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My Godless Life

Harshaw said:
When nothing matters, no opinions are meaningful. To think so is an egotistical delusion.
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Who said nothing matters? I don't think you'll find that in the post of Dragonfly's you quoted.

Information is always meaningful, even to an animal.
 
Harshaw said:
When nothing matters, no opinions are meaningful. To think so is an egotistical delusion.
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Where do you people come up with this stuff?

In order for "life to matter" there MUST be a god?

What kind of convoluted, egotistical nonsense is that?

When nothing matters? What does that even mean? Who said nothing matters?
 
Dragonfly said:
Where do you people come up with this stuff?

In order for "life to matter" there MUST be a god?

What kind of convoluted, egotistical nonsense is that?

When nothing matters? What does that even mean? Who said nothing matters?
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You did. It's the implication of what you say:

Dragonfly said:
There are a lot of people out there who simply can't handle the idea that there might not be an "answer" as to why certain things happen.

They need a safety blanket of there being a "larger purpose" designed by something bigger than anything we can conceive.

That whole thing about "we must be here for a purpose" concept.

Some people can't handle the idea that, perhaps, there is no purpose. No grand design. No reason beyond the biological fact that our parents had sex and conceived a child.

The very same reason a cockroach exists might be the very same reason "we" exist.

That maybe, there is no reason.

Some people seriously can't handle that concept.

Maybe - this is ALL there really is.
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:shrug:

I figured you'd have a tough time accepting it, which is ironic when you say "some people can't handle . . . "
 
None of that means our own personal life doesn't matter.

Or that we can't effect others.

It simply means our life is what it is. A life.

The purpose you make of it is yours to own.

Not something some higher "uber-being" designed with some "other" purpose we don't (or can't) understand.
 
Dragonfly said:
That maybe, there is no reason.

Some people seriously can't handle that concept .
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Well, are volitional beings. We make choices, we act, we make things happen. It is natural for us to think that the world at large is similar, that there is some " intelligent design" behind things we see around ourselves.

Just yesterday, a good friend of mine (and a good Christian) told me to stop anthropomorphizing my dogs. "After you stop doing the same to the whole Universe", I replied.

Dragonfly said:
Maybe - this is ALL there really is.
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And that's what they find depressing. As if they already know every little detail of this enormous, wondrous "ALL" - and are sorely disappointed.
 
Dragonfly said:
None of that means our own personal life doesn't matter.

Or that we can't effect others.

It simply means our life is what it is. A life.

The purpose you make of it is yours to own.

Not something some higher "uber-being" designed with some "other" purpose we don't (or can't) understand.
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It means you're making things up in order to feel like you matter.

Sorry, dude, but it looks like you yourself haven't accepted the implications of what you say. :shrug:
 
Harshaw said:
:shrug:

That's all very well as long you admit that as such, nothing whatsoever matters, and there's no such thing as wrong or right, to any degree whatsoever. All opinions are equally meaningless, including your own. So, any objection you have to anyone doing anything is your own problem, not theirs . . . from everything to kicking your mailbox over to conducting a holocaust, and beyond.
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How does "nothing matters" follow from "things are what they are"? If we ascribe the ability to create "meaning" to the hypothetical heavenly intelligence, why deny it to our own (factual) intelligence?

And religious morality, deep down, is relativist, because it is based on authority: basically, there's no right or wrong, there's only what He says (in the interpretation of your friendly local priest, imam, shaman, or comrade commissar, naturally).

Meanwhile, the Golden Rule is shared, in pretty much the same form, by religious, quasi-religious (like abovementioned Taoists or Confucians) and non-religious people, throughout millennia and across continents. You don't need to believe in the Imaginary Friend, to be moral.

(Now, I will be the first to say that people losing their faith as a result of some political upheaval or a propaganda effort tend to get stranded in moral vacuum, and that may lead to terrible things. But this is very different from every individual human mind evolving toward atheism).
 
MoSurveyor said:
Fixed it for you. :)

Opinions (ideas) aren't meaningless but they certainly are subjective as you've noted.
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Meaning that individual ideas/preferences ought to be respected and protected, and rejection of coercion is central to any functional system of morality. "Do not onto others what you do not wish to be done onto you". We arrive, express, at the same point as the best religious minds after long centuries of exploration.

