking of good and bad in the most general sense of being in harmony or in discord with right reason. Natural things are produced once for all with a defined nature which underlies all supervening modifications. But reason can and must re-examine its products, and what was first treated as a circumstance attendant on the defining object of an action may be reassesd as itself defining the object. The place and time at which you steal are usually circumstances, but if they involve some special contravention of right reason (eg stealing in church) then the very definition of the action may be affected and stealing become sacrilege. Circumstance as such cannot affect an action's definition, but circumstance can change into an essential condition of the object defining the action. Some circumstances affect the goodness or badness of actions only when another circumstance has defined their kind: thus taking more or less of something affects the goodness or badness of taking only when the things is someone else's. Stealing more and stealing less differ in degree of badness, even if not in kind.

What is this "maximum" you assert we can measure those qualities in relation to?  Please define it.  What would maximum "goodness" be?  What would maximum "nobility" be?

It is God, I have answered this question in regards to what you have quoted above. Maximum meaning absolute, and for their to be absolute goodness it must be derived from a cause and we can relate this maximum to God; who by very definition is Himself the perfection of goodness.

Why did you claim we find "perfection" in beings in the world?  To which beings do you refer?  (Surely you did not mean God, because in the next sentence you then claimed he caused these beings -- or were you saying he caused himself?)

I am not stating that beings are perfect, rather there must be a cause of being and goodness in beings in the world.

There is absolutely no reason to suspect some "intelligence" is orchestrating the efforts of every "nonintelligent" object on earth.  I would also need you to define "intelligence" as it relates to the "objects" (animals?) to which you referred--so that I might understand whether you consider the intelligence level of chimps, dolphins, cephalopods, crows, etc, to be low enough to also require "divine guidance in purpose".  Currently I take you to be saying that some external intelligence is guiding the squirrel in my yard to hoard nuts for the upcoming winter; is that what you are getting at?

I think you have misunderstood what I am saying, what I was saying is that we act towards a goal/purpose. It's not like you say being orchestrated by God; however I argue that our actions and our ultimate goal is to know God. I have touched upon our actions and goals above, but if this isn't a sufficient answer please allow me to further explain.

This is amusing because it is exactly how I might describe you.

That's funny I was trying to get this thread back on topic to the afterlife, whereas you want to do the contrary.

BTW PH, I HIGHLY recommend reading The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, it is quite a prophetic book. The Abolition of Man is a treaty on the importance of Natural law, an objective truth or a moral code that transcends time and culture. Lewis refers to this as the Tao, a system of truth that is embedded in all cultures throughout history. It is not an American or British truth, or even a western one. There are objective truths that all recognize, whether they follow them or not. As he states, he does not like the company of children, but he recognizes that as a default in him, not in children. This is similar to the color-blind man; my inability to see color says something about me, not about the existence of color.

Lewis states that this book is not an argument for the existence of a theistic God, but I think it is a clear apologetic for one. How can we have moral laws and objective truths without a lawgiver and one who exists above the laws? While it is not a defense for a Christian God per se, it does point to a designer of a coherent and morally good universe.

[Persimmon Hamster]

Please excuse the lateness of my response; I've been out of town for a few days.

That's funny I was trying to get this thread back on topic to the afterlife, whereas you want to do the contrary.

Is a firm understanding of the concept of "good" irrelevant to your views on the afterlife?

Good and bad are wider terms than right and wrong. Any lack of good is bad, but only falling short of a goal is wrong, lacking rule. Rule in nature is a thing's natural tendency to a goal, and only those actions go right which accord with the tendency; deviation from this straight path we call a fault. In willed activity (will [no pun intended] get to this soon) the immediate rule is reason and above that the eternal law....And if you do something that cannot be related to God as ultimate goal you do him dishonor and deserve universe, he has to judge the deserts of every human action. Not everything in man is subordinate to the political community, so not every deed is subject to its judgments; but everything a man has or can have is ordered to God and all human actions merit God's reward or punishment.

So, seeing the emphasis I have added to your quote above, it seems you were unable to go even 4 sentences before hinting at God, and unable to go a single paragraph without directly referring to God.  Allow me to remind you of the original request to which you are supposed to be responding (I have enlarged a key part of it that you seem to be ignoring):

Please demonstrate the intrinsic goodness of these qualities without reference to your god.

If you start to include God in your definition of "goodness", well, it should be obvious that you will not be able to proceed with that foundation to address the original request.  Why not just admit that, and move on?

I think you have misunderstood what I am saying, what I was saying is that we act towards a goal/purpose. It's not like you say being orchestrated by God; however I argue that our actions and our ultimate goal is to know God.

I don't think I misunderstood anything.  Once again, here is what you said:

Any inanimate or nonintelligent object that acts toward a purpose, though, must be guided by a being that possesses knowledge and intelligence, just as an arrow is directed by an archer. Therefore, there must be some intelligent being that directs all natural things toward their purpose. We call this being God.

You stated that any inanimate or nonintelligent object is being directed toward its purpose by God.  Can you list some specific examples of such "objects"?

[LegendarySandwich]

Atheists also have no moral or objective basis for their argumentation and its logical end is based upon nihilism, and as I said before if you think otherwise you are kidding yourself. I know this because I was once an atheist.

Using that logic, this statement is also completely true:

I was a Christian once; I was an asshole; therefore, all Christians are assholes.

Infallible, impeccable, irrefutable evidence that all Christians are assholes.

Asshole.

[Davin]

Atheists also have no moral or objective basis for their argumentation and its logical end is based upon nihilism, and as I said before if you think otherwise you are kidding yourself. I know this because I was once an atheist.

Using that logic, this statement is also completely true:

I was a Christian once; I was an asshole; therefore, all Christians are assholes.

Infallible, impeccable, irrefutable evidence that all Christians are assholes.

Asshole.

Excellent and funny point.

[Achronos]

PH you have to understand I am arguing for a transcendental being in terms of goodness and badness; without an appeal to a transcendental presence good and bad are moot.