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Pag_Hingowa
Guest
If not, then what can atheism offers to the society?
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faithfully
Guest
From what I’ve gathered… it’s more of a “I can do whatever I want, and still be a good person.”
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BlueEyedLady
Guest
No.
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theidler
Guest
In many cases, yes. In some cases, no. In all cases, it is ultimately an empty one.
Read Sartre to really get a handle on what atheism offers - Nausea, Being and Nothingness, etc. or read Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus for a more positive take on it all.
Read Sartre to really get a handle on what atheism offers - Nausea, Being and Nothingness, etc. or read Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus for a more positive take on it all.
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Semper_Zelare
Guest
And if you just flesh that out slightly… that means that the definition of who is a good person is subjective for atheists. Because it is subjective, that means individuals have to call the shots on morality themselves.
Depending on yourself to make moral judgements= selfishness
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Angels_Eyes
Guest
This is exactly what my now ‘Atheist’ sister told me. She asked me the question…“why do you have to be Catholic. I don’t want to be, and I am still a good person. Wouldn’t living a good life be good enough?”
So we don’t accept each others belief very well. She can’t understand why I believe in God, and I will never understand why she doesn’t. Especially because we were brought up Catholic.
I continue to pray for her.
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BlueEyedLady
Guest
- Not believing in god is not a philosophy.
- People don’t choose to not believe in god, we just don’t. I don’t see how that makes anyone selfish.
- Catholicism offers nothing to society, but the work of individual Catholics does. Same with atheists. There have been many intellectual, ethical, scientific, and medicinal contributions from atheists.
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Kaninchen
Guest
You know, even after several years of trying, I still have difficulty in understanding the Catholic definition of ‘selfishness’.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
It inevitably leads to a worldview (for example, metaphyscal naturalism), and a worldview is a philosophy.
Yeah, I have a hard time seeing the point of the thread.
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Trevor_Stamm
Guest
True, it’s a rejection of it.
Everything we say and do is based off choice. Atheism is not a default position of the human pysche, it’s well argued that it is the antithesis of it.
Do I have to say anything?
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Perplexity
Guest
If you’re an atheist, I think you should say atheism offers society at least one thing: truth.
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Cryptic1
Guest
I don’t know whether selfish is the most apt term to describe atheists as I feel all of humanity is selfish to a degree (just look at our fallen nature). I believe though that atheists raise a lot of questions about God and His existence because religion itself has not always been able to offer them a “real and valid experience of God.”
While this statement may appear oversimplified, in truth, if Christians were to live out Jesus Christ’s gospel message of love instead of trying to preach it, there would be more followers of Jesus than not.
Jesus Rocks
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tonyrey
Guest
It is a negation that ultimately offers nothing…
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Sair
Guest
This, totally.
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tonyrey
Guest
How can truth exist in a universe that exists for no reason?
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Sair
Guest
Yet the negation itself can be seen as something to offer, since many people’s lives have been destroyed by religion in various ways. Atheism offers a perspective upon the universe that is devoid of a supreme ruler above and beyond the universe itself.
It is not a philosophy of selfishness, firstly because it is not exactly a philosophy in itself - it is an aspect of certain philosophies, just like belief in deities is an aspect of some religions (most, but not all).
Atheism does not place the individual on a pedestal any more than theistic faith does. It is erroneous to suppose that without a supernatural lawgiver, there is no motivation for compassionate, altruistic action. What it does allow is that humans have enough worth, in and of themselves and to each other, to influence positive action without divine intervention. Perhaps our value is not, after all, some objective and universal standard, but then it doesn’t need to be in order to provide us with the necessary impetus for moral action.
Atheism also doesn’t struggle to explain the existence of evil, because it makes no claim that the world is the creation of an all-powerful, benevolent and perfect god.
In short, atheism offers a life without cognitive dissonance.
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Sair
Guest
If the universe exists for no reason, then it is true that the universe exists for no reason other than because it just does. What definition of truth are you working from here?
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cho_pilo
Guest
Who else can you depend on? In your daily life you’ll make at least one moral judgment a day on average, I’d guess, and sometimes many more than that.
Who are you going to call to tell you what to do?
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Perplexity
Guest
hmm, that depends on what you think truth is. I mean, let’s just take a basic theory of correspondence that says something like: Truth is the relationship of ‘accurate description’ obtaining between a proposition and what it describes.
Then, all we need to have ‘truth’ is (i) propositions, (ii) the things these propositions describe, and (iii) the relationship of accurate description obtaining between (i) and (ii).
Whether the universe is explicable is irrelevant to this, and so forth for the theories of truth I’m aware of.
I’d also say it’s potentially misleading to say the universe exists for no reason. This is because, presumably on atheism we can explain the existence of the universe at practically any particular time t by appeal to previous states of the universe and those laws which acted upon those states to produce the one in question. Supposing that the universe began to exist, I see no reason why we couldn’t explain each of these states until we reached the initial one. It seems reasonable to me to say such a state would be inexplicable on atheism; but, that’d be it. One unexplained state. To me, this seems just as difficult to understand as a necessarily existent, essentially omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect person.
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Sair
Guest
Subjectivity is not necessarily subject to conscious choice.
What’s more, if you flesh it out slightly…depending upon a supposed higher power to dictate your moral judgements can be seen as abdicating your responsibility.
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