Accepting the subjective nature of particular ideas, we do not destroy morality - we put it on a firmer, objective ground: Is there an objective value in the world of subjective choices? Yes, there is: The freedom of choice itself.
 
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Harshaw said:
It means you're making things up in order to feel like you matter.

Sorry, dude, but it looks like you yourself haven't accepted the implications of what you say. :shrug:
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Sounds like you're projecting. You don't see how there could be meaning, therefore there can't be meaning.
 
Cyrylek said:
How does "nothing matters" follow from "things are what they are"? If we ascribe the ability to create "meaning" to the hypothetical heavenly intelligence, why deny it to our own (factual) intelligence?

And religious morality, deep down, is relativist, because it is based on authority: basically, there's no right or wrong, there's only what He says (in the interpretation of your friendly local priest, imam, shaman, or comrade commissar, naturally).

Meanwhile, the Golden Rule is shared, in pretty much the same form, by religious, quasi-religious (like abovementioned Taoists or Confucians) and non-religious people, throughout millennia and across continents. You don't need to believe in the Imaginary Friend, to be moral.

(Now, I will be the first to say that people losing their faith as a result of some political upheaval or a propaganda effort tend to get stranded in moral vacuum, and that may lead to terrible things. But this is very different from every individual human mind evolving toward atheism).
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If there's no reason to anything, which was what was posited, then there is no reason. Anything you then consider important is an illusion.

The end state of everything will be the same no matter what happens between now and then. Eventually, everything will be exactly as it would have been had you or anyone else you ever knew never existed. Indeed, as if the Earth itself had never existed. Nothing you do or will ever do has the slightest bit of significance.

Pain, suffering, joy, happiness -- all chemical illusions. Consciousness, too. Life is no more "precious" than any other chemical process.

There is no rational basis to morality, whatsoever. In every case, it's something that's made up arbitrarily. Even your own example of "freedom of choice" is something you made up. There's no value to it. There's no value to the individual. The only value is in your own imagination. It certainly is not assigned by anything more than that.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Sounds like you're projecting. You don't see how there could be meaning, therefore there can't be meaning.
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No, I see how there could be meaning -- you make it up.

If it's more than that, where does it come from?

(Keep in mind, this is all implied from what Dragonfly said; I'm not espousing any personal views here.)
 
Harshaw said:
No, I see how there could be meaning -- you make it up.

If it's more than that, where does it come from?

(Keep in mind, this is all implied from what Dragonfly said; I'm not espousing any personal views here.)
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That's fine and dandy. It can be other than personal. It can be societal as well. Society can shape goals and behavior(s).

Also, how is Dragonfly's any different than a theist's?
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
That's fine and dandy. It can be other than personal. It can be societal as well. Society can shape goals and behavior(s).
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:shrug: All that means is that a bunch of people agreed on what they made up and then try to control others by it.


Also, how is Dragonfly's any different than a theist's?
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A theist believes that things, people, everyone, were specifically created for a reason. Dragonfly overtly eschews that there's a reason for anything.

But ultimately, if there is no God, everyone's just making things up to comfort themselves. The point is, Dragonfly doesn't think he is. But he is, just like any religious person.
 
Harshaw said:
If there's no reason to anything, which was what was posited, then there is no reason. Anything you then consider important is an illusion.
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What was posited is that there is no intention behind the material world. What we consider important is up to us. You are not an illusion. You exist, quite objectively. Start from there.

Harshaw said:
The end state of everything will be the same no matter what happens between now and then. Eventually, everything will be exactly as it would have been had you or anyone else you ever knew never existed. Indeed, as if the Earth itself had never existed. Nothing you do or will ever do has the slightest bit of significance.
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You are assuming that human race will fail. And/or that it is the only intelligent species in the Universe. On both counts, why?

Harshaw said:
Life is no more "precious" than any other chemical process.
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Don't you find your own life more precious than, say, rusting of an iron nail? Do you need any deities or holy texts to arrive at such valuation?

Harshaw said:
The only value is in your own imagination.
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But what is "my own imagination"? It is a function of my human mind. Or yours. Your human mind does objectively exist. You can follow your nature and declare it valuable, "important". Or you can stage a suicidal rebellion, and claim that it is "nothing", an "illusion". In either case, you had engaged another function of human mind - volition. You make choices. That's the thing you do, in life - that's what defines your life - and fills it with "meaningful " content - if you choose to value it at all. Protecting this ability for yourself and others - wouldn't that be a "morality of meaning"?

