Hortlund,
Originally posted by Hortlund
Ultimately your "faith" must incorporate the entire universe.
As an atheist you must ultimately you believe that the entire universe had no beginning, that matter and energy are eternal, and that this mindless matter and energy at one point in time just happened to fall together under the right circumstances and sentient beings were produced.
Yes, yes and yes. Up until the bit "just happened to...". You're presupposing it could have 'not' happened. Why do you presuppose that. You're saying that this universe is unusual. Compared with what? Other Universes?
Like so much of this Universe, the harder you look, the harder it gets to see, and the origins and nature of the Universe are no exception. Cosomology has some very entertaining ideas but no-one professes to have an all encompassing answer. Science is endless, and an acceptance that we will never know everything (but we can die trying).
Atheists must face the existence that their "faith" mandates. An existence where there is no ultimate purpose to his/her existence. An existence in which they are dead and buried in but a spec of time in relation to the cosmos. An existence in which nothing they do will ultimately matter at all.
Up to there I'm with you almost 100% Hortlund. I am not an atheist however, and I'm not going to deny the possibility of a deity, but I am going to rely on my own senses to determine whether such a thing exists.
I really do believe that we are all tiny, insignificant specks, lasting for a split universal scale second. We arise from stardust and we return to stardust. But this makes me very appreciative of the quality and essence of life. It's limited, it's a one shot deal, make the most of it while you can.
There is no purpose to life. Life is not a 'thing' that can have purpose. Life is a property, and in general is usually quite obvious in advanced multicellular organisms like me, although is a lot less obvious in things like fungal spores.
To assume life is a 'thing' that is 'given' and that it has has a purpose is a shade of the teleological argument. Which is fine if you already happen to believe in a god, but for us ungodly wretches can hardly be expected to swallow the Watchmaker argument.
But when you say we non-believers live ...
an existence in which they are dead and buried in but a spec of time in relation to the cosmos. An existence in which nothing they do will ultimately matter at all.
You are absolutely right, but the important word is ultimately. Regardless of how you choose to define it (mortal, eschatological, final), what is also true is that we non-believers live an existence that matters VERY MUCH to each other (ourselves and fellow humans)whilst we are alive. The point of life is what we make it.
Ultimately, when the Sun consumes the Earth, I really don't believe that my life will matter to anyone that much, and why should it?
Atheists must face the fact that their faith precludes any such thing as absolute morality. That morality, in all its forms, is simply man-made and has no ultimatebearing on anything.
Right again. This can easily be shown by shifts in morality. Codes of morality abound. Morality is a tool that contributes to group behaviour, and is mostly intuited from the reactions of others during formative years. Of course morality doesn't matter ultimately, but it sure as heck is important to the people who are living together in families, habitations, cities or planets.
We are largely self policing; we don't all steal, kill, sleep around, make false accusations, worship god and mammon, worship idols etc. If we did all hell would break out and we'd all starve to death. Cooperation is key to our survival and reasonably similar moral frameworks
... You can be a Hitler or a Stalin and it will not matter. You can be a Ted Bundy, a Pol Pot, a southern slave owner, or a mad priest during the Spanish Inquisition. You can abuse a little boy or girl, rape, pillage, steal, maim, torture, and kill all you want with no ultimate consequences because nothing is really right or wrong.
Equally you can be a Mother Theresa, Alexander Fleming, Isaac Newton, Dag Hammarskjold. You can invent all the cures in the world, feed the starving, heal the sick, stop wars, and be an ace stick in AH.
Ultimately it will not matter because everyone will be long dead.
The consequences should be paid whilst they are alive, and it should be by judgement of their peers. That way we can at least be certain that 'they' will be judged. Leaving it to a notional (for me - until I have positive evidence) deity could be misconstrued as 'passing the buck'.
Likewise, those heroes and examples of we hold to be 'good' humans, should be feted and accepted with their faults as examples for us to aspire to, even if only in a small personal way.
And I won't deny you that many of the world's peacemakers have and had strong religious (and not only christian) beliefs. I see the 10 commandments as a succinct distillation of rules to live by for a harmonious society. But there is nothing that would indicate to me that they are of some divine origin
You can abuse a little boy or girl, rape, pillage, steal, maim, torture, and kill all you want with no ultimate consequences because nothing is really right or wrong.
It almost sounds like you're saying there
ought to be 'Ultimate Consequences' for the truly abberant maniacs who pop up with tiresome regularity.
These would be dished out by god and his minions to the people you named. I can understand and sympathise with that. It would be great if Karma was carried out too, justice of the universe and all that.
But since when is an
ought an
is?
To live in the hope that those b*stards will ultimately get their just desserts is to abrograte responsibility in dealing with them ourselves. Our record is poor as your list of historical horrors clearly illustrates. Why is this?
All morals are man-made concepts
That is absolutely true
...and mean nothing and the picking and chosing of which morals you will adhere to is, at its base, a useless and empty exercise that signifies nothing.
Man made morals
(as opposed to morals constructed from the revealed word of god) do have a meaning, in both senses of the word.
Very obviously a moral principle that condemns the killing of another person, means precisely that - it is self evident. A man made moral code also has meaning in the sense it
does have a purpose (not an ultimate purpose mind you) - to reinforce cooperative and mutually beneficial activity, and to reward it too with stronger familial and social bonds.
The further away someone is, the less likely you are to give a rats arse whether your activities are detritmental to them. Most people couldn't care less that a lot of the things they depend on, in turn depend on the wholesale exploitation of masses (literally) of people.And, if you are a moral person, you treat your family with love and understanding as much as you can.
Etymologically, morality comes from the latin
mores:'The customs'.
I won't argue against a divinely inspired morality because I cannot determine whether a deity exists (or existed for that matter - nothing in the fossil record
).
If a deity does exist, then the problem of evil (the necessary corollary of a divine morality) is a vexing question I should like to put to them personally. (through an agent probably, since I am aware that eye contact can be fatal)
In all candour
