Why do Atheists Care?

Ted Mecklenburg says:

As an atheist, what is the motivation to care about existing?

Atheist’s Meaning of Life

SnowballnHell says:

I was raised to beleive that the purpose of life was to be a good christian and convert others to christ in order to spend an eternity praising god in heaven. it never really apealed to me, but at least it was something to aim for. now i struggle with meaning and purpose in life, as an atheist how have you overcome this? How do you find meaning and purpose in an uncaring universe, where our very exitence was by chance and our lives end at death?

Atheism and Free Will

PhoenixGray says:

Hi, I was wondering if there is an atheistic explanation for the phenomenon of free will?

To try and put the question into specific terms so that there is no confusion:

1. We have the experience of being able to choose. This may be manifested in a course of action or merely a belief to be held.

2. If our choices are merely a reflection of the particular brain chemistry involved, or of any other physical process, we cannot be said to have a true choice in any sense, as there is nothing outside the physical realm to be influencing the action of the brain and body, which are physical things. Therefore, it seems that any physical explanation for free will is by definition faulty, including any potential future knowledge we may uncover.

3. The standard way out of this, and the way that I took as an atheist, is that there really is no such thing as free will and we merely experience the illusion of choice. This begs the question of who is experiencing this illusion, but apart from that, if we have no choices that are not determined by physical law, then how did we arrive at that conclusion? In order to exercise rational thought, you must be able to make a free will choice between two alternatives according to which you believe is more weighty. If there is no free will, on some level you have no choice but to believe this and it is not rational in any sense.

A1. Now of course, the argument made in point 3 does not mean that the hard determinism theory is false, merely that if it were true we would have no way of knowing that, since the belief itself invalidates the process which led to the belief.

A2. Randomness is not the same as choice. Demonstrating that not everything can be predicted in its behavior, even with a hypothetical infinite body of knowledge about the original state, does not mean that this randomness is an explanation for choice, any more than a roulette wheel chooses the number the ball falls into.

Is Everything Meaningless?

Smokes to much Says:

A set of ideas occurred to me a few years ago, but I’m not sure what to make of them. I would be interested in reading some comments on them.
First idea: The physical universe is all that exists.
The matter and energy that our universe consists of is all that there is. No gods, no devils, no afterlife or any state of being, other than the one we now experience.
Second idea: The universe has an end. At some point, the universe comes to an end via heat death, absolute entropy, universal recompression to a single point or whatever. I’ve heard many opposing theories on the subject, but they all seem to agree that it will end somehow. I suppose it’s not unreasonable to think this. Everything in the universe has a birth and then a death, so perhaps the universe itself will also die.
When I combined these two ideas it occurred to me that if both ideas are true, one might conclude existence is meaningless.
If the universe is all there is, and if it comes to an end (whenever or however), then everything that has ever happened, or will happen, will be completely and utterly wiped out. No history, no memories, no artifacts to examine, no ruins to dig up. Like it never happened.
And, if that is true, nothing anyone has every done (or will do) matters in the slightest.
Become the biggest mass-murderer in history or find the cure for cancer. In the end it won’t make any difference because in a sense, none of it ever happened.
I don’t know if any of this makes sense or is nonsense. I would appreciate some feedback.

Cats, Boris Badenough, and the Meaning of Life

Our cat is very old now and for the past few years has been suffering from diabetes and partial kidney failure (those familiar with cats know this this is manageable, but progressive and irreversible, and ultimately fatal). Over the past few months, she lost a lot of wait and became increasingly listless (two more “red flags” for those familiar with cats). We had to decide: was it time to euthanize her or should we prolong her life? According to her veterinarian, she was probably not feeling her best but probably not suffering either. Modifying her treatment for the kidney disease and diabetes might help, but it might not.

We decided to modify her treatments and prolong her life.

But why? How did we decide? I don’t believe in an afterlife: once you’re dead – it’s as if you had never been born. Those who believe in an eternal afterlife charge that without the promise of an afterlife, everything is meaningless – including life and death itself. According to this view, it would be perfectly fine to kill a healthy cat… or a healthy person… or all people… or just let the cat suffer until it died.