By the way, how does the Imaginary Friend solve any of the problems you assign to the atheistic worldview? How is "there's no reason to anything" different from "there's no reason to anything, except in the mind of unfathomable, unimaginable, eternal God" - from our human perspective?
 
Suppose for a moment that there is no god, no afterlife, no spiritual part of human beings at all.

On a minor planet circling a minor star that is one of hundreds of billions in a minor galaxy that is itself one of hundreds of billions of galaxies, life arose all on its own and gradually evolved into creatures that were self aware. This self awareness was based on chemical reactions and electrical connections within the brains of those creatures. These creatures lived for a brief moment, then died, but were able to replicate themselves. Eventually, all trace of an individual that died was reduced down to arrangements of electrons in the brains of the ones that were left. This race of creatures lived for a time, then was wiped out when that minor sun went nova and temperatures were too high for the chemical reactions that allowed them to reproduce to take place.

Once they were gone, there was no trace of their ever having existed.

What meaning could one individual life of any one of those creatures have? What meaning could their collective existence have had?
 
Harshaw said:
:shrug: All that means is that a bunch of people agreed on what they made up and then try to control others by it.
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That doesn't show that meaning doesn't exist, it just shows it's probably not a very good one. ;)


A theist believes that things, people, everyone, were specifically created for a reason.
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By whom? Their deity? Well that's quite a subjective interpretation and defeats the objective meaning. Thus, DF's is just a subjective as their's, no?

Dragonfly overtly eschews that there's a reason for anything.
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Objective reason ≠ Subjective reason.

But ultimately, if there is no God, everyone's just making things up to comfort themselves. The point is, Dragonfly doesn't think he is. But he is, just like any religious person.
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People are emotional creatures yet you seemed so surprised that they would act in a way to fulfill these emotional needs.
 
Harshaw said:
But ultimately, if there is no God, everyone's just making things up to comfort themselves. The point is, Dragonfly doesn't think he is. But he is, just like any religious person.
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I cannot speak for Dragonfly, but why do you assume that everyone is seeking "comfort"? Sure, I remember the terror of death - when you first realize your mortality (somewhere between the ages of 5 and 11, typically), and we all have losses hard to cope with. But after reaching certain level of maturity, you know all this is happening and will happen, and it doesn't stop you from appreciating the good side of life - or from thinking that your life - and your mind, with its curiosity, rationality, memories - and its illusions - is something quite special.
 
Cyrylek said:
What was posited is that there is no intention behind the material world. What we consider important is up to us. You are not an illusion. You exist, quite objectively. Start from there.
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Your opinion on what is important is an illusion. Your thinking it's important doesn't make it important.


You are assuming that human race will fail. And/or that it is the only one intelligent species in the Universe. On both counts, why?
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Every species goes extinct, as surely as every living thing dies. All things end. And ultimately, the entire universe will follow entropy to the same state of lukewarm mush no matter what.

Other intelligent species? Got nothing to do with anything.


Don't you find your own life more precious than, say, rusting of an iron nail?
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If I do, it's only because of ego, which is an evolved survival mechanism, a trick of the brain.


Do you need any deities or holy texts to arrive at such valuation?
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Never said any such thing.



But what is "my own imagination"? It is a function of my human mind. Or yours. Your human mind does objectively exist. You can follow your nature and declare it valuable, "important". Or you can stage a suicidal rebellion, and claim that it is "nothing", an "illusion". In either case, you had engaged another function of human mind - volition. You make choices. That's the thing you do, in life - that's what defines your life - and fills it with "meaningful " content - if you choose to value it at all. Protecting this ability for yourself and others - wouldn't that be a "morality of meaning"?
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:shrug: It's an arbitrary choice meaningful only to you. At best, it's meaningful only to humanity. Nothing else -- no other species, not the Earth, not the universe -- gives the first ****, nor would miss us if we were gone.

You arrive at "importance" only if you consider yourself or humanity special in some cosmic sense. You aren't, and it isn't. We are all just atoms bouncing around like any others.


By the way, how does the Imaginary Friend solve any of the problems you assign to the atheistic worldview? How is "there's no reason to anything" different from "there's no reason to anything, except in the mind of unfathomable, unimaginable, eternal God" - from our human perspective?
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If God is imaginary, it doesn't. It's simply a different form of making things up to comfort yourself.
 
