If there Is no God, Heaven, or objective moral value, Why survive?

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Man, that’s a foreign thought to me. For myself, it’d be ‘bye, bye doggie’, without a second thought. I think it might be for you, too, in real life.
 
fhansen said:
Man, that’s a foreign thought to me. For myself, it’d be ‘bye, bye doggie’, without a second thought. I think it might be for you, too, in real life.
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Woman, never. I consider the life of an animal to be equal to the life of a human, I don’t discrimniate based on species, we may look different but in our capacity for pain, fear and instinct we are all the same,I have same compassion for animals (non human animals) as much as humans, the hard part would be picking a strange dog or a strange human, but between my dog and a strange human I think and feel that ill pick my dog who I raised, and I don’t think any human would love me more than my dog do honestly!
 
Sair said:
Then you don’t construe it as selfish to regard one’s own species as superior to all others? How odd…
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How odd that you want us to recognise any true significance in the word “selfish” in a meaningless universe.

To be selfish, you have to retain that which is owed, that which ought to be shared. To argue that a dog is owed the same as a person in every respect, you first have to identify an objective standard of value by which that belief follows as true. Otherwise its just arbitrary meaninglessness. Given metaphysical naturalism, there is no reason for anybody to recognise your subjective standard as either being relevant or true. A dog is just an object. If its death has a utility value, then so be it…

…and I will eat its brain to gain its knowledge.😃
 
tonyrey said:
For example, if you don’t believe in free will or willpower you’re far more likely to take the line of least resistance, e.g. “I can’t resist that temptation. Let’s have a good time!” Or “I’m going to die anyway. I might as well have a glass of whisky, smoke a cigar and take an overdose before life gets too grim!” :hey_bud:
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And that’s another good point:). What rational reason do they have to resist any temptation if reprisal is unlikely, and especially if they don’t have freewill!!?

Figure this scenario: In the middle of nowhere there is a 6 year old terminally ill cancer patient stuck in a hole that will die if you don’t save her, but the only way to safety is to take a very high risk with your own life that won’t bring any utility benefits and even if you save her she is going to die in a few months. Given that subjective survival is the base reason for all your utility choices, what rational reason is there to put her life over your own limited survival, and this is given the fact that you live in a universe where there is no moral truth, no rational reason for guilt, and no true meaning?

Perhaps I should have started another thread, but its along the same lines.
 
tonyrey said:
For example, if you don’t believe in free will or willpower you’re far more likely to take the line of least resistance, e.g. “I can’t resist that temptation. Let’s have a good time!” Or “I’m going to die anyway. I might as well have a glass of whisky, smoke a cigar and take an overdose before life gets too grim!” :hey_bud:
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The paper I referenced (PDF on the feedback theory of behavior) earlier took a look at something with compatible conclusions. It wasn’t about free will or will power. Rather they looked out how expectations for emotional outcome influenced behavior. They told some of the subjects a drug they received froze their emotional state and nothing they did would change that state until the drug wore off. The drug was just a placebo and thus didn’t really do anything. But the loss if anticipation for other emotional states seemed to result in the people no longer doing things to improve their emotional state.

Sent from my phone. Please pardon my mistakes.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
How odd that you want us to recognise any true significance in the word “selfish” in a meaningless universe.

To be selfish, you have to retain that which is owed, that which ought to be shared. To argue that a dog is owed the same as a person in every respect, you first have to identify an objective standard of value by which that belief follows as true. Otherwise its just arbitrary meaninglessness. Given metaphysical naturalism, there is no reason for anybody to recognise your subjective standard as either being relevant or true. A dog is just an object. If its death has a utility value, then so be it…

…and I will eat its brain to gain its knowledge.😃
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Actually, to be selfish, all you have to do is consider your own needs over and above those of any others. We don’t have to retain anything that is owed to another - indeed, we don’t owe each other anything except within the context of reciprocal relationships.