Let’s step back a bit and ask: if life and death are meaningless, why did I even agonize over what to do with my cat? Why not just kill her and save myself a lot of trouble? The answer is that I, like most other people (excluding those with certain social disorders), have an innate empathy for other living things – a natural product of evolution. I care if the cat suffers because I empathize with her. Empathy is the bases for the different versions of “the golden rule” that have arisen independently in various cultures at various times.

So now I have a motive: I want to treat the cat as I would like to be treated (to a point: I have more empathy for human “family” than for cats – another natural outcome of evolution). I personally would prefer to go on living, even with a certain amount of discomfort, but not if I’m terminal and I would be miserable until my immanent death. So the choice was clear: let her live while she feels OK and manage her disease as best we can to make her feel better longer.

What about the original charge: why does it matter if she (or I, or anyone) suffers if ultimately she dies, and it won’t matter then if she had suffered or not? The answer is that it matters while she is alive, even if it won’t matter after she’s dead.

Consider this generous offer by Dr. Boris Badenough: Dr. Badenough is testing his new torture device for the military. It is a virtual reality device of sorts that works directly on the nervous system to make you feel as though all of your teeth are being slowly extracted at once, and as if needles are being slowly inserted into your eyeballs, and plenty of other mean things that we can imagine. Since it works only on the nerves, there is actually no physical damage inflicted on the victim at all. Dr. Badenough offers to pay you one million US dollars if you will agree to help him test the machine by undergoing this excruciating torment for 8 hours. After the torment, you will emerge physically unharmed. Would you do it?

Maybe not – you might fear that you would emerge psychologically damaged from the experience. “No worries,” says Dr. Badenough – this device will completely erase all of your memory of the 8-hour ordeal. You will recall only that you have been sleeping peacefully for the unbearable 8 hours. Now would you do it? Why or why not? Would you do it for $100,000? How about $500?

Your answer, whether or not you would do it, is less important for this decision than what you considered while thinking about the decision. If you truly believe that experiences don’t matter now if they won’t matter later, then you wouldn’t hesitate to take the $500, maybe even much less. But most people will not decide so easily because experiences matter now even if they won’t matter later. If someone does agree to help Dr. Badenough, to what extent is he comforted during the torture by the knowledge that he won’t remember it?

Still not convinced? What was the most delicious meal you had in 1987? What did you have and how did it taste? Don’t remember? Then you probably won’t remember delicious meals you will have in the future – so there is no point having them. Bon appetit!

The Existence of Evil

SJ Says:

A thread about the existence of evil.

As one that believes in God, I’m interested to know your view on evil. I think that we can both agree that evil and suffering effects everyone and no one from any religion or belief system is exempt from it. I have hope that one day God will redeem the world from sin and sorrow, so I curious to understand your perspective on the struggle for good and evil and how you account for the presence of evil in the world.

Is Christianity Unintelligible?

Thread started by James – he writes:

In it, I would like to discuss an article I found in Christian Reformed Theology and Apologetic found at http://www.reformed.org/webfiles/antithesis/index.html?mainframe=/webfiles/antithesis/v1n3/ant_v1n3_unintel.html.

This form of apologetics is part of the religious tradition from which I have emerged. And I find that this apologetic is, of all apologetics, the most persuasive. Specifically, I would like to discuss the following claim:

“For the Christian, the Absolute standard is the personal triune God revealed in Scripture. There is no higher court of appeal by which the Christian evaluates what is rational, ethical, or real. A Biblical outlook simply does not countenance any human standard of rationality to which God must answer. If God is truly Absolute, as he is presented in Scripture, then He stands as the ultimate judge over all issues in logic, ethics, reality, and knowledge. The Christian God is not in the dock being forced to answer to our finite standards. ”
Atheists must howl at this sort of stance, since it appears to beg-the-question against any atheistic claim. Yet the atheist’s howling is naive. If there were some higher standard of “reason” or “conceivability” by which both the atheist and Christian could adjudicate their dispute, then the Christian God would not be Absolute; He would be limited by something outside and above His nature. Yet the Christian does not worship some being subordinate to Platonic Forms or some alleged higher standard of reason or goodness. The Christian God is truly the final court of appeal.