Cyrylek said:
I cannot speak for Dragonfly, but why do you assume that everyone is seeking "comfort"?
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What is "meaning" other THAN "comfort"?
 
Dittohead not! said:
Suppose for a moment that there is no god, no afterlife, no spiritual part of human beings at all.

On a minor planet circling a minor star that is one of hundreds of billions in a minor galaxy that is itself one of hundreds of billions of galaxies, life arose all on its own and gradually evolved into creatures that were self aware. This self awareness was based on chemical reactions and electrical connections within the brains of those creatures. These creatures lived for a brief moment, then died, but were able to replicate themselves. Eventually, all trace of an individual that died was reduced down to arrangements of electrons in the brains of the ones that were left. This race of creatures lived for a time, then was wiped out when that minor sun went nova and temperatures were too high for the chemical reactions that allowed them to reproduce to take place.

Once they were gone, there was no trace of their ever having existed.

What meaning could one individual life of any one of those creatures have? What meaning could their collective existence have had?
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Now imagine there is a God. Eternal, omniscient, omnipotent. Everything else is just a bunch of emanations and projections from His all-encompassing, unknowable Mind. The Sun, the human race, the unfortunate event of Sun going nova - all those things are just fleeting illusions of this unchangeable, incomprehensible Being....What meaning could one life - or all lives - have in that case?

On a practical note, we will deal with the problem of Sun going kaboom when it will become a high priority. I'm not ready to declare my existence meaningless because some major unpleasantness might happen a billion years later.
(I don't think going nova is a threat: the Chandrasekhar's Limit, and all that. But we are going to run out of fuel, eventually)
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
That doesn't show that meaning doesn't exist, it just shows it's probably not a very good one. ;)
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There is no "good" or "bad" meaning when there is no meaning.

Who assigns what's "good" and "bad"? If "society" -- group of people -- is wrong, who makes that determination?


By whom? Their deity? Well that's quite a subjective interpretation and defeats the objective meaning. Thus, DF's is just a subjective as their's, no?
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I don't even know what this means. You asked what the difference was; I told you. What I said is perfectly mainstream theist thought. Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant; it's the difference.


Objective reason ≠ Subjective reason.
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Yeah, "subjective reason" is something you make up to feel better about yourself.


People are emotional creatures yet you seemed so surprised that they would act in a way to fulfill these emotional needs.
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Then you haven't followed me very well. This is indeed the point. It's Dragonfly who's declared he can "handle" there being no reason to life, yet he has to make up meaning just like everyone else.
 
Harshaw said:
What is "meaning" other THAN "comfort"?
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None of us volunteered to be here. Our parents brought us into this world without our consent.

We live to live. Life can be fun. Enjoyable. Fulfilling.

The alternative is death.

We live because we are alive. We make the best of what we got and hope that at the end of the day the positives outweigh the negatives.

Any and all "meaning" is a perceptual thing based on the individual. Even if it's a religious meaning of grander scope it's still based on perception and free will.

As in, you can believe whatever you want. Doesn't make it true though.

See "Flying Spaghetti Monster".

FSM = GOD = Nothing

The "meaning" is something you decide. Not somebody, or something else.
 
Dragonfly said:
None of us volunteered to be here. Our parents brought us into this world without our consent.

We live to live. Life can be fun. Enjoyable. Fulfilling.

The alternative is death.

We live because we are alive. We make the best of what we got and hope that at the end of the day the positives outweigh the negatives.

Any and all "meaning" is a perceptual thing based on the individual. Even if it's a religious meaning of grander scope it's still based on perception and free will.

As in, you can believe whatever you want. Doesn't make it true though.

See "Flying Spaghetti Monster".

FSM = GOD = Nothing

The "meaning" is something you decide. Not somebody, or something else.
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This only confirms everything I said. You're making up a meaning where there isn't one. Why are you doing that?
 
Harshaw said:
What is "meaning" other THAN "comfort"?
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The joy of being, of thinking, of having emotions, social interactions, exploration, of building the future, etc , etc. - and being able to see the value of all this, to press an existential seal of approval or at least confirmation: " I am here, and my existence is preferable to the alternative"

The idea of "comfort" comes from the failure (temporary or permanent) to experience this joy.
 
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