The only reason for anyone to recognise my subjective standards is if they share those standards. Fortunately I have a large circle of friends who understand what my dog meant to me, and the support they have given is exactly what I would hope to receive, and what I would give without a moment’s hesitation were they in the same boat as me. Obviously I don’t expect any such kind of support or compassion from people like yourself, who do not share my values and who seem oddly impervious to emotion.

At the end of the day, we are all just objects. The entities that we think of as you and me mean nothing to the universe - we will die, we will decompose, and the molecules of our bodies will go to make up other bodies, and the universe will go on regardless.

But is this lack of eternal significance any reason for me to discount the very real and very natural phenomena that make up my emotional engagement with the world around me? Why should it be? I’ve already explained - and others have already pointed out, repeatedly - that we are not confined to our rational faculties when it comes to making and discerning meaning or motivating our actions. Why would I help people? Because it feels good to do so. Call that utilitarian all you want, but that’s how we’re built - we respond to positive rewards and negative stimuli all the time, even if we think we’re just resting on our laurels, waiting for someone to give us an ‘objective’ reason to behave like human beings…
 
tonyrey said:
I don’t need to comment…
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Yes, you’re obviously very confident of support for your anthropocentric views in this forum.

Presumably you must have read my previous post regarding my dog, otherwise I can think of no reason you would have brought up the “human vs dog” choice at all in a thread not directly related to it. So tell me, are you in the habit of making ill-judged attempts at taunting people who are grieving? Or could you just not resist the opportunity for what you clearly considered a cheap shot? If this is the oft-touted Christian compassion at work, I’m happy to be excluded from it, thanks.
 
Sair said:
Actually, to be selfish, all you have to do is consider your own needs over and above those of any others. We don’t have to retain anything that is owed to another - indeed, we don’t owe each other anything except within the context of reciprocal relationships.
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You wish to present this as a truth that I can discern rationally. The context in which you wrote the word made it appear as if you intended the reader to think that one would be denying some-things true value. Perhaps not. In any case you certainly intended the word to have true significance in regards to animals and people; otherwise I fail to see why you would mention it. Well lets see if it stands up to scrutiny.

Your definition assumes the relevance of the utility-needs of other objects. I am not selfish for cutting down a tree to build my house. I am not selfish for eating an animal to feed my stomach. A human being has no more objective value then any one of these two objects; so why am I suddenly selfish in regards to “persons”?. Both trees and animals need something; perhaps less than us, but you can define them as “needs” nonetheless in terms of survival. I am putting what I need to survive over the survival of a tree or animal; and yet I am not selfish in any meaningful sense of the word. If somebody chooses not to share their home with a stranger, we would not normally call them selfish. Unless you want to imply that I ought to recognise the value and relevance of some particular being or beings in comparison to other objects, i don’t really see any true meaning in the word.

Given metaphysical naturalism, every act we make is for the benefit of the self regardless of who benefits, because the driving cause of all your actions is the desire for survival and your own emotional well-being. Based on this you could say all actions for the self are selfish regardless of whether those acts benefit others or not, simply because you are ultimately acting for your own emotional well-being and survival, your utility-value. You have no objective basis to deny my definition; all you have is the fantasy of human convention. So in reality, insofar as rationality is concerned your definition is just an arbitrary definition infused with your own subjective desire about the way you would like things to be. If it is not truly wrong for me to not share something then no selfishness is taking place. Given metaphysical naturalism, there is no objective basis by which I should apply that word to one context and not another. Any attempt to particularise the term is either a guilt trip, in which case its a fallacy, or its purely a subjective invention posed as having meaning.

It seems to me that you are redefining words to suit you?
 
Sair said:
Obviously I don’t expect any such kind of support or compassion from people like yourself, who do not share my values and who seem oddly impervious to emotion.
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I am not impervious to emotion. I believe the spectrum of emotions can rationally reflect the nature of reality. But I would reject any emotion that is not rationally consistent with the revelation that Metaphysical naturalism is true; and hopefully commit suicide, since there is no rational reason to exist. The only rational thing left to do, if I wish to remain rationally consistent is cease to exist since any response to life would be based on emotional deception.