“The atheist also has a final court of appeal. The atheist also bows before an Absolute standard. And just like the Christian, the atheist does not permit anything to correct or evaluate this ultimate standard, for if he did then the standard would obviously not be the final court of appeal.

“The ultimate standard for the non-Christian, in general, and Smith, in particular, is finite human rationality — or the autonomous human mind. Though this Absolute standard is often portrayed as “Reason,” it is, from a Christian standpoint, a distortion of reason. Nevertheless, this non-Christian Absolute functions in much the same manner as the Christian Absolute. Non-Christians even use religious terminology when they refer to this Absolute — ‘bowing before the bar of reason’ or ‘reason is the only guide’ or ‘we cannot dispute reason’ or ‘an offense against reason.’”

The “life of Christ” is life to its fullest

(note that this post is a new thread branching from this comment; on this blog)

Demodocos says:

You asked on what do we base our claims (or at least the particular claims in question here). This is another topic that I wanted to press/explore with you, because it seems that we differ on what gives validity and weight to the things on which we base some of our claims.

To begin, is there “a basis” for a claim that is as nuanced and multitentacled as the good life? To name a paltry handful of things that I consider are a part of “life to its fullest”: my relationships, my health, and my leisure. Life to its fullest is comprised of many different things, and the validity of each of those things is not necessarily based on the same thing. We base good health care on something different than what we base good relationships. Both are valid, but based on different criteria (this way of thinking about what gives things meaning is based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work, particularly with regards to his work in the Philosophical Investigations).

Rational proof (scientifically speaking) is the basis for some of the things that make our up notions of the good life, but there are numerous other things that make up the good life that are based on things that are not validated by the scientific method. You could use the language of scientific evidence to base your claims on what makes a marriage “good.” But on what would you base the claim that these aspects of life need to be based on the same claims as science? (I know that was convoluted)

So the short answer is that your question cannot be answered in generalities. To be fair, I’ll try to express what I think makes a relationship good and how my belief in Christ plays into that. I anticipate the response to whatever rationale I give to be, “why do you need a belief in Christ to believe that?” This is a fair question. But why do we need Darwin in order to affirm certain theories of revolution; why do we need Einstein to believe the theory of relativity. We could argue that these things could have been discovered without these men, but why would we want to distance the people from their discoveries? More to my point, if I felt that someone had given me a great gift, what good reason would I have to drive a sharp distinction between the gift and the person that gave me that gift, when in fact they are intimately connected. Similarly (and this only plays a minor part in my rationale), to ask why I would need Christ in order to affirm the all of good things in my life that exist because of him seems to be dishonest.

Christians can say that it is because of Christ that we have friends who are men and who are women; black and who are white; who are heterosexual and who are homosexual. It is because of Christ that we can see the power in loving our enemy, and even accepting death at their hands rather than inflicting it ourselves. It is not only because of Christ that I we empathies with those suffering injustices, but also because of Christ that we see some things as unjust while others may not, like abortion. I could go on to tell of all of the ways in which I have trusted in my faith and that it has only led an abundant life (of course the word “abundant” has a very particular definition within my faith, and it does not refer to monetary things).

I understand that this doesn’t constitute proof. Nor does it prove any other religion as “wrong.” But you asked on what I base my claim, and it is the fact that I have lived out the aforementioned (which is only a small list), and have seen it as “good” not merely for me, but “good” for an entire community.

I feel bad for the long post (that could have been much longer), but I am particularly interested in the conversation of what constitutes a valid basis. As you can probably guess, I’m assuming that we differ on this topic. At any rate, thanks for the conversation thus far.