In any case why would it be odd to have no emotions? Atoms simply behave like atoms. There is no such thing as odd. Unless of course you merely mean different to what you are use to. But why would you feel it relevant to bring that up?
 
Sair said:
But is this lack of eternal significance any reason for me to discount the very real and very natural phenomena that make up my emotional engagement with the world around me? Why should it be? I’ve already explained - and others have already pointed out, repeatedly - that we are not confined to our rational faculties when it comes to making and discerning meaning or motivating our actions.
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I think you should be rationally consistent with reality. Acting blindly on emotions will not help you in that direction. You still have not given me any rational reason why you choose to exist.

You have only demonstrated that you are just a slave to the fantasies and delusions facilitated by your emotions and that you are unwilling to rationally take your atheism to its necessarily nihilistic conclusions because of those emotions.

To be quite honest I would rather that you continue to live in that fantasy or give yourself to God before taking it there. Despite our disagreements, I care about your well-being.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
Is that a rational basis, or a non-rational/emotional basis? That sounds to me like a genetic response rather than a rational reason. I did not ask, “do you have an instinct”.

I asked does the human race have a rational reason to survive.
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The human race is a pure concept in your head. It does not exist. what exists is the individual person.
I want to, is the perfect human response. I have the FREEDOm to choose.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
Is there any rational basis for survival?
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Oh! You asked “rational basis” for survival !!!

Here comes:
  • some beautiful sunsets.
  • the laughter of children.
  • the IX Sympony of Beethoven
  • the Largo of Haendel.
  • prayer
  • to do good
  • to run free through fields with flowers.
  • to swim and snorkel in the Indian Ocean
  • to see the final of the World Football (the real one) championship
  • to see the SuperBowl
  • to go to mass and have communion
  • to reconcile with a friend
  • to have faith and hope that one day we will be in heaven
  • sex, good sex, so-and-so, fast, slow, lovely
  • the best, to love God
 
Pfaffenhoffen said:
The human race is a pure concept in your head. It does not exist. what exists is the individual person.
I want to, is the perfect human response. I have the FREEDOm to choose.
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Nice way of looking at it 🙂

If anything, there are more purely rational reasons for the human race - if we recognise such a construct - to allow itself to die out than to survive and continue decimating the planet’s resources at the expense of every other species. But as I and several others have now pointed out, we are not, nor have we ever been, purely rational beings…
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
I think you should be rationally consistent with reality. Acting blindly on emotions will not help you in that direction. You still have not given me any rational reason why you choose to exist.
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And nor have you offered any rational - or even otherwise valid - reason for privileging rationality over any and all other considerations. You have simply assumed, without foundation, that we need a purely rational reason to survive.
You have only demonstrated that you are just a slave to the fantasies and delusions facilitated by your emotions and that you are unwilling to rationally take your atheism to its necessarily nihilistic conclusions because of those emotions.
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As you have demonstrated that you are slave to the arrogant assumption that rationality trumps all other considerations. If you lack emotional faculties, that is sad for you, but it is not a reason for you to discount the subjective motivations of others. Such motivations are perfectly real and valid on a naturalistic account of the universe, yet you seem reluctant to acknowledge that they even exist, let alone carry weight with us as subjective beings.
To be quite honest I would rather that you continue to live in that fantasy or give yourself to God before taking it there. Despite our disagreements, I care about your well-being.
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Oh, please - as a pure rationalist, how could you care? Caring is a subjective faculty, one from which you seem bent upon divorcing yourself. As a naturalist, I recognise what is, not merely what my human rational faculties tell me is worth recognising.
 
Sair said:
Presumably you must have read my previous post regarding my dog, otherwise I can think of no reason you would have brought up the “human vs dog” choice at all in a thread not directly related to it. So tell me, are you in the habit of making ill-judged attempts at taunting people who are grieving? Or could you just not resist the opportunity for what you clearly considered a cheap shot? If this is the oft-touted Christian compassion at work, I’m happy to be excluded from it, thanks.
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All your statements are false red herrings…

Do you deny that you value - and would save - your dog’s life rather the life of a person you do not know?
 
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